Honeymoon in Cleveland

By Michael Walsh

Dohnanyi makes a strong entrance leading a proud orchestra

When the Cleveland Orchestra announced that Christoph von Dohnanyi would become its new music director beginning this season, he seemed an unlikely choice. Christoph von who? The German-born conductor, 55, grandson of Hungarian Composer Ernst von Dohnanyi, had made his career in Germany not principally as an orchestral maestro but as an opera conductor and administrator, most recently at the Hamburg State Opera. He had a reputation as a 20th century music specialist, a distinction that has little appeal at the American box office. By contrast, the Cleveland Orchestra is one of the proudest in the land. George Szell, who led it from 1946 until his death in 1970, made it into a rich, breathtakingly precise ensemble. His standards were upheld in the '70s by Lorin Maazel, who resigned to become director, briefly, of the Vienna State Opera. Would Dohnanyi be right for the job?

To judge by the evidence so far, the answer is yes. After an inevitable letdown during the two-year hiatus between Maazel and Dohnanyi, when various guest conductors took over, the future looks bright. The new partnership is currently basking in acclaim, inspiring hopes of a return to the glory days of Szell. Ticket sales are up: Severance Hall, the orchestra's home, is 95% subscribed. The orchestra, possessing the richest, most European sound of any U.S. ensemble, is playing at the top of its formidable form again. No one is happier than Dohnanyi. Says he: "Being the chief of an orchestra like this is an honor."

Dohnanyi's strength lies in warm but unsentimentalized interpretations of an essentially Central European repertoire. His love of contemporary music is already clear in his Cleveland programming: on a U.S. tour last month, he offered a ravishing performance of Arnold Schoenberg's unfinished atonal oratorio, Die Jakobsleiter (Jacob's Ladder), and an impassioned reading of Alban Berg's twelve-tone Violin Concerto, with Soloist Itzhak Perlman. The most recent Severance Hall program featured the late-Romantic composer Hans Pfitzner's Violin Concerto, a work rarely heard outside Germany. Yet Dohnanyi is also strong in more traditional fare, which he leads with crisp economic gestures. A propulsive but disciplined reading of Schumann's underrated Symphony No. 2 was one of the highlights of the orchestra's tour, and Dohnanyi's authoritative interpretation of Strauss's tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra restored all the familiar work's thrilling majesty.

Although the Clevelanders played well under the rather remote Maazel, neither they nor the city renewed the intense personal commitment they had to Szell and may have with Dohnanyi. "We're still on our honeymoon," cautions Kenneth Haas, the orchestra's general manager. "But there is no way you can escape the electricity among the musicians."

In Hamburg, on the other hand, Dohnanyi's departure provoked mixed feelings. Some detractors, punning on the pronunciation of his name and objecting to his guest-conducting elsewhere, called him Herr Doch Nie Da (Mr. Never There). Others found him a martinet, stinting on praise. "I've never experienced such a poisonous atmosphere," mutters one former colleague. "He criticized the smallest mistake." Dohnanyi's defenders applauded his imaginative programming and retorted that he made enemies trying to raise performance standards. Dohnanyi shrugs off the controversy. "To have difficulties is just part of the job," he says. "Fifty percent of the people will always be against you."

A passionate commitment to personal belief runs in the family. Both Dohnanyi's father Hans and his uncle, the eminent Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, were executed for anti-Nazi activities during World War II. For a time after the war, young Christoph gave up music in favor of politics and the law. "In times that are very difficult," he says, "an artist has to sacrifice his talent." He soon discovered, though, that "I could not answer the central question of my existence without making music." Dohnanyi worked his way up through the German provincial opera-house circuit in classic Kapellmeister fashion: Luebeck, Kassel, Frankfurt, Hamburg, where his brother Klaus is now mayor.

Dohnanyi has already endeared himself to his new community by buying a house in Shaker Heights, where he lives with his wife, Soprano Anja Silja, and their three children. "People tend to feel he's a part of the musical family," says Alfred Rankin, chairman of the orchestra's board of trustees. "After a concert, he doesn't go back to New York. Clevelanders like that." For Dohnanyi the appointment is a chance to prove that he belongs in the big leagues of orchestral directors. He plans to spend about half the year in Cleveland; in Europe he will guest-conduct without any formal affiliations. Says he: "You cannot be a major conductor without a major orchestra."

In the Cleveland Orchestra, Dohnanyi has just that; the rest is up to him. He seems ready to challenge the Chicago Symphony for the title of the nation's finest. "When someone asks me who is No. 1, 1 say that we are certainly not No. 2," he notes. "I think it was Szell who said, 'With this orchestra, you start where others finish.'" --By Michael Walsh. Reported by Barbara B. Dolan/Cleveland and Lizzie Lloyd/Hamburg

With reporting by Barbara B. Dolan, Lizzie Lloyd