Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1019057
4 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 26 AUGUST 2018 THIS WEEK ART Could you tell us a little bit about your trajectory as a musician and conductor? What would you say have been some of your most significant achievements so far, and how these have led to you performing timeless classics like Verdi's Aida? I started my musical career at the Groningen and Kopenhagen Con- servatory as an accordionist and did lots of projects in modern music and musical theatre. I was attracted to the theatre ever since I was just a child, and I quickly became fascinated by what we could describe as the ultimate example of musical theatre: opera. At the Conservatory of Amsterdam I studied orchestral conducting. After this study I conducted many operas with the Filharmonie Noord in the Netherlands, the orchestra for which I'm now artistic leader. We focused especially on bel canto operas like Bellini's La Sonnambula and I Puritani, Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore and Verdi's Nabucco, I Lom- bardi, Giovanna d'Arco and Macbeth. I worked for six years at Opera Zuid in the Netherlands and there I conduct- ed Mozart's Don Giovanni, Rossini's Il Barbiere di Sevilla, Strauss' Rosen- kavalier, Bizet's Pêcheurs de perles and Carmen. At the summeropera in Belgium I conducted Strauss' Die Fle- dermaus and Puccini's Tosca. During these years, my love for the operas of Verdi grew because of the beauty, depth and compassion of his music, and it was such a delight to do La Traviata last year and Aida this summer in Malta, together with direc- tor Corina van Eijk at Opera Spanga. Opera retains a particular prestige in the music world – even its depictions in popular cinema and other forms of popular culture often use it to signify the pinnacle of culture, opulence, luxury and yes, elitism. What do you make of this preconception of the genre, and do you think it deserves to be seen as something more raw and immediate? Ahead of staging Giuseppe Verdi's classic opera Aida at Pjazza Teatru Rjal, Valletta, conductor Tjalling Wijnstra speaks to TEODOR RELJIC about what makes this timeless performance still relevant to this day, and why it's a "pity" that opera is considered to be an elitist medium Conducting the Aida