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The increasingly well-heeled and knowledgable audiences in Mumbai were treated to two weekends of very high standards of music making last month. The Jamshed Bhabha Theatre, unique and resplendent as the central diamond of the multiple theatre complex called the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA), has received orchestras from around the world as well as a few opera productions in its long history of more than fifty-five years. The similarly named centre in Beijing has only been seventeen years in existence and should not be confused with the more varied one in Mumbai built by the Tata business empire. It was inaugurated with a visit by Lord Yehudi Menuhin, his sister Hephzibah and his brother-in-law Louis Kentner.
Interior of the NCPA's Jamshed Bhabha Theatre in Mumbai, India
Since 2001, Zubin Mehta has appeared at the Jamshed Bhabha Theatre mostly biannually with top level visiting orchestras and soloists. On that occasion The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) was invited with soloist Pinchas Zuckerman in Beethoven's Violin Concerto. Between 2001 and 2016 Zubin Mehta visited Mumbai on eight more occasions.
Prior to 2001, Zubin Mehta has visited with both American orchestras where he had been principal conductor - first, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra (with André Watts) and the New York Philharmonic way back in the late 1970s and early 80s. At that time, the Jamshed Bhabha Theatre had yet to be built and all major concerts in Mumbai were held at the Shanmukananda Theatre in Sion where to this day artists like Anoushka Shankar and Zakir Hussain perform. It is the largest capacity theatre in Mumbai but it is in the bustling north-central part of the city.
Over the years, the Jamshed Bhabha Theatre (JBT) has been host to all the visiting symphony orchestras including all orchestras that came with Maestro Mehta including the Israel Philharmonic on at least a further four occasions, the Vienna Philharmonic orchestra (twice), the Munich and Bavarian Radio Symphony orchestras (once each), the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino (twice) and the Australian World Orchestra. Mehta chose the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra where he was conductor for life and emeritus for his eightieth birthday celebrations in April 2016. The pair of concerts streamed world wide on medici.tv included Pinchas Zuckerman and Amanda Forsyth in the Brahms Double Concerto.
The second night was taken over by the ferocious and deeply virtuousic pianism of Denis Matsuev in Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No 1. Other soloists who have appeared in Mumbai as a result of Zubin Mehta's universally recognised talent include Barbara Frittoli, Plácido Domingo, Andrea Bocelli, Sarah Chang, Midori, Julia Fischer, Lang Lang - these last two at the Homi Bhabha Theatre - and of course Perlman and Barenboim.
With global costs mounting and in particular affecting air travel by orchestras, the post COVID-19 scenario is a new one. As it happens, when it came to the possibility of Mehta conducting again in Mumbai it was an obvious scenario for the Symphony Orchestra of India (SOI) to be led by him. Over the last sixteen years, the SOI has beavered away through thirty-two half annual seasons at building a repertoire and nurturing an audience with as bold a choice as popular symphonies, overtures and concertos and even Act I of Wagner's Die Walküre.
And now we come to the main substance of this couple of concerts, starting off with a sweet tooth in a full programme devoted to the popular works of Johann Strauss Jr, also popularly known as the Waltz King. These included a very well chosen group of overtures, polkas and solo vocal pieces. Starting the evening off was a less than rapid rendition of the overture to Die Fledermaus but the strings and voluptuous woodwind and brass solos spoke deliciously at this tempo. It seemed to have warmed up already and that is testimony to the professionalism of the current orchestra.
It would be safe to say this orchestra, which began in 2006 as a shrewd judgment of NCPA Chairman Khushroo N Suntook and violinist extraordinaire of Kazakh descent, Marat Bisengaliev, is now competitive. When Zubin Mehta arrived to play this series of concerts this year, he had already worked with it for the last season where, contrary to usual expectations, he programmed the first symphony of Mahler. It is the only time I think Zubin Mehta has conducted Mahler in India with the exception of one appearance which, if memory serves me well, was at the old hall in Sion. It could well have been a movement, possibly the Adagietto, from his Symphony No 5. In Zubin Mehta's many visits preceding his first appearance with the SOI, he has stuck to the well trodden repertoire of popular symphonies, overtures and concertos. Taking a break from these produced a refreshing new programme.
The second programme on offer the following weekend was by Richard Strauss. It consisted of Don Juan and Ein Heldenleben with the Four Last Songs sandwiched between the two. Don Juan was miraculously high spirited and also expansive in its long tunes rather predating the Four Last Songs in soulful quality. These performances including the Heldenleben that ended the four concerts was in no small measure due to the hard work put in by Maria Badstue to train the orchestra for a week and a half to two weeks before Mehta's arrival.
Online NCPA publicity for Zubin Mehta's 25 August 2024 concert in Mumbai
In 2006, a group of soloists which then formed the full body of the Mumbai based orchestra was a motley group of musicians from Russia and Kazakhstan. It has taken a long time to build this orchestra up to the high standards that Zubin Mehta would expect, as he is used to conducting the best orchestras in the world. Last year the programme was fairly conventional, with The Marriage of Figaro overture followed by Mahler's Symphony No 1 ('The Titan').
The orchestra today includes not just the original participants of the SOI but for Zubin's appearances in Mumbai, some handpicked freelance musicians both from India and Europe have joined forces. They come now almost regularly in the two seasons held annually with some of the best conductors and soloists. Mehta would demand this standard and indeed now in the year 2024 this orchestra is unparalleled in any similar situation elsewhere: I am thinking of places like Singapore, Malaysia and other Asian countries like Korea and China.
And what of the soloists? It is well known that Zubin has a particular penchant for the vocal instrument. His career is dotted with excellent performances of vocal repertoire and of course opera. He is an undisputed master of both Italian and German opera. Many years ago we heard Barbara Frittoli performing the Four Last Songs on one of Mehta's visits. Domingo has been with Zubin to Mumbai where he sang in an open air stadium designed for cricket matches.
In 2024, Mehta chose Chen Reiss for the Johann Strauss concert and Krassimira Stoyanova for the Four Last Songs.
Israeli soprano Chen Reiss
Unfortunately Stoyanova took ill with COVID-19 and was unable to appear in Mumbai. Losing no time, Mr Suntook, the Chairman, invited Angel Blue to stand in for her overnight. On the Thursday night she was singing one of her regular programmes in Copenhagen. Two days later, on Saturday night, she was in Mumbai and supposedly learnt the music on the flight as she had never sung it before. With an intensive piano rehearsal with Mehta that afternoon he led straight into the performance that very evening.
American soprano Angel Blue
All this was possibly fraught with tension and nerves but holding score in hand she delivered a miraculous account as if to the manner born. This year is the seventy-fifth anniversary of the death of Richard Strauss and it was a stroke of good fortune that we were able to hear Angel Blue. Her voice is very unique, rich and powerful at the top, expansive at the bottom, and it's not chesty or blowsy in a most obvious comparison with the late Jessye Norman. Her performance reminded me of Heather Harper's last public appearance at the Southbank in London - that sort of quality of sound.
I am not so appreciative of the recordings left behind by lighter German voices like Schwarzkopf, Lisa Della Casa or Anneliese Rothenberger. For my money, Angel Blue is the new voice for this kind of repertoire. Interestingly she had just done a concert in Copenhagen three days before she arrived in Mumbai and her repertoire there included arias by Puccini and Verdi and some Broadway and Gershwin.
And what of Zubin Mehta himself? He shot to international fame winning a competition in Liverpool at age twenty-seven. He happened to be at several spots fortuitously where he replaced well-known conductors. At the age of seventeen he left Mumbai with his father who was a violinist to study music in Vienna, conducting in the class of Hans Swarowsky and his main instrument was the double bass. There is an excellent film of Zubin playing the double bass in Schubert's evergreen Trout Quintet, the other protagonists being his close friends from his early days of recording in London's Abbey Road studios. Barenboim, Perlman, Zukerman and Jacqueline Du Pré were the four other musicians in the Trout Quintet which has been preserved for posterity in a film by Christopher Nupen.
A screenshot from the 1970 Christopher Nupen film showing Zubin Mehta playing double bass in Schubert's Trout Quintet
Whilst still a student in Vienna, Mehta never missed a chance to see and hear live opera. He also took a score of Otello to Herbert von Karajan for guidance. This young man rose to international acclaim conducting in Los Angeles for a length of time and in New York for the longest time in history. In New York he was famous for programming unknown contemporary repertoire. This trait he continues to this day. I heard him a few years ago at the Proms where he conducted the Australian World Orchestra with a wonderful singer in Debussy's little known Ariettes oubliées.
He is the only conductor living who has such a huge repertoire and can conduct anything from memory as he did his two concerts in Mumbai. The only time he used the score was with Angel Blue. Puccini, Verdi and Wagner are in his life blood and in that he is an undisputed master. His two Gramophone magazine awards were for Puccini's Turandot and La fanciulla del West. He has worked with the best singers and producers of the highest standards and made numerous films of the classic operas, such as his Tosca shot on location, famously, with Franco Zeffirelli producing.
We now anticipate more appearances of Zubin Mehta in the coming year, including some forays into operatic excerpts. We wish him the best of health and a continuing long and productive career in India as well.
Copyright © 24 September 2024
Fareed Curmally,
Mumbai, India