How hearing German romantic opera Der Freischütz changed the life and career direction of a Hong Kong-born conductor
- Perry So heard Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz when he was 18 and studying at Yale, and it blew him away
- Listening to the opera, conducted by Carlos Kleiber, opened the young student’s mind to the possibilities of music, inspiring him to become a conductor
A love story with pastoral, folkloric and supernatural elements, composer Carl Maria von Weber’s “Der Freischütz”, originally performed in 1821, was the first German Romantic opera. In 1973 it was recorded by the Staatskapelle Dresden orchestra under the baton of Carlos Kleiber, one of the 20th century’s leading conductors.
Perry So Pak-hin, a Hong Kong-born, US-based conductor who has worked with the Hong Kong Philharmonic and Los Angeles Philharmonic among others, tells Richard Lord how it changed his life.
I’ve never seen the opera, and this recording was the first time I’d ever heard the whole piece. I was 18, at Yale, and I was playing the piano in a voice lesson with a soprano. She was singing an aria from it. I just thought it was a cute, fun aria.
When I listened to it, I had my socks blown off. It was like being in black and white, and then someone turns on the colour. I went to the music library, where they had this on vinyl, and I got these humungous headphones and sat down.
I had no idea an orchestra could sound like that – that an opera could be that dramatic just through sound. It’s the archetypal romantic opera. At the age of 18, I had no expectations, and I was absolutely transported listening to this thing.
Gramophone (a classical music publication) did a survey of conductors, asking who was the greatest, and Carlos Kleiber was selected.