Alexander Joel, Conductor

The spring of 2014 ushers in a new phase in the life of the conductor Alexander Joel. British-born, he has made his base in Austria and Germany, and after seven seasons as Generalmusikdirektor at Braunschweig he bade farewell to the Saxon city on Good Friday—with Parsifal. This month he is in Belgium for a new Don Giovanni, having previously collaborated with the Vlaamse Opera on Don Carlos (the famous ‘Eboli’s dream' production by Konwitschny), La forza del destino (in the original St Petersburg edition) and Die Frau ohne Schalten. Next season brings Rigoletto in Geneva, Die Zauberflöte in Stockholm, and, in Hamburg and at the Vienna Volksoper, La Traviata. In June 2015 Verdi’s fallen woman brings him back to the Royal Opera House, and he stays on into July to lead further performances of La Boheme The latter opera marked his debut with the company early last year, when his lithe, acute response to the score rejuvenated a venerable if expertly executed production (in fact, with the upcoming 2015 performances he will become the last person to conduct John Copley 's four-decade-old staging at the house). For him, returning to his native city and working with the orchestra at Covent Garden — whose sound and consistency he describes as ‘heaven’—was ‘the experience of a lifetime'. (…) Joel’s final concert in Braunschweig was of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, 'Part of the role of the Generalmusikdirektor is to train the orchestra,’ he explains, using the more resonant German word erziehen to bring the point home. ‘You have to nail things down, to fine-tune the engine so that it sounds the way you want it and runs the way you want it to run. You need to be clear and logical in your conducting, so that there are no doubts about what you mean and so that everyone can follow you. But the most important thing is to be able to conduct in an organic way—and there’s no better place to learn to conduct organically than in a German repertoire house.’ (…) A Kapellmeister is formed by learning how to perform without rehearsal —which really teaches you how to conduct opera. You have to start off as a pianist and coach and work up the system, eventually taking over performances with no rehearsal and making them work. (…) If, for the English-speaking reader, the word ‘Kapellmeister’ tends to evoke a sternfaced Johann Sebastian Bach, Alexander Joel, now in his early 40s, is a communicative, infectiously enthusiastic man, a thoughtful and scrupulous musician who also likes to draw colourful analogies between the worlds of opera and football (he is a fan of Manchester United). The son of a British mother and a German-Jewish father, he grew up in London and went to boarding school in Switzerland. (His older half-brother is the American singer-songwriter Billy Joel.) (…) ‘The essence of a conductor’s craft is to keep it all together,’ Alexander Joel says. (…)‘No matter how many times you’ve conducted a piece, it’s important to keep working on it each time you rehearse and perform it ... to look at it from different angles and to cut out options—for instance, by narrowing down to the tempo that accommodates what the singers and players are doing, and by knowing where to put in a rubato. With Boheme, for instance, I can explain why I do each bar the way I do. (…) In a musical world increasingly in thrall to some kind of youth culture—with talented tyros assuming responsibilities traditionally assigned to seasoned maestros— Joel has taken the route that used to be de rigueur for an opera conductor, embedding himself through a series of staff posts in theatres, while also developing a career as a guest conductor in both opera houses and concert halls. ‘I’ve been through the whole system,’ he says. ‘It’s taken time and hard work, and I’ve built a broad repertoire and gained a lot of experience. It's important to build a house on solid foundations. Above all, it’s important to be really good at what you do, and to keep developing as a musician and artist. The level of technical complexity of a score is one thing, but making a score work in the theatre is another. Conducting a symphony by Mahler is probably less difficult than conducting La Boheme or Die Fledermaus, I’m not the first conductor to say this, but the real art of conducting lies in conducting opera. ’ This is an abbreviated version of the interview - a copy of the full-lenght interview can be sent on request.

There was another debutant in the pit the shape of Alexander Joel, a British conductor who has held distinguished posts in various German opera houses and in Vienna; this showed in his sold grasp of the musics structure and his supportive phrasing, and he coaxed wonderfully supple playing from the orchestra. - Melanie Eskenazi

"(...)Puccinis drama is staged as if one had followed a classic textbook on how to stage opera traditionally with all the splendor one associates with this genre. Everything comes over so elegantly, and the guest conductor Alexander Joel from the Staatstheater Braunschweig conducts precisely and effectively...exploding colours, magnificient orchestral sound...the musical side in this union unfolds itself in Tristan-Wagner like reminiscences in Puccinis orchestral sound, whereby Alexander Joel manages to sublimate the unquestionable and apparent "Kitsch" moments by remodelling them in a most delicate lucidity. So his interpretation achieves the highest level of emotion, which an opera like this one needs(...)" By: Werner Theurich

"Alexander Joel leads the Hamburg Philharmonic elegantly, with flowing tempos, a crystal clear sound without any hint of heaviness in it(...)" By: Jan Brachmann

„To obtain this, is in the first place the task of the music, which lends every opera production its own pulse and rhythm. The Verdi production of the Flanders Opera develops from the very first bars a surging drive and power. Alexander Joel has perfect control over the orchestra, and demands on the one hand Allegro brilliance, as well sufficient space and breath for the elegic-lyric passages. This Vlaanders opera „Forza del Destino“ production can easily compare itself to any repertoire performances in the big capitals likeParis or Vienna“

Alexander Joel carries the singers with his hands, creates platforms for them where they can unfold their voices, keenly observing the score, highlights the dramatic intensity and nervous extacy. There is no main musical waterway but rather a mountain stream with surprising turns and whirls.