Symphony conductor Mehta celebrates 60th birthday

Monday, May 20, 1996

Double birthday celebration serves double purposeBy Mary
Campbell

The Associated Press

NEW YORK — Bright balloons shaped like red peppers festoon the
hotel room of symphony conductor Zubin Mehta, who just celebrated
his 60th birthday.

"I carry red peppers everywhere with me," explains Mehta, a
native of India. "I have this Indian palate and stomach. I add them
to everything."

Mehta was in New York with the Israel Philharmonic ­ both
were born in 1936 ­ for two Carnegie Hall concerts, one a
benefit for the orchestra.

"The orchestra has about a $4 million deficit," he says. "These
celebrations of my birthday and the orchestra’s birthday are to
bring in lots of dollars that we need desperately."

At 60, Mehta considers himself experienced enough to know what
he’s about and young enough to still be vigorous. Now he’s taking
on a second important baton-wielding job, as music director of the
Bavarian State Opera in Munich.

"It’s now or never," he says.

Since 1968, Mehta has been music director of the Israel
Philharmonic, which he first conducted when he was 25. In 1981 he
was proclaimed "music director for life."

When Mehta left his native India, it was to study music in
Vienna. He was music director of the Montreal Symphony from 1961 to
1967, the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1962 to 1978 and the New
York Philharmonic from 1978 to 1991.

From the first time he went to Israel, Mehta felt an affinity
with the country. "My Asiatic background has a lot to do with
that," he says. "It was almost like a homecoming.

"My connection with the orchestra is really from the heart. It
is not only the musicians. It is my love for the country which
expresses itself in my making music with the orchestra."

Asked about his plans for the future, Mehta says, "I’m going to
take a head dive into this operatic world. I think I’m ready for it
now. I have accumulated enough operatic acumen to go into the
European repertory system."

Mehta will continue to spend three months a year in Israel and
will lead the Israel Philharmonic’s tours. The Bavarian State Opera
job involves 40 performances in five months a season.

Since Mehta left the New York Philharmonic, he has been
conducting more and more in opera houses.

"It was among my principal reasons for wanting to leave one of
the greatest orchestras in the world," he says.

When the prestigious Berlin Philharmonic was choosing a music
director in 1989, Mehta declined to be considered for the job. He
already was expanding his interest in opera.

In March, he conducted the Ring cycle operas at the Lyric Opera
of Chicago, which he found exciting.

"Wagner often has five themes running at the same time in the
orchestra," he says. "We conductors have to transmit this." His
reviews were glowing.

"Operatically speaking, the Ring in Chicago was absolutely the
high point of my musical life," Mehta says.

Heading an opera company wasn’t a secret ambition, Mehta says.
"I never knew whether I ever wanted to be music director of an
opera house. When they came to me and offered me this job, I mulled
over it a little bit, I must say."

Although he ranks Munich with Berlin and Vienna as the three
most important opera houses in the German-speaking world, Mehta
hesitated because he will conduct a lot of operas with little or no
rehearsal.

"That’s the way those opera houses exist," Mehta says. He
decided, "I want to be part of that system."

Mehta says he’ll guest-conduct infrequently after he starts the
Munich job in 1998. "Once a year I go to Vienna and Berlin ­ I
first conducted both orchestras when I was 25 ­ but I never
did too much guest conducting. I never did enjoy that."

Nowadays Mehta enjoys passing on his knowledge to young
performers, but he misses some of the older ones, such as violinist
Isaac Stern, who has curtailed his performing.

"There were moments in many violin concertos where Isaac and I
used to communicate so many things onstage," Mehta says. "When
those moments occur with young kids, I think of Isaac. I can’t help
it.

"But we have to recognize new talent. If we don’t help by making
the first push, how will they have careers?"

Fifteen-year-old violinist Maxim Vengerov auditioned for Mehta
the day after he arrived in Israel in 1990. An assistant told Mehta
a young Russian violinist wanted to play for him. He hadn’t heard
of Vengerov but said, "Put him on."

"I called the booking office that same day and said, ‘I’m
bringing a soloist with me on our American tour,’" Mehta says.

Vengerov’s violin wasn’t much better than a box, Mehta says.
"But he knew how to draw a sound out of it."

Speaking about another young virtuoso, Mehta says, "I just had
the great pleasure of playing in Berlin with pianist Evgeny Kissin.
He has a fantastic sound and great fingers and musically he’s so
satisfying. It gives me great joy to tell him what I learned in my
youth from pianist Arthur Rubinstein. This has to be passed on.

"After a concert, sometimes we would talk half the night;
Rubinstein would give me lots of advice. He was a supreme musician.
He used to come very often when I would conduct at the Metropolitan
Opera. He’d give me hell and he didn’t spare his compliments
either."

Asked whether his interpretations of music have changed, Mehta
says that’s an ongoing process.

"My basic concept doesn’t change," he says. "There are always
new insights. I get very inspired by my musicians. Many of my ideas
I steal from them. In performance you change a detail here and a
detail there. One floats with the musicians, interpretively
speaking."

Mehta and an advisory committee of musicians attend every
audition for the Israel Philharmonic.

"We first look for musicians within the country," he says. "If
we don’t find them, we don’t put the standard down. We go
outside.

"Basically we have a warm, eastern European type of playing. I
think I have the ideal situation, a virtuoso Jewish string section
and many of my brass soloists are Americans. It’s a very warm brass
sound because I picked them.

"I don’t pick a player with a strident sound. I don’t like
that."