“你可以选择稳妥的方案——或者你可以承担全部风险，直接去指挥。也许我会喜欢稳妥的方案，但我从不选择它。”雅库布·赫鲁沙在2022年于皇家歌剧院指挥他的第一部瓦格纳歌剧《罗恩格林》时，学会了信任自己的直觉，他将那次经历描述为“我一生中绝对的高光时刻之一”。如今，他担任该院音乐总监已满一年，即将指挥他的首部《帕西法尔》，由叶夫根尼·季托夫执导。
‘You can choose the cautious option – or you can take the full risk and just go and conduct. Maybe I would like the cautious option, but I never choose it.”Jakub Hrůša learned to trust his instincts at the Royal Opera House back in 2022 when he conducted his first ever Wagner opera – Lohengrin – there, describing the experience as “one of the absolute highlights of my life”. Now he’s a year into his role as the house’s music director and about to conduct his first Parsifal, staged by Evgeny Titov.
而下一个演出季，当他指挥巴里·科斯基执导的完整《尼伯龙根的指环》四部曲时，将迎来更多瓦格纳首演。对大多数指挥来说，这将是一个循序渐进的过程，一次将《指环》四部歌剧逐一加入曲目，但对赫鲁沙而言并非如此：他将在一周内接连指挥他的首部《莱茵的黄金》、《女武神》、《齐格弗里德》和《诸神的黄昏》。
And next season there’ll be yet more Wagner firsts when he conducts complete cycles of the Ring as staged by Barrie Kosky. For most conductors, this would be a gradual process, adding the four Ring operas to their repertoire one by one, but not for Hrůša: he’ll be conducting his first Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung all in the space of a week.
“这是否太大胆？我觉得太棒了！”他说。“我本可以选择十年后以自己的方式、在别处完成——但我在这里，我是音乐总监，《指环》理应且渴望以完整形式上演，而我有勇气去做。”赫鲁沙曾于2018年在此指挥科斯基执导的《卡门》，2024年又在萨尔茨堡音乐节合作了雅纳切克的《卡佳·卡巴诺娃》——雅纳切克同样是布尔诺人，赫鲁沙的家乡。
“Is it too bold? I find it wonderful!” he says. “I could have chosen to do it in my own way, in 10 years’ time, somewhere else – but I’m here, I’m the music director, the Ring should be done and wants to be done in its entirety, and I am courageous.”Hrůša conducted Kosky’s staging of Carmen here in 2018, and they worked together at the 2024 Salzburg festival on Katya Kabanova by Janáček – another son of Brno, Hrůša’s home town.
科斯基版《指环》前三部迄今均由安东尼奥·帕帕诺执棒，第四部《诸神的黄昏》定于1月演出，同样由帕帕诺指挥。帕帕诺长达22年的音乐总监任期是皇家歌剧院历史上最长、最稳定的，因此无论是在《指环》还是在总监职位上，都是大鞋难穿。
Each of Kosky’s Ring’s three instalments so far has been led by Antonio Pappano, with the fourth, Götterdämmerung, scheduled for January, also with Pappano. His 22-year tenure as music director was the longest and most stable in the Royal Opera House’s history, so those are big shoes to fill, both in the Ring and in the role more generally.
“我觉得当有人成功领导一家歌剧院如此长的时间，会产生两种效应，”赫鲁沙说。“一方面是这种积极的惯性，对品质的期待。但任期以这种方式延续得越久，就越有必要积极地看待变革。所以，对托尼·帕帕诺的感激与喜爱，与渴望变革之间并不矛盾。无论在我上任前还是上任后，我在这座剧院听到的唯一心声就是：‘我们希望你用你自己的方式去做。’”
“I think when someone leads an opera house successfully for such a long time, it has two effects,” Hrůša says.
我们在皇家歌剧院交谈，此前赫鲁沙刚度过一个下午排练《帕西法尔》。该剧融合了亚瑟王传说与基督教思想，以及不那么直白的佛教元素；季托夫的这部制作被形容为反乌托邦风格，宣传语为“如果光是谎言呢？”，预示着这将是一部不妥协、甚至可能打破常规的作品。尽管赫鲁沙有过指挥打破常规制作的经验——想想科斯基对《卡门》的解构，或是凯蒂·米切尔上个季度在此上演的女权主义版《马克罗普洛斯案》——但他给人的印象并非一个寻求争议的人。
“但我认为这正是剧院该做的事：如果某样东西真正令人震惊、挑衅或不适，那应该是一种手段，引领我们看到原本看不到的东西——一种触及关于我们生活的重要核心问题的途径。”
“There’s this positive habit, an expectation of quality. But the longer the tenure has gone on in this way, the more necessary it is to consider the change positively. So there’s no contradiction between gratitude and love for Tony [Pappano] and eagerness to have a change. The only thing I’ve heard in the house, before I started and after, is: ‘We want you to do it in your own way.’”
至于用赫鲁沙自己的方式做事——到目前为止，他说他做出的任何改变都很微妙。他带着真挚的热情谈起在剧院发现的“完全开放、真正敞开怀抱”的精神，这种精神面向新观众，并自豪地引用数据说明，包括上个季度皇家芭蕾舞团和歌剧团售出的门票中，近一半流向了新观众。“而且我希望任何对歌剧这一艺术形式存有疑虑的人，都能体验一下我们学生专场的氛围。”现有的观众在剧目安排上也不会发现大的变动。
We’re talking at the Royal Opera House after Hrůša has spent the afternoon rehearsing Parsifal. The story mingles Arthurian legend with ideas from Christianity and, less explicitly, Buddhism; Titov’s production, described as dystopian and advertised with the line “What if the light is a lie?”, promises to be uncompromising and potentially iconoclastic. For all his experience of conducting norm-challenging productions – think of Kosky’s deconstruction of Carmen or Katie Mitchell’s feminist Makropulos Case here last season – Hrůša doesn’t give the impression of being one who seeks controversy. “But I think that’s what theatre should do: if something is really shocking or provoking or uncomfortable, it should be a method to get us to something which we wouldn’t see otherwise – a way to get to the core of an important question about our lives.”
音乐总监一职要求他每年指挥三到四部作品——上个季度是普契尼、雅纳切克和布里顿；这个季度是瓦格纳、雅纳切克和威尔第。作为一位捷克指挥家，赫鲁沙对雅纳切克情有独钟并不令人意外：“他是一位用现代音乐语言和现代题材表达的浪漫灵魂，我总是惊讶地说，他出生在马勒、施特劳斯、普契尼、德彪西之前！”展望未来，他说，剧院不一定会增加更多捷克曲目，但可能会“更有规律地”出现。
As for doing things Hrůša’s own way – so far, he says, any changes he has made have been subtle ones. He speaks with genuine enthusiasm about the “totally accessible, really open-arms” spirit he found at the house regarding new audiences, and proudly gives figures to back this up, including the fact that nearly half of tickets sold by the Royal Ballet and Opera last season went to newcomers. “And I would like anyone who has any doubts about opera as an art form to experience the atmosphere at our schools matinees.”Nor will existing audiences find big changes in repertoire. The post of music director comes with the expectation that he will conduct three or four productions a year – last season it was Puccini, Janáček and Britten; this season Wagner, Janáček and Verdi. As he is a Czech conductor, it’s not surprising that Hrůša has an affiliation with Janáček: “He is a romantic soul speaking through modern musical language and modern topics, and I always say with astonishment that he was born before Mahler, Strauss, Puccini, Debussy!”Going forward, he says, there will not necessarily be more Czech repertoire at the house, but it might appear “with more regularity”.
雅纳切克似乎比布里顿的《彼得·格莱姆斯》更是一个显而易见的选择，而赫鲁沙今年早些时候指挥这部作品产生了巨大影响，但他将自己对英国作曲家的驾驭信心归功于格林德伯恩歌剧院的《螺丝在拧紧》和《仲夏夜之梦》制作。他觉得自己的角色是合作性的而非独断专行的。“许多人认为指挥就是将你的愿景从A到Z印刻在合作者身上——优秀指挥的标志就是所有人都按你的意愿行事。我不同意。我认为与舞台导演的合作本就需要为另一种观点留出空间，我总是试图将其转化为对我自己愿景的丰富，而非对抗。尤其是面对艾伦·克莱顿和布林·特菲尔这等级的歌手”——他们在德博拉·沃纳执导的《彼得·格莱姆斯》中饰演格莱姆斯和巴尔斯特罗德——“我极其渴望从他们的经验中学习，让他们的智慧影响我的工作。”
Janáček might have seemed a more obvious choice than Britten’s Peter Grimes, which Hrůša conducted with enormous impact earlier this year, but he credits Glyndebourne productions of The Turn of the Screw and A Midsummer Night’s Dream for building his confidence with the British composer. He feels his role to be collaborative rather than dictatorial. “So many people think that conducting is about imprinting your vision from A to Z to the people you work with – that the mark of a good conductor is that everyone does what you want. I disagree. I think already the collaboration with the stage director needs to create space for another point of view, and I always try to turn it into enrichment of my own vision rather than fighting. Especially with singers of the calibre of Allan Clayton and Bryn Terfel” – his Grimes and Balstrode in Deborah Warner’s production of Peter Grimes – “I’m so eager to learn from their experience and to let their wisdom influence what I do.”
他热衷于继续恢复乐团和合唱团在剧院举办音乐会的传统——去年九月他发掘了德沃夏克的清唱剧《鬼新娘》——并表示自己特别倾向于照料乐团，“培养它，不仅是质量上，风格上也是”。考虑到除2010年起担任格林德伯恩巡演音乐总监的三年外，他迄今大多数职位都在交响乐团，这也不足为奇。过去十年里，赫鲁沙一直担任班贝格交响乐团首席指挥，确保这支位于巴伐利亚小镇、实力超越规模的乐团持续保持德国顶尖乐团地位。
He’s keen to continue to re-establish the tradition of the orchestra and chorus giving concerts in the house – last September he unearthed Dvořák’s oratorio The Spectre’s Bride – and says he feels especially drawn to taking care of the orchestra, “cultivating it, not just the quality but stylistically as well”. This isn’t surprising either given that most of his positions so far – with the exception of three years spent as music director of Glyndebourne on Tour, starting in 2010 – have been with symphony orchestras. Hrůša has been chief conductor of the Bamberg Symphony for the past decade, ensuring that this punch-above-its-weight ensemble based in a small town in Bavaria has continued to be one of the leading orchestras in Germany.
然而，他在2018年与家人搬到了英国，这距离他在科文特花园皇家歌剧院首演那部由科斯基执导的《卡门》不久后。他们现在的时间在伦敦和布拉格之间分配，孩子们在伦敦上学，偶尔有机会会去滑雪（“那是我们全家的热爱”）。两个乐季后，赫鲁沙将在职业层面上巩固这条伦敦-布拉格轴线，届时他将接任祖国最高乐团职位：捷克爱乐乐团首席指挥。
It was to the UK, however, that he moved with his family, in 2018, soon after he had made his Covent Garden debut with that Kosky Carmen. They now divide their time between London, where his two children go to school, and Prague, with the occasional skiing trip when they get the chance (“that’s our passion, the whole family”). In two seasons’ time Hrůša will be cementing that London-Prague axis professionally when he takes on the top orchestral job in his home country: chief conductor of the Czech Philharmonic.
他的前任之一是伊日·贝洛赫拉韦克，他为能追随这位已故恩师的脚步而感到自豪。“我18岁时开始师从他，后来这种关系变成了真正的友谊。我们养成了通信和定期见面的习惯。他总想知道我的近况，我会带着录音或故事去见他，他也会如此。他希望我能观察并给他反馈。这非常珍贵，因为很难获得诚实的反馈，尤其是当你身处权力位置时。这是另一项需要培养的东西。”
His predecessor-but-one in that role was Jiří Bělohlávek, and he’s proud to be following in his late teacher’s footsteps. “I started studying with him when I was 18 and then the relationship turned into a real friendship. We developed a habit of correspondence and also regular meetings. He always wanted to know what was up, and I would bring a recording or stories, and he did the same. He wanted me to be observing and giving him feedback. It’s so precious, because it’s quite hard to get honest feedback, especially if you are in a position of power. It’s another thing that needs to be cultivated.”
所有这些精心培养的成果都体现在演出中。“我认为指挥工作的核心是非语言的，在一场演出中，你能影响的东西太多了：能量、动力、氛围、细节、安全感、自由度——这是一个无穷无尽的清单。所有这些完全掌握在你手中，稍有不敏感就能毁掉其中任何一点。”他说，指挥最重要的工作是确保演奏家能发挥出最佳水平。“如果安全感与激情的混合比例恰到好处，演奏家甚至能超常发挥。我觉得，这正是我的使命。你不需要身后有一堆《帕西法尔》的演出经验，才能尝试提供这种环境。”
The proof of all of this careful cultivation comes in performance. “I think the core of what conductors do is non-verbal, and in a show there’s so much you can influence: the energy, momentum, atmosphere, detail, security, freedom – it’s an endless list. All that is totally in your hands, and you can destroy any of it by being insensitive.”A conductor’s most important job, he says, is to ensure that his performers are able to give of their best. “And if there’s the right mixture of safety and excitement, then the performer can give even better. That, I feel, is very much my mission. You don’t need to have a store of Parsifals behind you to try to provide this.”