Zubin Mehta, AWO & Richard Strauss (Australian World Orchestra)

[Tony Senatore]

Zubin Mehta, AWO & Richard Strauss (Australian World Orchestra)

Megan Steller

September 2, 2022

Zubin Mehta conducts the Australian World Orchestra. Photo © J Shurte

A live performance of any kind lives or dies on its energy. It matters, in many ways, less about what is being performed. A subdued audience can mean the difference between a knock-out and a slump. A mid-season lull can change what a piece says entirely. Energy, on stage and off, is everything. And energy was the first thing I noticed about this performance – the foyer was, clichéd as it sounds, abuzz. High school students and their teachers mingled amongst groups of professional musicians and arts administrators. Well-known faces were everywhere. Recent university grads gathered in circles to pour over the program. It was as if the Australian World Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Zubin Mehta were top-billed rockstars. As we took our seats, the audience was radiant with excitement. I peered around; here was a packed crowd, almost falling out of their seats in anticipation of Richard Strauss’s orchestral tone poems. What a gift this ensemble is, I thought, to give us such a sense of expectation mid-week in a Melbourne winter.

An announcement over the speakers introduced the orchestra, and then out they came – wild applause accompanying the artists to their seats. It felt electric: these individually extraordinary musicians receiving the reverence usually saved for football stars or pop singers. They beamed at us, we beamed at them. It is a deeply special thing that this ensemble delivers to Australian audiences: the music, of course, but more than that, it’s a reminder of how exceptional our artists are and how important it is to celebrate homegrown music-making. It is a reminder to be grateful when we visit our state symphonies, and to welcome back Australian artists when they return from overseas. After Covid, it feels even more poignant.

The audience erupted once again as Mehta arrives. He walks cautiously now, after so many years of dedicated service. Here is a man who holds over half a century of music inside him. He sits to conduct, and yet he loses none of his elegance. Mehta began quickly, no score in front of him – the music of Richard Strauss so embedded in his bones. Known for his Strauss interpretations, Mehta is fluent in this operatic symphonic language. His Don Juan opening was charged, channelling that electric anticipation emanating in the hall. The maestro’s movements are smaller now than they once were, but his presence is commanding, his musicality as strong as ever. The story – familiar to opera lovers – about a man in search of the ideal woman, who ultimately succumbs to despair and melancholy, was exquisitely drawn here. It was aided by an exceptional oboe solo acting as the meeting between Don Juan and his love, and a knock-your-socks-off horn section that interrupted their special meeting.

The Australian World Orchestra. Photo © J Shurte

Another tale of misadventure followed: Till Eulenspiegels Lustige Streiche (Till Eulenspeigel’s Merry Pranks). The two themes – first, in the horn, then in the clarinet, were shaped with clarity and humour, and the pranks that followed only became more joyful and fun; that is, until it all goes wrong for Till Eulenspeigel. He is caught, a funeral march plays, he is killed. The music – reverent, but not without a tiny hint of a happy ending – was played with such compassion by these world-class musicians. Maestro Mehta led with gravity.

After interval, the operatic hero’s journey: Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben. Across six movements, the composer quotes himself, creating a work that is broadly thought to be autobiographical. It is heroic (“it does have lots of horns”, Strauss wrote) and unrelenting; virtuosic and moving, with plenty of great solos for the concertmaster. The fifty-minute work had everything: power, fragility, expression, story, and it was over in a blink of an eye. The audience was thunderous. Tears were being wiped away around me, the orchestra itself was full of smiling faces. The work itself is complex and marathonic; a mountain easily scaled by these musicians and Mehta.

The power of the Australian World Orchestra is not found in the repertoire choices, nor (though of course, it doesn’t hurt) the world-class conductors that join the ensemble year on year. The power is the players; leaders in their respective orchestras, in their instruments across the world and at home, coming together in reunion to do what they each do best. There is power in the sense of homecoming, and in the deep sense of lineage. I have been going to see the AWO for years now, and it never stops being a joy seeing famous faces, new faces, and the faces of friends up on that stage. Long, long may it last.