Dramatic Reunion With Tchaikovsky--and St.Clair

Pacific Symphony music director Carl St.Clair was one of two assistant conductors at the Boston Symphony in 1990 when he came to audition for the Pacific post.

At that time, the other Boston assistant was Pascal Verrot, who conducts in Orange County for the first time on Saturday, leading the Pacific at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre in a Tchaikovsky program that traditionally closes the orchestra’s outdoor concert season.

Even though they shared the same title in Boston, Verrot said, “We were on our own and pretty much separated--except for the major pieces of repertoire, where you need a lot of people and Carl and I were working together.

“I did all kinds of things. I most frequently worked with the Boston Chamber Players, there in Boston and on tour,” Verrot in lightly accented English during a recent phone interview from his home in Quebec, where he has served as music director of the Orchestre Symphonique de Quebec, the oldest orchestra in Canada, in the five years since he left Boston. “I also got to conduct the Boston Symphony in regular subscription concerts. So did Carl.”

As to whether there was any sense of rivalry between the two men who were once just a downbeat away from the top post at one of the country’s great orchestras, Verrot said: “No, not at all.”

Verrot, 39, grew up in a family of teachers. Both parents taught elementary school in Lyon, France. He has two older sisters and one younger. The oldest and youngest are musicians, the other is in private business. He credits the French education system for his career.

“As soon as I started in a music school at age 7, it went on and on,” he said. “I also kept on in a regular school through college and university. I was very busy.”

He began studying music theory, piano and oboe. “I had no idea when I started I would be a conductor. I decided just before getting my baccalaureate degree--this is a little different in France--I would do only music.”

He completed studies at the Lyon Conservatory, then went on to the legendary Paris Conservatory. “It’s legendary from the outside,” he said. “From the inside, it’s normal.”

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His career took a big step forward when he won third prize for his conducting in the 1985 Tokyo International Music Competition. “There was no first prize in 1985,” he said. “There were two second prizes. I also won a special award for the most promising conductor. [Boston Symphony music director] Seiji Ozawa, who was there as a judge, asked me to come and audition [for him] the year after. I succeeded there.”

Boston was a revelation, particularly in the quality of the guest conductors he watched. “The most exciting to me was the Russian school--[Yuri] Temirkanov and [Gennady] Rozhdestvensky--and the English school with Roger Norrington. Yes, it’s quite a range.

“I had difficulty with [the English school] at the beginning, but eventually I talked with those people to understand more what was behind what they were doing.

“For example, as far as Norrington is concerned, the first time I heard him conduct Beethoven’s Second Symphony with the English Chamber Orchestra, I had very big difficulties in hearing the stopped sounds on the French horns and the [many] crescendos-decrescendos not [written] in the music.

“[But] I realized more and more that theater was an aspect of music as much as music was an aspect of theater. I got to understand more and more how to give sense to each musical phrase to turn it into a kind of speech. So eventually I got convinced about the truth of that and the fact we are much closer to the spirit, I think, of those composers.

“I’m part of the music generation that was very much touched by the new way of playing Mozart and Haydn and even going back to Rameau. I do some Rameau with a lot of ornamentation. But I am not too fussy about that.

“Basically, I expect any musician, conductor or soloist to show what is their understanding of the composer, what they are moved by and what kind of person they are, rather than trying to give a ‘historical’ performance and hide behind Mozart or Tchaikovsky. I’d rather see the performer as a true individual, someone on stage who is giving a lot of himself.”

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Regarding the “Tchaikovsky Spectacular” he is conducting Saturday, Varrot said, “The ‘1812’ Overture is not anything you would do unless you wanted to have fireworks. But I am interested in the second and third symphonies. The Fourth starts his Sturm und Drang period and is more dramatic.

“What I like most in the Second Symphony, besides the total Russian quality”--it’s called the “Little Russian”--”is the quality of the development, the way Tchaikovsky plays with modulations, either straight or by developing quite outstanding things.

“The ultimate form of that would be [his opera] ‘Pique Dame,’ which is the greatest Tchaikovsky I know, the highest example he set. But the Second Symphony already has some of that as far as complexity of construction is concerned.”

He conducted “Pique Dame” in a semi-staged version in Quebec last year, part of a burgeoning opera career. He has conducted at the Lyon and the Metz opera houses in France, where he is scheduled to conduct Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” and Debussy’s “Pelleas et Melisande” in the next two years.

“I have medium-range plans to be more free of the symphony, so I can do more opera,” he said. “I have two seasons ahead of me in Quebec. Already my being there will be a handicap for conducting at Metz in 1997-98. 1998-99 may be a change for me.”

* Pascal Verrot conducts the Pacific Symphony in a “Tchaikovsky Spectacular” program on Saturday at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, 8800 Irvine Center Drive. The program will include the Symphony No. 2 (“Little Russian”), the Violin Concerto (with soloist Levon Ambartsumian) and the “1812” Overture, with cannons and fireworks. 8 p.m. $6.50 to $51. (714) 755-5799.