Euronews Culture sat down with composer and conductor John Adams ahead of Barcelona's Liceu theatre's premiere of 'Antony and Cleopatra'.
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00:00 I have three extraordinary singers that I've been working with for years.
00:05 Julia Bullock, who is, I think, just this role. I wrote it for her. She's the ideal Cleopatra.
00:14 She has all of the personal qualities. She has great emotion. She's very erotic.
00:21 She can play a very paranoid person when she thinks she's lost her lover.
00:28 And she has an incredible capacity for tragedy. She's a young American singer. I think she's
00:35 going to be one of the big stars, and it's a privilege to have worked with her.
00:40 This orchestra here at the Liceo is an extraordinary group. There are a lot of
00:55 younger musicians in it. I have worked over the last 10 years in Spain, both here in Barcelona
01:04 and Madrid. They were okay. The performances were okay. But as you indicate, there's a learning
01:14 curve about the style of music, which is very rhythmically driven, like a lot of American
01:20 music is. But I just had a wonderful time. And I think that this orchestra here at the Liceo is
01:27 one of the better opera orchestras in the world. And I love working with them.
01:33 You know, there are a lot of opera houses are very anxious about new operas. They're afraid
01:46 people won't come. But I've known Victor, the wonderful artistic director here. And
01:54 when I told him I was going to do this opera, he immediately said he wanted to be part of the
02:01 consortium, which is now San Francisco Opera and the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
02:07 So I don't usually conduct my operas because it means being away from home and work for
02:14 six, seven weeks. But, you know, if you have to suffer, Barcelona is the place to suffer.
02:37 You know, when I was in my 20s, they were hardly ever operas, new operas presented,
02:46 at least in the major opera companies. You know, the Metropolitan Opera might do one new work and
02:51 once every five years or something. Part of that was the composers were writing very difficult and
03:00 inaccessible music. But now, actually, a rather miraculous thing is happening,
03:08 at least in the United States. There is a huge appetite for new operas and the Metropolitan
03:14 Opera, which was for ages, it was kind of the most conservative, wonderfully high musical standards,
03:22 but the same repertoire over and over and over again. I don't know how many Tosca's and Boehm's
03:28 and Madame Butterfly's that they kept pumping out. And now they've absolutely revolutionized
03:36 their thinking and they realize that audiences want to hear new operas. So that's very good.
03:43 It's not only good for me, but it's good for, you know, composers who are 20, 30, 40 years younger
03:49 than me. I live quite close to Silicon Valley. I live in Berkeley, California. So I'm right across
04:05 the bay from Facebook and X, formerly known as Twitter, as they always say. You know, there's
04:17 a lot of noise about technology, about how great it is and how omnipresent. But I, you know,
04:28 obviously I use technology myself. I use it conducting. I check my iPhone, you know,
04:34 while I'm always reading the news and things like that. But I think it's important not to lose sight
04:40 of fundamental human values. And I know that there's a huge buzz about artificial intelligence.
04:47 It's going to bring great gifts to humanity and it's going to provide great challenges and problems.
04:56 But so did the printing press and so did the railroad and so did electricity. So we adapt.
05:05 - Thanks, John Adams, for joining us today. - Thanks very much.
05:08 [BLANK_AUDIO]