The Battle at the Bastille : Music director Myung-Whun Chung is fighting an infamous bureaucracy and fickle audiences at Paris’ new opera house

Myung-Whun Chung, music director of the Bastille Opera, pulled off a musical coup on Nov. 13 at the gala opening of his first full season at the helm. Paris critics passed over such vocal luminaries as Placido Domingo, in his umpteenth performance of “Otello,” to praise Chung’s orchestra as “the great triumph of the evening.”

The Korean-born Chung--who was assistant to Carlo Maria Giulini at the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the late ‘70s--has been under close scrutiny since May, 1989, when he left his post as music director of the Saarbrucken Radio Symphony Orchestra to lead the all-new Bastille Opera, his first opera directorate.

Everyone knew that the 37-year-old, American-trained conductor had walked into a political powder keg. In January of 1989, Pierre Berge, president of the Paris Opera--which administers both the new Bastille Opera house and Paris Opera’s former home at the Palais Garnier--fired conductor Daniel Barenboim and thereby set off an international scuffle: Berge versus Barenboim and friends, which included several already scheduled conductors such as the late Herbert von Karajan. But Chung’s appointment took the musical world by surprise.

At first, Chung’s chance of success seemed slim. Barenboim’s plans for three seasons were in tatters. In eight months, which for opera is as good as tomorrow, Chung would have to hire singers for the official opening, whip a second-rank orchestra into shape and work out the kinks in a big, new, state-of-the-art house. He also had to learn French.

He passed his first hurdle last March at the opening of the steel, glass and limestone house. Both American and French critics checked off high marks for his sensitive, controlled reading of Berlioz’s “Les Troyens” (The Trojans). But they also held back final judgment.

Slightly over a year after his appointment, in his ultramodern gray-and-black office on the Bastille’s eighth floor, Chung is relaxed and gracious, but extremely cautious. He dresses casually, with a creamy white sweater draped over his blue velour shirt, and his words are slow and deliberate. Frequently he revises an idea in mid-sentence. “I spend most of my time guarding myself against those things that you can’t calculate,” he says at one point. (Those uncertainties probably include labor strikes, such as the one carried out by the Bastille Opera orchestra last week, sometime after this interview.)

Asked to describe his authority, he defers to the description in his contract. “I have, shall we say, the last say for the choice of all the musicians who are invited--guest conductors, singers.” Which is not to mean the final, or ultimate, say.

The Bastille’s fall season--following the abbreviated spring schedule of “Les Troyens” and “Kat’a Kabanova”, was selected by a troika, Chung says, of himself, administrator Georges-Francois Hirsch and general director Dominique Meyer. Occasionally, though, Berge puts in a definitive word. Take his choice of “Les Troyens” for the opening, over Chung’s proposal of “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.”

Chung is mostly responsible for the Bastille orchestra and chorus, and he chooses the stage directors for his productions, which this year include “The Queen of Spades” and “Samson et Dalila.” Though he may not hold Barenboim’s title of artistic director, he has turned the situation to his advantage. He presents himself to the press as a musician who has little time or talent for a desk job. “I hate administrative work,” he says. “I’ve never done it; I’ve always avoided it. So (in Paris) I would like only . . . to have the right of veto, as I do.” Day-to-day casting he leaves in others hands, though he adds, “We discuss the major roles.”

But Chung’s authority is even more limited by tensions deep within the Bastille administration because of its continuing ties to the Palais Garnier. “We inherited . . . the Garnier system of the past 200 years with its hundreds of insolvable problems,” Chung says. “Because of the problems of Barenboim, we have lost the opportunity to dramatically change the old opera system.”

Asked to name bureaucratic thorns in his side, Chung replies heatedly, “It took our office six months to get one lamp. Why? Because it had to get a signature from this person, then the controller, then . . . It has always been like that.”

Meanwhile, across town, the Garnier staff is looking relatively efficient. “They concentrate only on ballet, so the ballet works much better than it used to,” Chung says. But he adds, “We have (their) old problems, in addition to those one finds in every new building.”

Chung can talk candidly about the ongoing struggle with the old guard. After all, he’s hardly the one responsible. The plan to revamp the opera administration has progressed “not very far,” he says, repeating the words for emphasis.

To clarify, he adds with no prompting, “Professional ballet conductors are not the most inspiring conductors. That we all know. That’s why I’m anxious to find a permanent solution (to the Garnier) sooner than I had thought.”

Chung wants to cut down on bureaucracy and in-house politics as soon as possible, so he can concentrate on more important musical goals. “I don’t have the kind of personality where I can divide my attention and do well,” he confesses.

Chung is also a natural worrier, this time with good reason. “How do you calculate,” he asks, “what kind of reception you’re going to get from Paris musicians whom you’ve worked with a number of times and you didn’t like?”

Chung’s chief task in Paris is to raise the standards of the Bastille orchestra. At first, he had hoped to audition all new members; a new orchestra in a brand-new house seemed ideal. That is also what Barenboim had demanded in his contract, though he changed his mind, Chung says, sometime before his departure. After that, Marek Janowski, music director of the Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra and a leading candidate for the Bastille job, insisted that his entire orchestra be hired with him. At that point negotiations broke down, leaving Chung’s name at the top of the list.

Chung was directed to keep 120 musicians from the Garnier, though he has added 20 players and plans to hire 25 more this year. “I personally would like to have a team only for the Bastille in two years time,” he says. “We will need about 200 musicians because we will have another hall for modern and contemporary theater.”

But more important than new hires is raising the orchestra’s performance quality, which has been infamously unpredictable. Chung still remembers the first time he stopped his orchestra in rehearsal to ask, “Are you looking at this music for the first time today?” When an old-timer replied, “That’s what we’re here for,” he meant they had never mastered the work. “That’s what (the situation at the Garnier) has always been,” Chung says. A haphazard succession of administrators had left the repertory in shambles.

To get the orchestra to take him seriously, Chung took a risk. One day in rehearsal he remarked on the orchestra’s poor stature on the international scene. A revolt nearly broke out. Chung recalls, “People said, ‘Who’s this guy who comes in and says we have a bad reputation?’ ” Then he played his one ace, “I’m sorry but that’s all I hear from people I know who have been here.”

Today, Chung calmly continues “pounding away at the fundamentals,” he says, such as “playing together, playing in tune. We’re in a position where, if I were an instrumentalist, I would need to work on fundamental technical drills.”

Some days the soft-voiced conductor turns into a tough taskmaster. At one rehearsal Chung adopted what he calls his “German Kapellmeister approach”; he had the cello section repeat the same passage 15 times. “I felt that was necessary because I wanted . . . the players to hear the difference.”

Chung also needs a carrot in hand each time he asks his musicians to work a little harder. They “have to see that if they play well, other things come along,” he says. “More recognition, better pay, better conditions. (Otherwise) people run out of patience.”

But even in an opera house that cost $400 million and has a 1990 budget of $100 million (75% from direct government subsidies), Chung has had great difficulty finding more money for salaries. “No one thought to put aside one-tenth of 1% of the budget for the benefit of the musicians,” Chung notes, saying the government’s attitude is: “We spent all this money (on the building and the budget). You do what you can. We don’t want to hear from you.”

Chung must cope too with four musicians’ unions. If raises are passed at the Bastille Opera, the unions would demand increases for all French orchestras. (Chung won’t divulge his own salary, though it’s presumably lower than Barenboim’s contracted $1.1 million.)

To ensure his orchestra’s steady improvement, Chung plans to spend “something like eight months” of the year in Paris, he says, which is nearly double what was called for in Barenboim’s contract. He also needs the time in town to win over the fickle French press. “Korean Baguette at the Bastille,” tweaked one headline on his arrival.

And Chung still recalls his agent’s warning when the Bastille position first opened. “Be careful. It’s dangerous. People will get tired of you soon in Paris. It’s a different mentality . . . not like Germany where they expect you to just sit there. (Paris audiences) want change.”

In a city famous for its haute couture and chic visual arts, Chung takes local taste seriously. Each season will of course include several French operas and one contemporary piece, such as Luciano Berio’s “Un Re in Ascolto” (A King Is Paying Attention) this January. Yet, he discourages trendy programming by putting forward an international perspective. Both the Vienna State Opera and the Metropolitan Opera regularly stage Verdi, Puccini and Mozart, he notes adding, “The meat of the repertoire cannot be neglected.”

On stage Chung looks not so much like a prima donna as a team player. During ovations, for example, he always gives the lion’s share of the credit to his musicians. Likewise, in private, he tries hard to praise their playing. “There’s not yet been one performance where I can say they have not given their best effort,” he says.

If only performance quality were Chung’s sole worry. This is the first time he must handle not only labor unions and wage scales, but also video contracts, co-productions and even broader questions of organization.

He has also just signed a recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon. Then there are his guest engagements in Italy, especially opera in Florence, plus a week each year with the London Symphony Orchestra and scattered concerts in Germany.

But given a choice, Chung prefers his work in Paris to the jet-set glamour of faraway concerts. “It gives me personal satisfaction to work and work (in one city),” he says, “rather than go some place and put a few finishing touches on a piece that is already made.”

His five-year contract commits him to a minimum of 30 performances and 27 weeks in Paris per year. His average workday, with a suburban commute, stretches from 8 a.m. until well after 11 p.m. The grueling agenda worries him, especially with a wife and three young sons at home. “I think the schedule of morning and evening rehearsals is stupid. I need more time for myself,” he insists.

But at least at the Bastille Opera, that seems unlikely.