Teodor Currentzis took up Utopia – Kommersant newspaper No. 191 (7392) of 10/14/2022

Conductor Teodor Currentzis presented his new symphony orchestra called Utopia. The band’s first performances were held in several European capitals. I watched with interest what was happening at the concert at the Berlin Philharmonic Gular Sadykh-zade.

It was Berlin that became the final point of the tour of the newly-made Utopia Orchestra, created in the summer on the initiative of Teodor Currentzis and bringing together creme de la creme European instrumentalists from the most famous orchestras – from the Camerata Salzburg to the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. At the dawn of the 21st century, on the same principle, Claudio Abbado assembled the famous festival orchestra in Lucerne, inviting the best musicians-soloists and accompanists from orchestras in Europe and the world (Natalia Gutman was the first cello accompanist, and her husband Oleg Kagan was the orchestra’s accompanist).

The Utopia orchestra has 116 musicians from 30 countries; orchestra concertmaster Olga Volkova is from musicAeterna. Luxembourg has become the base of the orchestra so far: rehearsals were held in the hall of the Luxembourg Philharmonic before the responsible first tour, the route of which ran through the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Hamburg Elbphilharmonic and the Berlin Philharmonic. The new team is partly funded by Dietrich Mateschitz’s Kunst und Kultur DM Foundation. This is the inventor and owner of Red Bull, as well as the managing director of the media company Red Bull Media House GmbH, which owns, in particular, the Austrian television channel ServusTV. So, the new orchestra will have no problems with publicity: the performance in the Vienna Konzerthaus was already broadcast by ServusTV, and in the summer, Currentzis gave a very resonant interview to the former quartermaster of the Vienna State Opera, Joan Holender, on the Servus radio.

In a press release, the aesthetic credo of the new orchestra is formulated as follows: “This is not an orchestra in the usual sense of the word, but a unique creative community of like-minded people who have dedicated themselves to finding the best sound and the true spirit of a piece of music.” It sounds loud, but, if you look at it, the “creative community of like-minded people” is obliged to make up any high-class orchestra, and what should he look for, if not “the best sound”. The international composition of the orchestra is a common thing in our time. But the main circumstance of the functioning of the new creative education is that the musicians work in different orchestras and different countries; they will meet several times during the season, prepare a new program and present it to the public. That is, it is not a stationary orchestra now, although it may become one in the future.

So far, the new team is perceived as a kind of European replacement for the Russian musicAeterna, which has become practically restricted to travel abroad since the end of February 2022. Concerts of the orchestra are canceled one after another, even in Vienna, where the Russian team was a frequent and welcome guest. November performances in Baden-Baden and Dortmund are still announced, but no one knows what will happen tomorrow. The main reproaches addressed to musicAeterna and its leader are that the activities of the Russian orchestra are financed by VTB Bank and other Russian structures. The scrupulousness in the monetary issue for Europe today is an important marker of the political position both for individuals and for entire cultural institutions.

What should Teodor Currentzis do in such circumstances, who has become the object of attacks by the European press, who slanders the conductor for the fact that he is still silent and has not explained his position on the NWO in Ukraine over the past seven months? Only a week ago, for example, the Cologne Philharmonic Orchestra officially announced the cancellation of a planned concert with Currentzis. Recently it became known that his successor as chief conductor of the Stuttgart SWR orchestra from the 2025/26 season will be the Alsatian François-Xavier Roth. He scatters in compliments to Currentzis, appreciating his work in merging two diverse ensembles (the Stuttgart Radio Orchestra and the Baden-Baden and Freiburg Orchestra) into a single orchestra, assures that it was Currentzis himself who, back in 2021, decided to extend the contract with the Stuttgart orchestra only until 2024, but, as they say, the sediment remains. And a new own orchestra is starting to look like the only guaranteed way to continue a stable European career.

As for the concert itself, he left an ambivalent impression, to be honest. On the one hand, it makes no sense to make claims about the quality of the game: the high tone, enthusiasm and inspiration were quite obvious. What about the magnificent impressionistic sound-painting of The Firebird, in which the young Stravinsky paid tribute to the French orchestral tradition to the same extent as to the precepts of the new Russian school. As in the strikingly beautiful sketches of nature in Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe, where the birds chirp to greet the solemn sunrise, followed by bizarre dances and a sumptuous final apotheosis. Ravel’s “Waltz” also sounded very good: a subtle symphonic miniature in which the waltz element, originating barely audibly, in dull roaring basses and fluttering strings, gradually unfolds on a magnificent crescendo arc to an orgiastic-frantic climax. And the win-win encore – “Bolero” by Ravel – provided the orchestra and conductor with an admiring roar of the hall along with a standing ovation. In general, everyone is happy.

On the other hand, it is somehow embarrassing to compose a program with such a clear and direct expectation of a stormy response: solid symphonic hits, each ending in fortissimo, to inspire the audience and break the applause. In musical jargon, this technique is called “sure”. But let’s forgive Currentzis and his new team for such a frank desire to please: Utopia is in desperate need of recognition and, to be honest, in a good box office. After all, part of the proceeds from ticket sales goes to the maintenance of the orchestra. And this leads to compromises in terms of the choice of repertoire: even the sophisticated German public prefers to listen to familiar and beautiful music, while modern, unfamiliar and complex music is usually perceived as a useful, but tasteless medicine or an inevitable addition to the main course.