By THIRSTY
Susan Orlando is the Artistic Director of the Vivaldi Edition, an
ambitious project to record 450 compositions by eighteenth-century Italian
composer Antonio Vivaldi.
Stay Thirsty Magazine was very pleased to visit with her at her home in Paris for this
Conversation to learn more about the Vivaldi Edition and its place in the
pantheon of classical music recordings.
STAY THIRSTY: What is
it about the music of Antonio Vivaldi that transcends time and continues to
relate to people almost 300 years after his death?
SUSAN ORLANDO: It
is a truly great composer whose music can transcend time and continue to speak
to people centuries after their death and Vivaldi aptly fits in this category. Without
going into a complex musical analysis, I would say that Vivaldi had an ability
to express feelings and basic emotions in his music with a force that incites
an immediate, visceral reaction in the listener. The infectious joy of the allegro
movements in sharp contrast to the deep pathos and haunting colors in so many of
the slow movements, the overall sense of exuberant sensuality and unbridled
virtuosity, these are among the qualities that render his a highly accessible
music that incites our most basic human emotions.
STAY THIRSTY: How have
you managed to get your arms around the massiveness of the Vivaldi Edition’s
mission to record 450 works by Vivaldi?
SUSAN ORLANDO: To be honest, when we began this ambitious project,
I thought it a bit mad in its scope. Yet, within a year or two of recording, I
recognized the immense significance of the music with which we were working.
From that moment on I felt it imperative to make this music available to the
world at large by seeing this project through in its entirety. I also realized
that, while a concert is ephemeral, a recording, once made, is here to stay and
is the only certain way to get this music into the mainstream. I've never
looked back.
STAY THIRSTY: What
process do you use in selecting the order of the works to be recorded?
SUSAN ORLANDO: The eminent musicologist, Alberto Basso, was the
mastermind behind the idea of recording this collection of Vivaldi's autograph
manuscripts. To that end, he divided the 450 pieces of music into ten
categories comprised of operas, sacred music, chamber music, and the various
kinds of concertos (for violin, for several instruments, concertos for bassoon,
etc.). This was a given. For our part, we have consistently tried to release
one opera each year. As for the remaining yearly releases, it is a question of
which artists and projects are available and of variety. Of course, as we are
nearing the end of the project this latter objective becomes more of a
challenge, the number of manuscripts left to record diminishing.
STAY THIRSTY: How many
works by Vivaldi have been recorded to date and how far into the future do you
envision this project extending?
SUSAN ORLANDO: We have just released our 62nd recording and estimate
about another twenty CDs to completion. Depending on the number of CDs we
record and release each year, which in itself is subject to several other
considerations, this could take us anywhere from another four to six or seven
years.
STAY THIRSTY: Where
does the funding for this project come from and how will it be sustained
through completion?
SUSAN ORLANDO: Though there are a few private and government
sponsors involved, it is the Parisian record company Naïve who covers the
greatest part of the budget for each of the Vivaldi Edition recordings and they
are committed to doing so until completion of the entire
project.
STAY THIRSTY: The Vivaldi
Edition album covers feature
striking and dramatic photographs. Do the covers taken together tell a story or
is there another idea at work? How did you decide on the subject, costuming and
the model for the photographs?
SUSAN ORLANDO: The striking
covers were the idea of Hervé Boisière, acting director of Naïve Classiques at the
inception of the Vivaldi Edition, and are vaguely inspired from the knowledge
that Vivaldi worked on and off all his life with the female orchestra at La
Pietà, a foundling institute in Venice. Early on, the photographer Denis Rouvre
was brought on board and he has proven to be a brilliant collaborator. Given a
title, or the summary of an opera's story, he lets himself be guided by his
boundless imagination on which we put no restraints. I should add that he is a
much sought after photographer, solicited by many an international celebrity.
His website tells all.
STAY THIRSTY: The
videos you produced are stark, emotive and magnetic. How did you develop the
storyboards for these videos and what role do videos play in the overall
project?
SUSAN ORLANDO: Innumerable videos and teasers have been made over
the years and I assume you are making reference here to the lengthier videos
that have recently appeared in conjunction with the releases of CDs performed
by Accademia Bizantina. All credit for these goes to them, from the conception
to the production.
Videos are an essential part of the marketing
and promotion of music today. Over the years, Naïve has gone from simple
teasers to "the making of" videos to the current trend of more
elaborate videos, which often times have their own story. While we strive to
follow the trend, we have no premeditated role for videos in the project, each
one being an independent promotional support for the recording at hand.
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| Susan Orlando |
STAY THIRSTY: Your
personal life has gone from being a surfer in Hawaii to a musician and music
festival organizer to the Artistic Director of the Vivaldi Edition. How
does it feel now to spend so much of your life with a man who lived in the
1700s? As you have grown to know Vivaldi as a person, how has his life and his
work impacted you? What would you say to him if you had the chance?
SUSAN ORLANDO: Unquestionably, my life has changed radically from
my surfing childhood in Hawaii to being the "perpetua" (an Italian
designation for a woman who traditionally served a priest and who would have
been perpetually at his side) of Antonio Vivaldi. But that change has been to
my good fortune. Vivaldi's music deeply moves me and immense is the
satisfaction that I derive in sharing this music with others, and in the
knowledge that I leave behind me a work that is here to stay. Such is my
admiration that, were I to encounter Vivaldi today, I would be speechless, all
that I feel or would want to say expressed in my actions, in serving his
musical genius and emotive generosity by aiding in any way I may in making his
music available to others.
(Susan Orlando photo credit: R. Minarda; CD covers photo credit: Denis Rouvre)
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