As general director of St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre, principal conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic and principal guest conductor of the Met, Gergiev seems, at first blush, much like any other globetrotting maestro. According to music critic John Ardoin, author of Valery Gergiev and the Kirov, Gergiev is "probably the most sought-after conductor today under the age of 50." But even with his busy touring schedule (tonight, he leads his Kirov Orchestra at Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall), he remains firmly committed to his priorities. Despite a keen nose for opportunity, he’s no opportunist – at least not in the pejorative sense. Rather, he measures all opportunities in the context his primary concern: the advancement of his beloved Mariinsky Theatre.

In 1988 he emerged as a poster-boy for Gorbachev’s perestroika, an intense young man chosen at the tender age of 34 to lead Leningrad’s Kirov Opera. Today everything has changed: Leningrad is once again St. Petersburg, and the Kirov Theatre has reverted to its czarist name, the Mariinsky (although its ensembles – the opera, the ballet, the orchestra and chorus – still tour under the name Kirov). The one factor that has remained constant is Gergiev. He’s no longer quite so young – his shaggy hairstyle disguises a combed-over bald spot – yet he has lost none of his intensity.

He hangs up the phone and settles into a couch. "The success of the Mariinsky was first of all because of the artistic approach," he states in richly accented English. "My role in many cases was to provide leadership – to inspire people, to convince people that we have to do things well."

Gergiev speaks of the chaos brought on by the collapse of communism, when the arts in Russia – traditionally supported by the state – were suddenly cut adrift. "In 1990 there was a sense of danger, and some singers and musicians started to look for an exit to some other place – no matter if it was a village in Germany or an orchestra in America. I was working very hard on morale. A man or a woman with a family who is not protected with a salary and a solid position has to have confirmation."

Yet in the midst of this meltdown, Gergiev found cause for hope. "There was enormous flexibility, and this freedom became our strength: we enjoyed flexibility unseen in North America or Europe. My way of surviving collectively was to give unbelievably hard, heavy and strong – but exciting – programs. My friends said, ‘Are you mad? You will last a maximum of three weeks. You want people to do things they’ve never done before – they will never do it.’ I said, ‘Alright, I will be out, but at least I will be proud of the reason I’m out.’"

Acting swiftly, in 1989 he signed a recording contract with Philips Classics. By 1991 he had negotiated co-production deals with the L’Opéra nationale de Paris and London’s Covent Garden, the first of many such exchanges with Western opera companies. In 1994 he made his first appearance at the Metropolitan Opera (and also in Canada, leading the Toronto Symphony Orchestra), and in 1997 he was named the Met’s principal guest conductor – the first in the company’s history. "I never thought seriously of taking any position outside of the Mariinsky," he recalls. "But [Met general manager] Joseph Volpe made an unusual effort to fly a huge distance to talk to me. And I have learned a lot from the Met."

Gergiev has built his reputation on a solidly Russian repertoire. In addition to such famous operas as Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades and Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, he champions rarely heard works by Prokofiev: The Fiery Angel, The Gambler and others. In concert, he favours symphonies by Rachmaninov, Shostakovich and Borodin. (There’s a slight irony in this: Gergiev is not, strictly speaking, Russian at all. Ethnically he is Ossetian, and he grew up on the mountainous Russian-Georgian border.)

In parallel with his conducting, he established a second career as an impresario, drawing from the Mariinsky’s talent-pool to stage music festivals in Holland, Finland and Israel. At home he has organized two Peace in the Caucasus festivals, in response to ethnic conflicts in this region, and his latest creation is an Easter Festival for Moscow. However, he’s most famous for his Stars of the White Nights Festival, presented in St. Petersburg every spring and summer since 1992.

"I hate planning things years in advance," says Gergiev, attempting to explain how he does it all. "I think first about the artistic goals. In Russia in the 1990s, things could only work this way – you couldn’t possibly plan by thinking first about money. You must have your plans – and if you have artistic force, the money will find you." And find him it does, with a little help from his glitterati supporters: Prince Charles has hosted a benefit gala; Plácido Domingo and Peter Ustinov are on the board of the Mariinsky’s charitable fund.

But financing is just one of many challenges that Gergiev thrives on, improvising solutions to problems as they arise. One and a half years ago, during the fateful September 11 attacks, he found himself stranded in Los Angeles with every airport in the United States closed. Undaunted, he traveled by car to Tijuana, hopped a plane for Mexico City and flew from there to Holland, arriving just in time to conduct an important recording session. Later, when war in Afghanistan made air travel over that country impossible, effectively grounding a Kirov tour to Australia, he prevailed upon his friend Vladimir Putin to call the president of the Philippines and arrange an alternate air-route over the Pacific Ocean.

Like all risk-takers, Gergiev has had setbacks: two years ago The Times of London declared a Kirov Opera tour to Covent Garden "a fiasco," and London’s Guardian complained of under-rehearsed stagings. But no one denies he’s done remarkable things at home under seemingly impossible conditions: The New Yorker magazine called him "a national hero in Russia," crediting him with making the Mariinsky "one of the most celebrated – and recorded – opera companies in the world."

Indeed, the relative health of his Mariinsky Theatre stands in stark contrast to Russia’s other major opera house, the Bolshoi. Plagued by years of infighting and management shifts, the legendary Moscow theatre – once the jewel in the Soviet crown – now lives in the shadow of its St. Petersburg rival. "The Bolshoi has a problem of leadership," says Gergiev, shaking his head. "In the last 20 years they have never figured out how they want to be led. There were warring factions – you had a disunited family of artists, and they started to look at contracts in San Francisco and Tokyo. And so this fantastic ensemble just disappeared within three or four years."

While the Mariinsky is hardly prosperous by Western standards – even famous singers may earn only a few hundred dollars a night – the 143-year-old theatre has a prestige that money can’t buy, giving artists a reason to stay in Russia. "Now, I don’t hear about people leaving Russia," observes Gergiev. "I hear about people coming back. Or coming back more often, or coming back and dividing their time between Russia and other places."

© Colin Eatock 2003

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