Charles Dutoit’s Orchestra of the Digital Age

The Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal ends its 1988-89 season this week, with five concerts at Hollywood Bowl. The prospect finds music director Charles Dutoit treading a line of affable contradiction between the demands of reality and politesse.

“The orchestra loves to be here,” he says. “First of all, you see, we stay one week in the same hotel--it’s not like a tour. It’s really nice.”

But then there are those concerts. “Well, OK, it’s a bit difficult because we have four programs and very little rehearsal. These are the summer conditions in America all over the place, it’s always difficult.”

Dutoit is no stranger to Hollywood Bowl, having made his U.S. debut there in 1972. He was here with his Montrealers for a week in 1987, and is well-versed in the charms and the frustrations of the place.

“It’s a fantastic location for summer concerts,” Dutoit says, with his ready and persuasive smile. “The only thing that bothers me at the Bowl is these helicopter things flying overhead. The noise from the sky is sometimes really unbearable. Why do they permit this?”

After 11 years in Montreal, where he spends about 40% of his working time, be assured Dutoit knows his musicians well--and they him. More than two-thirds of them have joined the orchestra since he took over in 1978, creating a young ensemble that Dutoit has been able to mold into the prototype orchestra of the Digital Age.

“You mark the orchestra, you train the orchestra, and it’s very gratifying to have an instrument of your own,” Dutoit says. “On the other hand, after so many years, we know each other so well. It’s like in a marriage--we know our good sides and our bad sides, there is less secrecy between us.

“I don’t complain. I still enjoy very much working with my people, and I save a lot of time because they know my style, and I can do many, many programs with little rehearsal time.”

Familiarity in this case has apparently bred affection, as well as a record-making machine with few peers in the classical market. Under the circumstances, Dutoit does not anticipate any significant career moves, though he is well-known to major orchestras around the world.

“You see,” the 52-year-old conductor says, “I’ve been offered several orchestras in the last six years--at least five of them--in this country and in Europe. But, although these were good positions, somehow. . . .

“The situation in Montreal is not only my commitment to the orchestra, which I think is important to both sides. But it’s also that we are making a lot of recordings, and we have built a strong image in the world through these recordings--and we have won a lot of important awards, more than 20, in fact--so artistically and business-wise, both sides go well. And the orchestra is really very good--it’s damn good, you know. They play well.

“So I’m very happy with that. I’m not looking for a new job, but I’m not saying I will die in Montreal. You see, it’s open.”

In these days, with new CD releases and re-releases hitting the markets in legions, it’s hard to remember that in 1983 Dutoit and the Montreal Symphony were among the pioneers of the format. The clarity and vividness of the Dutoit-Montreal sound seemed made for the digitally recorded compact disc.

“The timing was just right,” Dutoit says of his first recordings with Montreal. “We had that new technology--not just the CD, but digital sound. It is true that the clarity of our sound is at its best on CD.”

At the same time, the recordings--40 now--have helped shape the direction of his orchestra’s development.

“I think, yes, the orchestra has reacted in their music-making--to achieve a very high level in terms of technical achievement--from hearing themselves on CDs. I think it has created a stimulation.”

Much of the Montreal repertory at the Bowl this week represents recordings past and future, including Ravel’s second suite from “Daphnis et Cloe,” which on a 1981 album (subsequently transferred to CD) launched the Dutoit-Montreal reputation.

Tonight is a Berlioz-Debussy-Brahms-Mussorgsky bill with violin soloist Pinchas Zukerman; Wednesday pianist Alicia de Larrocha is the soloist on a Mozart-Falla-Ravel agenda and Thursday it is Mozart, Beethoven and Shostakovich with pianist Stephen Hough. Pianist Andrea Lucchesini joins Dutoit and Company on Friday and Saturday for the annual Tchaikovsky spectacular.

After that, the orchestra is on vacation until September. Dutoit travels on to Buenos Aires, where he is based for two weeks of work with the World Youth Orchestra, and trips with his wife to Easter Island, Tierra del Fuego and the Galapagos.

Dutoit and the orchestra will be back soon, however. In October, they will play two concerts at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, and another at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. These are part of a four-week tour that will begin in New York and Washington and end in Japan and Korea.

Traveling with the orchestra is easier now for Dutoit. When he took his Montrealers on their first major tour in 1984, the excitement was almost too much.

“All these young people were really sick--they couldn’t take the pressure,” Dutoit says. “It was a very exciting tour, because it was right after the first success of the CDs, and there was a great expectation. especially in London, in Paris and in Berlin.

“I can say now, that though we always have a doctor with us, he is less and less busy!”

Dutoit will also return to the Music Center for the 1991-92 season, though he will be below the stage, not on it. He is working out the details for a new production of Berlioz’s monumental “Les Troyens” with Music Center Opera.

The conductor is devoting more of his time now to opera, although he says “I’m not an opera conductor as such,” and expresses impatience with opera rehearsal procedures. He will spend the first three months of 1990 at the Met, collaborating with director Harold Prince on a new “Faust,” and leading a revival of “Samson et Delilah.”

“It’s a long evening,” Dutoit says of “Les Troyens,” “especially because I’d like to do it without cuts.”

Bringing Berlioz’s Trojans to Los Angeles has other pressures.

“I want to be sure that I have good singers, because it’s such an important opera. You do it once in a lifetime.”