Interview with Olga Neuwirth
Olga Neuwirth is an Austrian composer who has worked extensively in Europe and the United States. She composed an opera “Lost Highway,” based on the movie by David Lynch, which premiered in the United States in February 2007. She was invited by the Harvard Department of Music to give a talk as part of series called “Composer’s Colloquia” on March 12, 2007. Her most recent concert, called Hommage à Klaus Nomi – a songplay in nine fits, took place at the Berliner Festspiele on March 6, 7 and 8, 2008.
Interview by Sabrina Dax
Could you tell us what your current concert, titled Hommage à Klaus Nomi – a songplay in nine fits, is about?
When I was thirteen, my father bought me an LP of Klaus Nomi, who had this incredible, angel-like voice, and his songs were a combination of pop and classical music. He trained his voice by himself to become a counter tenor. It was not at all common in the seventies and eighties to perform as a counter tenor. He was from a village in Germany and he went to Berlin and then to New York. His name was originally Klaus Sperber, and then he changed it to Klaus Nomi. So he created a new identity for himself, an alien figure of a sad clown, completely pale and white, with very robotic, mechanical gestures. I was completely intrigued by him and since the age of thirteen, I was always a fan of his songs and his personality. He was one of the first famous AIDS victims and he died at the age of thirty-nine. He was a man who was obsessed by becoming someone else and trying not to fit into the rules of society, which is a very important topic – at least for me. I rearranged nine of his songs (because of the content of the text) and called them a hommage.
How would you characterize your work? Are there particular themes you deal with?
Nowadays it’s hard to be a composer in the classical sense. We’re in a fast moving/changing world and everyone has to function immediately, but composing is actually an old craft and it takes a lot of time. I first studied film and painting, but then I thought that music is the proper form of expression for me. If I do music theater, I use texts which deal with the huge topic of human conditions, human existence. What is life, what is death, what is in between, what is sexuality, what is identity, how do people deal with everyday life and sorrow? I’m especially stimulated by living authors. Most of the people in my business go back to Goethe or Sophocles, but I want to show the problems with our conditions today, so that’s why I am interested in the language of contemporary authors.
Speaking of authors, what was it like to work with Elfriede Jelinek? How did you meet?
I’ve known her since I was fifteen. She’s actually one of my best friends. She always took me seriously even when I was very young and she always supported me. A woman composer is still very rare, and her spiritual support was very important. We have the kind of relationship where we don’t have to talk a lot, because there is a hyper-understanding. It’s often a problem if people always have to explain themselves and you still don’t find a common ground for understanding, but with her, it’s so easy, because we have a similar view of the world, and how to express it with irony, sometimes even sarcasm and seriousness. After I met her the first time when I was 15, I wrote her a letter, which she answered, and we met.
You lived in Berlin for four years. Does Berlin have a special significance for you in terms of your work?
Maybe not in terms of work. Berlin is not a city for new music. Berlin was always a city for theater and film, and maybe classical music, like with the Berlin Philharmonics, but new music is not really a beloved child of the city. My uncle lived in Berlin when the wall still existed, so I was here often when I was very young. Many artists came from everywhere, and there was a big solidarity and exchange of ideas amongst them. The first time I lived in the city was in 1995, when I received a DAAD fellowship. Then I came again after 2000. The prices for flats went down after 2000, which created another possibility to come to the city, and it became a more vivid and exciting place again.
Is there a difference between your experiences in the Europe and the United States?
They are different cultures. The tradition of what people listen to from their early childhood on is different, so the auditory memory of people is different. One is not better than the other, it’s just different. I think the expectations from a European in America are different, as are the expectations when an American comes to Europe. It is nice that I had some possibilities to be performed in the States, since it’s not the most prominent country for new music. One big difference is how people deal with their colleagues. There is more solidarity in the US.
There are more possibilities in Europe in terms of performances and money for this kind of art form. My kind of music is a minority. You are more dependent on funding from individuals in the States, whereas in Europe there is still more state funding, but it is becoming less and less. I think it is always interesting to see how governments deal/dealt with their artists – it shows a lot about society.
Where do you like to work?
I need calm places. As a composer, you sit there for hours and hours, weeks and weeks, months and months, alone at your table. I need silence to concentrate and to compose. When I moved back to Vienna, I looked for a very silent flat, and now I have one. I grew up in the countryside and therefore it’s also very important to go back to nature, to touch the grass, although I love cities. My life is a combination of city life with the possibility of relaxing in the countryside.
Do you know what your next project will be?
At the moment I’m composing the music for a two-hour film by Austrian film-maker Michael Glawogger, called Das Vaterspiel.