Conductor Christof Perick Doesn’t Want to Be Pigeonholed

His demeanor seems almost too reserved, too humble to be a conductor. Yet 43-year-old Christof Perick, who leads the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra in a program of Beethoven and Mozart at the Hollywood Bowl tonight, has an impressive resume.

Born and trained in Hamburg, West Germany, he followed the traditional German route to the conductor’s podium, working as a rehearsal pianist, coach and assistant conductor before becoming a music director. Having worked 11 years as a music director in several German cities, he is currently the principal conductor of the Deutsche Oper in West Berlin, and regularly conducts at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

Here, he conducted “Cosi fan Tutte” for the Music Center Opera last October. But he doesn’t want to be pegged as primarily an opera conductor.

“In Europe,” Perick said in a conversation at the beachfront home where he is staying this week, “especially in West Germany, all of the orchestras play opera, plus symphonies, so if you are the music director of one of those orchestras, you are chief conductor of the opera as well as chief conductor of the symphony in town. You’re busy with both sides of the repertoire. I’ve always liked that very much.”

He has, in fact, conducted a number of European orchestras, including the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic orchestras and the Orchestre Symphonique de Nice, as well as several American ensembles. Perick made his Philharmonic debut at a pension fund concert last February, and he conducted the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra in May, ‘87, and April and again in September of last year.

“I like to work with American orchestras,” he says. “Rehearsal time is short, but everybody is really eager and the musicians are very good. I think that the musicians on both continents are equally well-trained and competent, but the Americans have to be faster, because of the fact that they cannot spend hours and hours of rehearsal time.” Orchestras in West Germany, he points out, are tax-supported, so that additional rehearsal time does not present a great problem. “Rehearsal time in this country is really expensive for the management. That’s the big difference.”

Tonight’s concert will be his first Hollywood Bowl appearance, and the Chamber Orchestra’s first concert there since 1982, a post-season event that had to be rescheduled following a rare Bowl rain-out. Though Perick will not have the luxury of “hours and hours” of rehearsal time, he did not seem at all worried. “The musicians in the L.A. Chamber Orchestra are fantastic ,” he enthused.

The program includes Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante for Winds, K. 297b and his Overture to “Die Zauberflote,” as well as Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony. Although audiences are accustomed to hearing Beethoven’s music played by full-sized symphony orchestras, Perick looks forward to conducting the smaller group on this occasion. “I must say that, to me, some of the Beethoven symphonies are much more interesting with a chamber orchestra, and I get great pleasure doing them that way.”

He feels the same about Schubert’s music, which will compose about half of a concert Perick will conduct in October, when he returns to open the Chamber Orchestra’s regular subscription series. Along with that composer’s “Great” C Major Symphony, which will highlight the “excellent woodwinds of this orchestra,” he will conduct Bartok’s “Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste,” to focus on the string section. With no concerto on the program, the idea is to open the season by featuring the orchestra itself, and the many soloists within it.

Perick’s duties at the Deutsche Oper occupy two or three months of his time each season, leaving sufficient time for conducting abroad. “I’m enjoying that,” he said. “A music-director post in Germany takes six, seven, eight months a year (of one’s time). There’s not much time for free-lancing. After I did this for 11 years, I thought it would be good to see more of the world, see more orchestras and spend more time traveling. I’m busy with more and more orchestras in this country . . . I’ve been to San Diego; I’ll be conducing in Indianapolis, Salt Lake City, Detroit, and Vancouver.”

Might he accept a permanent post with an American orchestra? “Maybe . . . I’d like to work as a music director with an orchestra, either in Europe or here. . . . During the next few years it will be time to settle down and be with an orchestra again, as chief conductor.”