Weathering Storms, Real and Figurative

The Wizard of Id meets the Wizard of Oz?

Conductor Giuseppe Sinopoli, who graduated from medical school with a major in Freudian psychoanalysis, safely touched down in Kansas this weekend after a series of tornadoes had delayed one concert, his flight and at least one interview.

The Dresden Staatskapelle and its music director were in the middle of a whirlwind tour of the U.S. that began April 14 in New York and included a pair of concerts in Carnegie Hall. The tour ends Saturday and Sunday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa.

Sinopoli studied medicine and music simultaneously. If he seemed perfectly calm--in the eye of the hurricane, if you will--perhaps his psychiatric training had served him well. It wouldn’t be the first time since he took over the venerated group, the orchestra for the Dresden State Opera, in the former East Germany in 1992.

“There were many psychological problems, big problems, at the beginning,” Sinopoli said by phone from Overland Park, Kan. “Not between me and the orchestra--between the two Germanys.”

Sinopoli, who turns 50 this year, was in fact the first music director in four decades to be democratically elected by the orchestra’s musicians; after World War II, the Communist regime appointed its own maestros. His mission has been to help the ensemble rediscover its musical roots.

Well, not its deepest roots, which would take the Dresden Staatskapelle, considered the oldest orchestra in Europe, back to 1548. The orchestra made its first tour in 1575, to Regensburg; in Beethoven’s time, under Carl Maria von Weber, it was considered Europe’s finest orchestra.

Sinopoli seems to be focusing on the era spanning 1842 to 1942, when no less than Richard Wagner was at the helm (he first conducted “The Flying Dutchman” there) and extending through Richard Strauss champions Ernst von Schuch , Fritz Busch and Karl Bohm.

He hopes, he said, “just to try to come back to the old sound, what we know though records and through descriptions. Not the aggressive sound typical of modern orchestras, never forcing, not always these accents. . . . A very elegant homogeneity, we work very strong in this direction.”

In particular, Sinopoli cites the orchestra’s approach to the music of Richard Strauss, with which it has been intimately associated for virtually the entire 20th century.

“To play Strauss, other conductors aim for the very spectacular, very heavy, very dramatic, normally very loud sounds,” he explained. “But Strauss is very transparent, very fine. Not spectacular. Not heavy. It is dramatic of course but never ever aggressive.”

Saturday’s Philharmonic Society of Orange County program features Strauss’ “Metamorphosen” along with Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4 in E-flat, “Romantic.” On Sunday, it includes Strauss’ “Don Juan” as well as Schumann’s Cello Concerto and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 in B minor, “Pathetique.”

The orchestra’s repertory also includes Strauss’ valedictory and remarkably moving “Vier letzte Lieder” (Four Last Songs), which the ensemble performed at Carnegie Hall, and his final full-scale orchestral work, “Alpensinfonie” (An Alpine Symphony). Both were passed over for the Southland performances.

“Absolutely crazy,” Sinopoli said. “We turn in a list, the city chooses. “The ‘Alpine Symphony’ was written for this orchestra; Strauss conducted the first performance. This is one of the orchestra’s most treasured traditions.”

Sinopoli was born in Venice, Italy (he requested an interview in French or German but settled for English); he earned his music degree at the Venice Conservatory, then taught contemporary and electronic music there.

Before taking over the Dresden orchestra, he served as music director of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London.

His contract with the Staatskapelle was renewed recently, and in 1997, he assumes the post of music director for Dresden State Opera.

“It is my great pleasure that the Staatskapelle renewed my contract,” he said. “The letter that the orchestra members wrote is one of my most treasured possessions.”

Sinopoli composes; his opera “Lou Salome” premiered at the Bavarian State Opera in 1981. He has two sons, Marco, 10, and Giovanni, 13. He and his wife, Cynthia, a 36-year-old pianist, are completing doctorates in archeology, and are participants in an ongoing dig in Syria.

“Life is always study, not just what you have achieved at this moment,” he said. Where does he find time? “I don’t look at television. If you stop watching TV, you have so many more hours in a day--at least three days more in a week.”

* Giuseppe Sinopoli leads the Dresden Staatskapelle on Saturday at 8 p.m., and Sunday at 3 p.m., at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Presented by the Philharmonic Society of Orange County. $10-$47. (714) 553-2422.