Josep Pons leaves the Liceu "proud of the orchestra"

Barcelona"Look at this lectern, it's historic. It's very beautiful", says Josep Pons (Puig-reig, 1957). He is in the pit of the Liceu, the chosen space for a press conference "special and sensitive", as Víctor Garcia de Gomar, artistic director of the Rambla theatre, says. Pons is bidding farewell to the musical direction of the Gran Teatre del Liceu after fourteen years of work. The farewell is twofold. On the one hand, from the pit, with Falstaff, Verdi's opera which is performed there until July 19th; on the other hand, from the stage of the Liceu, conducting with Symphony No. 8 by Mahler on July 24th.

In these years, Garcia de Gomar assures, "Josep Pons has turned the pit into a laboratory of sensibilities" and has built "a sonic memory" by shunning "gratuitous monumentality" and creating according to "an aesthetic of revelation rather than effect". Faced with "the noise of dazzlement", he prefers to "illuminate", considers the general director of the Liceu, Valentí Oviedo, who is grateful that "this humanist, this wise man", has generated "a sense of self-esteem" in the orchestra. "He has been a leader with the baton and in team management", concludes the president of the Liceu's board, Salvador Alemany.

Pons, who is happier living "in music" than in "the music world," appreciates the praise, but immediately tries to divert attention by talking about Mahler's Eighth Symphony. "It's a colossal work," he says about this symphony that speaks to us of love. "In the first part, of a love that emanates from divinity, a song of the spheres. And in the second, from the final scene of Goethe's Faust, it proposes an initiatory journey that begins with the hermits of Montserrat and is a kind of angelology that culminates in the mystical song of the eternal feminine," summarizes Pons, who could spend an eternity explaining the musical details of this "orchestral thesis," "the Everest of the symphonic world," an expedition accompanied by the Cor del Liceu, the Cor Nacional d'Espanya, the Polifònica de Puig-Reig, and the Cor Vivaldi Petits Cantors de Catalunya, as well as exceptional soloists: Michael Spyres, Elisabeth Teige, Nicholas Brownlee, Albert Dohmen, Jacquelyn Wagner, Elena Villalón, Beth Taylor, and Mihoko Fujimura. "We have what was the great Wotan, Albert Dohmen, and the Wotan of the present and future, Nicholas Brownlee," celebrates Pons. In fact, next season Brownlee will be Wotan in Das Rheingold (The Rhine Gold), curiously, the first opera Pons conducted as principal conductor of the Liceu in 2013, with Dohmen leading the cast.

Centrality and visibility

The legacy that Pons leaves is an orchestra that has gone from 67 to 94 members, which has a recognizable sound, reliable in all operatic repertoire, with symphonic scope and solid enough for other conductors to draw interesting nuances from. "I admired the color and flexibility in the recitatives that Giovanni Antonini drew from it "in The Marriage of Figaro from Mozart a few weeks ago. It was beautiful. It has happened to me with many conductors. I have felt proud of the orchestra", assures Pons. He leaves, therefore, satisfied that "the project" he designed fourteen years ago has been "completed to the letter". "It will close almost like a door latch", he adds.

The path has not been easy. In fact, was about to give up when the economic crisis shook public budgets. "We started in September 2012, and by June they had laid off fifteen people," he recalls. The project was ambitious because it was urgent, and required constancy, dedication, and money. Fourteen years later, the choir and orchestra's budget has increased from 7.7 million to 12.5 million euros, and Pons is leaving having made a reality of the motto with which he embarked on the adventure: centrality and visibility. "The orchestra was peripheral at home. The training's own curriculum stated that it was an orchestra born to accompany voices. It had no entity of its own," explains the maestro from Puig-Reig, who always highlights "the musicians' unbeatable attitude." It was also necessary to "make it visible," put it on stage, and make it shine in symphonic and chamber repertoires. Following the model of the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, the Staatskapelle in Dresden, and the Staatskapelle in Berlin, he promoted the creation of a musical department, and imagined a way to organize and improve. "During the crisis that the theater suffered, he was very clear that there are two ways to do things: tighten your belt or roll up your sleeves. And rolling up your sleeves is Maestro Pons' philosophy," recalls Oviedo.

"Some call it magic, elf or tickle. Each one calls it what they can, but we all know what we're talking about. It's ineffable, and we all work to make it happen," says Pons, who from now on will pursue this tickle as principal conductor of the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie. However, the link with the Liceu will be maintained, now as honorary musical director. "In the future, my greatest happiness will be when I come to the Liceu and listen to the orchestra: how well conceived!", concludes Josep Pons.