“It was a difficult year, the most difficult of my life. For this reason too, it makes me happy to be here today, in this theater that I love so much». Nice to see the name of Daniel Barenboim, music director of La Scala from 2005 to 2014, on the door of the main dressing room, even nicer to see it inside. Arrived to replace Daniel Harding in the race, three concerts, last night, tonight, Saturday, no vacancy, streaming on Scala TV remains because Mozart’s last three symphonies and Barenboim’s return are an event, especially after the terrible year of illness . The traces of it are still visible: pale, emaciated, his movements slower, his gaze more tired, but ready to come alive when he gets excited about a subject. And on the podium, the energy is still flowing.
Nobody expected it, not even her. How did this happen?
«Last Saturday Dominique Meyer called me to talk about projects, the next morning I found a message from him: Can you be here tomorrow? I took it spontaneously, I postponed a visit to the doctor, I packed my bags and here I am».
He was last at La Scala in 2021, but as a pianist. You haven’t been on the podium for seven years, what was it like meeting up with the orchestra?
“Like it’s only been a week. A few minutes of music was enough to get the conversation going again. That only happens with old friends.”
Does that also apply to your Berlin musicians?
“The first return was there: New Year’s Eve on the podium of my Staatskapelle. No physical doubts about making it, just a place so I don’t get too tired. At Epiphany I was with the Berliners and Martha Argerich. my friend forever We met when I was 5 and she was 6. Our parents had taken us to a house in Buenos Aires that had music on Fridays and excellent strudels. But we, who were already playing, wanted to play and hid under a piano. We met there, we never lost each other again.’
What made you decide to quit the State Opera?
«For the full-time commitment, which I can no longer bear. I told the musicians the truth: my health has deteriorated significantly. I can no longer fulfill the duties of a music director. It was a painful decision for everyone, but the commitment is to keep making music together. At the moment only concerts, later, if my strength allows, maybe even an opera».
In the year of his eightieth birthday (November 15) everything happened: a back operation, then circulatory problems. Then again?
“A complex neurological disease. It exhausted me terribly. A month and a half in the hospital, constant treatments, uncertainties. He had to suspend everything, I just had to think about getting my strength back. Then the treatments started to work, but I had to change a lot of things. Strict diet, belly gone, goodbye cigars, off to gymnastics… With quieter times I returned to life and music. I do everything, but a little less».
Claudio Abbado said the illness was his luck, it made him understand what really matters.
“It wasn’t like that with me. It was always clear to me, even before I got sick, what really matters. For me, music isn’t a job, it’s a way of life. It prompted me to pursue other social and political interests. However, during my illness, Claudio often came to my mind. Like Zubin Mehta. We met in 56, she was twenty, I was sixteen. Three musketeers, same job, never the slightest jealousy or vanity.”
What will he do now?
«At the Barenboim-Said Academy, a music and culture school that brings together 70 talents from the Middle East, Arabs and Israelis in Berlin. Two master classes a week give me great satisfaction».
Israel remains its thorn in its heart…
“It is a disaster. The right is scary, the left is gone. I am very sad. They have forgotten their history, so long and complex that they have forgotten essential human values. And that’s terrible everywhere, but for us Jews with what we’ve been through, it should be unacceptable. I haven’t been to Israel since 2011. No Wish”.
You, a man of peace, creator of an orchestra, the Divan, born to unite enemy peoples, what do you think of the ongoing war? how will it end
“Bad. It can’t end well because there’s no honesty. Everyone gives completely opposite versions of the facts. To say that only the other is to blame is as easy as it is useless. In this way peace will never be achieved.’