In order to record the year 2013, Verena Altenburger (VA) interviews Laurent Delage (LD) and Franz Hainzl (FH).
VA: On how many business trips did you go this year and what were the destinations?
LD: I travelled a bit less than usual this year. Only 26 trips and all of them inside Europe! Paris (7 times), Stuttgart (three times), Budapest (twice), Dusseldorf, Bremen, Frankfurt, Essen, Vilnius, Geneva, Basel, Lyon (twice), Strasbourg, Bordeaux, Nancy, Clermont-Ferrand, Montpellier, Saint-Céré, La Côte Saint-André, Luxemburg, Salzburg, Innsbruck, Gmünd...
VA: Gmünd?
LD: Yes, Gmünd in the beautiful Waldviertel in lower Austria. This is where Franz has his green hideaway and where we do some great brainstormings.
FH: The positive aura of my old home town has an enourmous power already through the abundant richness of stones. We both just love the creative inspiration that we receive in this region. My travel destinations were similar to those of Laurent, with the exception that I have travelled a bit less in France, of course. The venues of concerts, opera and festivals where our artists perform are in principal the same, only at different times.
VA: How do you choose your individual travelling destinations?
LD: I travel to the places where my artists have their engagements. Since there are so many of them by now, which I am glad over of course, I had to become more selective over the years and concentrate on the performances (opera or concert) that I esteem indispensable.
FH: It is one of our most important tasks to take care of our artists and to support them at decisive performances as well as to keep in touch with the organisers.
VA: What is your best musical memory of this year with our own artists?
LD: If I only mention one memory, then all the other artists will be jealous! Therefore, the list of my retrospection will be a bit longer, as a kind of Jacques Prévert’s inventory: Marion Tassou as Héro (Béatrice et Bénédict) at Berlioz' birth place La Côte-Saint-André, Gabrielle Philiponet's first Violetta, Anaïk Morel's spectacular last-minute replacement in La Damnation de Faust (Marguerite) at the Staatsoper Stuttgart, Delphine Galou as equally impressive Orphée (Gluck's Orphée et Eurydice) in Montpellier, Julien Behr's first class Arbace (Idomeneo) at the Theater an der Wien and Reinoud Van Mechelen's Lidio (Cavalli's Egisto) in Luxemburg. As for my stage directors, I was thrilled by Les Pêcheurs de Perles by Vincent Boussard (with the great artist Vincent Lemaire by his side for the settings) at the Opéra national du Rhin and Ernani by Jean-Claude Berutti at the Lithuanian National Opera Theatre. With respect to my conductors: Facundo Agudin as a head of his outstanding orchestra, Musique des Lumières, combined L'Histoire du soldat and Der Kaiser von Atlantis in one concert programme; the new production of Werther in Essen under the baton of Sébastien Rouland has nothing to envy the best conductors. Regarding Arie van Beek, who always succeeds in combining different epochs and styles with a great sense for balance, I especially remember his concert with the Orchestre de Chambre de Genève with whom he presented the symphony "Le Soir" by Haydn in combination with a world premiere by Ludovic Thirvaudey, "Young Apollo" by Britten, a concerto grosso by Handel and the symphony n°1 by Prokofiev. Arie van Beek pure! I also would like to mention two highlights with my ensembles: the discovery of Pierre-Louis Dietsch's Le Vaisseau fantôme at the Wiener Konzerthaus with Les Musiciens du Louvre Grenoble and a sensational Rameau performance at the Opéra Royal de Versailles with Les Ambassadeurs.
FH: For me, it is a difficult question to mention my best musical experiences, because they are not necessarily the performances that are the most discussed and presented by the media but those who give me the impression that the path of the respective artist is the right one. For one artist it might be an enlargement of the repertoire, for another a new orientation, for another one the discovery of rarly performed repertoire, for others the attainment of a new genre such as the lied. For one or the other it might even be several of such changes and steps of development within a year. I count myself lucky to have gained myself the trust of my artists and to be able to reflect the perceptions and achievements of a year or generally of their whole career with them. To come to a standstill would mean to regress. This concerns likewise opera and concert, baroque, classical, romantic and contemporary music as well as vocal and instrumental music. Therefore, I don't want to emphasise individual highlights of particular artists; one might already have achieved a few important career steps while the other one will undertake them in the New Year.
VA: What is your the best musical memory of 2013 without one of our artists?
LD: Unfortunately, I cannot go to all productions that I would wish to experience live. Luckily, there are some new web media possibilities such as Medici TV or Arte Live Web that allow us to see and listen to opera productions virtually. They can of course not replace the live experience, but it is better than nothing! One of those experiences I had was the touching world premiere of Claude by Thierry Escaich at the Opéra national de Lyon.
FH: Interesting that you were mostly impressed by something contemporary as well! For me, it was the overwhelming performance of Written on skin by the British composer George Benjamin at the Theater an der Wien, but also the awareness that a young composer such as Iain Bell is able to really compose effectively for theatre, as he proved with A Harlot's Progress. Of course, alongside the impeccable performances of the standard repertoire. After all, the contemporary art can close the gap again. It is too easily forgotten that also Mozart, Verdi and Strauss were "new music" once upon a time.
VA: What was your worst experience in this year?
LD: The worst experiences for me are mostly logistic ones. It was not too bad this year; no ash clouds, no snow chaos, no strike of public transport in France… Besides of not being able to continue my trip to Germany because of being stuck in a train in Salzburg for 2-3 hours due to torrential rain that finally caused flood, it all in all really went quite smoothly. I only regret not having been able to assist continuously at the IAMA Conference which was held in Vienna this year. I esteem this yearly conference very much as a great and important opportunity to get to know better colleagues, to chat and exchange experiences in a relaxed atmosphere and to understand each other better and respect one another. In a time where competition becomes more and more acute and where budgets are more and more limited, we need to remind ourselves that we are all in the same boat.
FH: Respect is the magic word in this context. Viewed from outside, it may seem that professionals of the cultural sector treat each other in a cultivated way. However, also we are affected by a gradually rising economical pressure of competition. Especially therefore I value a good, fair and respectful agreement with competitors. This can be launched at such conferences, but it must also be implemented in the daily routine. It has been a difficult and dreadful experience for me in the past few years to see that a correct behaviour is interpreted as a weekness. However, all artists should chose their agency considering whose style of representation they appreciate the most.
VA: What about the new common website? Are you happy with it?
LD: We launched our new website in March 2013 and, as far as I can judge from the feedback, it has been very well perceived by all sides. I am very glad about this, since it means a lot of work. I am also proud that we have so many unique visitors: about 14.000 within less than ten months (for 95.000 pages visited). Not a bad result for such a specialised website such as ours!
FH: And naturally the website is always a work in progress. In order to represent the concepts the diverse and stilistically varied programmes of our artists, we are about to add an option to our website for the special projects of our artists. I think that we both are positive about being able to represent the artistic profile of each artist even better this way.
VA: A word of conclusion?
FH: Let us ask you this question! What is your resumé of 2013 in our agency?
VA: Also for me, creating the new website was an exciting project. I am glad to have been involved in it so deeply and also that we use a gender equitable language, which I find of utmost importance. Furthermore, I can look back on some well-resolved complicated travel organisations and I am proud to have used all my foreign language skills so far. I am also happy to have established ties with several of our contractual partners and to have got to know better our artists. Whenever they come to Vienna, they are very welcome at our office !
LD: And we are very happy to have you! Without you mastering the whole back office we would be completely lost!
December 2013