Zubin Mehta returns to NCPA with SOI for an evening of Johann Strauss II

“Remember to keep your eyes closed.” I reminded myself of advice from an opera 101 video I had keenly watched a few days earlier, as the maestro slowly made his way to the centre of the stage before me. “It sounds better with your eyes closed.”

Classical music, as much as it is a performance art, does not seem to be all that performative at all. Unlike most ensemble stage acts, for the most part, no one player intends to have a moment in the spotlight, ‘performing’ for the audience’s attention. Instead, the work of each instrument, contributes to a larger fabric of sound, far greater than the sum of its parts. That’s why it sounds better with your eyes closed; you needn’t watch the machinery to feel its power.

Last Sunday on August 18th, 2024, when Zubin Mehta returned to Mumbai to conduct the Symphony Orchestra of India (SOI) at the NCPA, he offered his players the gift of collective capacity that he has always been renowned for. The concert was one of four, held across two weekends, one with pieces of Johann Strauss II, and one from Richard Strauss, marking Mehta’s much-anticipated return to the city’s cultural stage.

The weekend that I was in attendance, Mehta led SOI through an evening of Johann Strauss II, light and somewhat frolicky on the surface, and yet incredibly intricate and difficult to play. Not of my own accord but Mehta’s waving arms conducting ‘Voices of Spring’, I suddenly became the little girl at NCPA, all tulle and velvet, who had watched Zane Dalal conduct in 2010; who spent much of her time thinking lovely thoughts about meadows in the springtime and who, though she did not know what classical music was, couldn’t help but be consumed by it nonetheless.

The best conductors, I learned from this year’s show, are a lot like good cooks: they bring together the spices, the water, the meat, the heat. And if they can extract the ripest, richest parts of each of these forces, all the while keeping time, the conductor— or the cook, can transport you anywhere. A pivotal moment in early childhood, or a forgettable Tuesday afternoon five summers ago.

The maestro’s way with a baton to evoke this kind of visceral emotion has been lauded extensively for most of his career. In a 1967 article, penned almost 60 years ago by music critic Winthrop Sargeant, Sargeant observes of Mehta during a rehearsal at the Metropolitan Opera House, “Later, after a particularly satisfactory passage, [Mehta] said, shrugging again, “If you play it this way, it becomes a memory; otherwise it is just ‘tak-tak.’” It is this calibre of Mehta to transform music into a lasting memory that makes his work so compelling.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Symphony Orchestra of India (@symphonyorchestra_india)

Of course, none of this would have been ever possible without the players, who, despite being considered subsidiaries of the maestro, their pictures much smaller on the pamphlet, were the ones creating the potency in these sounds. These musicians who took part in a riveting dialogue with Mehta, were the same ones who had risen to meet his exacting standards. About his first time conducting India’s orchestra in 2023, Mehta remarked, “[the orchestra was] prepared wonderfully and I had a great experience with them. I would not have come back to make music again had I not.” Mehta’s return wasn’t an obligation to his homeland, but a validation of the SOI’s journey from its nascent days to a world-class orchestra capable of executing the genres’ most demanding compositions.

Established almost two decades ago, SOI came from humble beginnings that few could have predicted would lead to its current stature. During a lovely conversation with Khushroo Suntook, the longstanding chairperson of NCPA, he shared the story of how a casual chat over coffee with musical legend, Marat Bisengaliev, led to the birth of India’s first and only professional orchestra in 2006.

He first met Bisengaliev at an opera he was conducting in London. In their brief interaction backstage, Suntook asked him to bring his orchestra to play in Mumbai. “We of course didn’t really have the money to fly 25 people and their instruments down here. So I went to Dr Bhabha and said, “Look I’ve made this commitment and you better shell out!”.” After two successful shows in India, the two men slowly got to being friends and during a fateful conversation about their shared passion of opera, the idea of SOI was born.

Together they brought lots of well-known teachers to train their players and simultaneously developed relationships with various big names in the industry that have been instrumental in the orchestra’s growth. What also helped greatly in this endeavour was Suntook’s own deep knowledge and passion for the opera.

Around his teen years, his parents took him on a four month cultural trip to Europe which laid the initial groundwork of his interest. Over years of dedicated immersion, his understanding of the genre, its history and its conventions, grew polished, and provided a solid foundation upon which the SOI could be built. His commitment was not simply administrative but deeply personal.

Both he and Mehta, who have been close childhood friends since school, have often stood together for hours in the standing-rooms or “stehplatz”, of some of the world’s most prestigious opera houses. “It’s so crowded in stehplatz that if you lift up your heel, somebody else puts a foot underneath. It’s like a rock concert!” he exclaims. “But that’s what it’s like in Vienna. Classical music is still the most popular genre.”

It was a strange yet refreshing comment to hear when all that seems to be written about classical music is that it is a ‘dying art’. “What? Dying? Not at all!” Suntook looked at me incredulously like it was the most preposterous idea he’d ever heard. He proceeded to list all the busiest opera houses in the world, sparing no detail on their size, grandeur, prestige or popularity. “It makes sense to me because who can resist the voice of a Placido Domingo, or a Pavarotti? Pavarotti is basically pop now. Well, he is dead, but still.”

His take, though contended, was very much appreciated. It was exciting to hear that classical music could be popular, maybe not at the level of its counterparts, but at least still harbouring the universal potential to speak to people. To most connoisseurs, the genre is like a beautiful language that no one can understand. But to a select few optimists, it is a beautiful language that anyone can learn to understand.

Suntook enlightened me about the appreciation lessons held at the centre where Jimmy Bilimoria screens opera on Tuesdays and explains each piece in detail. Generally, he recommends listening to classical composers with a keen ear and becoming educated about each’s oeuvre and context. This background reading and effortful listening might sound tedious but it is not distinctive to the classical genre. Any style of music that a ear might be unfamiliar with is bound to be incomprehensible on first listen. I imagine Strauss too would require hefty research and furrowed eyebrows to understand the zest of modern pop. It is not that people don’t like classical. It is that they can’t decipher it just yet. But, like Suntook asserts, “Classical music is for everybody.”

I was reluctant to believe that when he first said that to me. Then, two days later at the concert, Zubin Mehta mixed together the spices, the water, the meat and the heat to play ‘Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka’, a piece inspired by Vienna’s gossip culture. His effortless hand captured the pithy, lively composition that mimics the city’s social life characterised by rapid chatter and occasional frivolity. You could tell how endeared Strauss was by Vienna, and I expected to be transported there immediately when I heard it.

But how could I? “Classical music is for everybody.” Not because it takes you where it wants you to go, but brings you back to where you’ve already been. I knew ‘Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka’ was about Vienna. But, when I closed my eyes, it was like he wrote it for Bombay.