http://ipraudio.interlochen.org/ICD%20Douvas.mp3
Elaine Douvas, principal oboe of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, oboe instructor at Juilliard -- and Interlochen alumna.
Transcript of Island Cabin Discs on Interlochen Public Radio, hosted by Jeff Kimpton, August 4, 2012, in Interlochen, Michigan.
JEFF KIMPTON, HOST: (Waves crashing, soft music) Welcome to Island Cabin Discs on Interlochen Public Radio. This is the program that features the people you know about sharing the music they would take with them to a deserted island getaway in the middle of Lake Michigan. I'm Jeff Kimpton your host, and my guest today is Elaine Douvas, principal oboist at the Metropolitan Orchestra in New York City. Welcome, Elaine, to the Island.
ELAINE DOUVAS: Thank you.
KIMPTON: It's great to have you here and, wow, we've just been preparing the program. We have so much to talk about. First question is the same question we ask. Here you've got years of wonderful experience. How did you decide on six, seven pieces to take to your island?
DOUVAS: Well, what I really wish is I could take radio station WIAA with me to the island. (Laughter) I love this station. Interlochen is sort of a second home for me. I spent three years at the Arts Academy and five summers here and I still feel very connected.
KIMPTON: You come back all the time and teach which is why you're here, actually, now. So, inspiring the next generation of artists. The page you brought is full of ideas and themes and composers and recordings and yet you did narrow it down here to eight or nine.
DOUVAS: Well, surprisingly, there won't be any oboe and there won't be any opera.
KIMPTON: (Laughs) We're disappointing our listeners here early on!
DOUVAS: Most of the selections come from the time I wasn't a professional yet. As a professional you spend so much time honing your powers of criticism unfortunately it interferes with your enjoyment of music. So, if I were going to take comfort discs with me to the island they would be mostly piano music, ballet music, and things from films about classical music because that was a major inspiration for me. Sometimes I jokingly say everything I know came from the movies. But I'm nuts about movies on classical subjects, classical music subjects, and I love doing the research afterwards to see how close to the truth it was. My first love was Chopin.
KIMPTON: Let's move right to that first piece then because you were very specific about what you wanted.
DOUVAS: But there were zillions. My parents let me join a record club where I could order a couple of new things a month and everything I picked out was Chopin and Rubinstein.
KIMPTON: Well, you don't get a whole lot better Chopin than Rubinstein and you picked a great piece.
DOUVAS: Yes. The Chopin Barcarolle is my choice for a representative of this.
KIMPTON: Here we go. First piece of our guest today, Elaine Douvas, principal oboe with the Metropolitan Orchestra. It's Frederic Chopin's Barcarolle, here performed by Arthur Rubinstein.
(Plays Chopin Barcarolle performed by Arthur Rubinstein)
KIMPTON: Elaine, bring back some memories of those first records you bought in the Music Heritage Society or whatever the clubs were back then?
DOUVAS: Yes, the RCA Victor Record Club.
KIMPTON: There we go! That's right. A lot of listeners might not remember records. It's amazing when we have classes today and talk to kids about LPs and they look at you with this blind stare. (Laughter)
DOUVAS: I always turn to them and say, "Do you know what a record is?"
KIMPTON: Like it's a typewriter! Anyway, that's the Barcarolle by Frederic Chopin performed there by Arthur Rubinstein. How did you get started on the oboe?
DOUVAS: Well, I didn't come to the oboe until later. Piano was my first love and I think I came to it from my ballet class. That was the first place I really heard classical music. I was probably six. My family got a piano when I was about seven and I began lessons. My mother played a little piano. After the dishes were washed she would sit down and play and I would beg for her names of composers I could look up in the encyclopedia. And it sort of took off from there.
KIMPTON: And you grew up in Michigan, right?
DOUVAS: In Port Huron.
KIMPTON: So, the oboe started in elementary school?
DOUVAS: Sixth grade. After violin and french horn. (Laughter)
KIMPTON: You were finding your voice.
DOUVAS: Well, I was trying to find a way to get in it. I was desperate to find a way to get in it. When I started the oboe it suited my physical aptitudes. I never really could quite understand what it meant to have musical talent that was specific to an instrument. Of course, now it makes sense. I'm better as a one line player than able to digest a piano score or even an orchestral score.
KIMPTON: For me it is just coordination, so...
DOUVAS: And the oboe specializes in long, slow things where the tone is more important than fast fingers. And that suits me.
KIMPTON: And so you started the oboe and went through the normal school programs and then you came here for high school.
DOUVAS: It was my ambition to come here from before I'd even started the oboe. I'd heard about Interlochen from one of my neighbors who worked a summer job in the food service.
KIMPTON: There we go. From food to oboe. Five summers here but then you were here at the Academy in the early years of the Academy.
DOUVAS: You couldn't tear me away from this place. Still can't!
KIMPTON: After Interlochen you went to...
DOUVAS: The Cleveland Institute of Music.
KIMPTON: John Mack?
DOUVAS: Yes, he was my teacher.
KIMPTON: A teacher of many the great oboists in the world. Unfortunately, he's left us but his legacy lives on. Let's go to another piece of music here while we're talking, another piano concerto. I think it's interesting you said, "I didn't want to pick opera or oboe. I don't want to work." (Laughter) And it does. It brings in all those reference points of things you have to be doing in your day job. But this is gorgeous music so...and you were very specific about the recording as well.
DOUVAS: Yes.
KIMPTON: The great Van Cliburn and Fritz Reiner, Chicago Symphony. So, this is an early recording, I would say very late '50s or '60s, and one of the great orchestras of the time. Let's listen, and did we ask what movement you wanted?
DOUVAS: We should start right at the beginning with its lovely oboe solo, played by Ray Still of the Chicago Symphony.
(Plays First Movement of Schumann Piano Concerto)
KIMPTON: That's the first movement of the great Schumann Piano Concerto there performed by Van Cliburn with Fritz Reiner conducting the Chicago Symphony. When you hear that piece and it begins the oboe, you talked earlier about sometimes when you listen to that you're called to criticism because of the high levels that everyone expects.
DOUVAS: These pieces date from the time when music was simply something I loved, and before I had honed the habits of listening critically and nitpicking my students, nitpicking myself, or being nitpicked by someone else. (Laughter)
KIMPTON: Anthony Tommasini! What you want is the, "...and the oboe was transcendent," and it's hard. Can you, this is a question I often ask, if you don't know the orchestra and you just hear it blind can you by sound pick out and guess what performer or oboist it might be?
DOUVAS: I can come pretty close.
KIMPTON: I bet you can. Because the sounds are quite distinct aren't they? I mean, maybe not to the untrained ear...
DOUVAS: Oboe is still played very differently from country to country. And even within the United States there are a lot of...The oboe has a very personal tone and you can recognize individuals.
KIMPTON: So, Cleveland. And after Cleveland where did you go?
DOUVAS: I studied there for three years and my lucky day was getting a job as principal oboe with the Atlanta Symphony.
KIMPTON: And how long were you there?
DOUVAS: I stayed there four years. That was just a remarkable career break.
KIMPTON: Was that with [Robert] Shaw?
DOUVAS: Yes.
KIMPTON: That was again, a very specific musician. He had very specific desires of what he wanted out of the music.
DOUVAS: One of my regrets is that I didn't attend his rehearsals with the Atlanta Symphony Chorus to see how he worked his magic. We saw some of that in the orchestra rehearsals but I wish I had gone every week. He was so amazing in that medium.
KIMPTON: Yep, he really was and he really set the gold standard. And after Atlanta was it on to New York then?
DOUVAS: Yes. I joined the Metropolitan Opera when I was 25.
KIMPTON: And the rest is history. So, you've been there two years now, right?
DOUVAS: Right. (Laughter)
KIMPTON: We're going to talk a little bit about secret stories from the Metropolitan pit and other things here but I know we want to get another great piece of music. You picked you call the "mad oboe scene" from Symphonie fantastique of Hector Berlioz.
DOUVAS: Symphonie fantastique has lots of connotations for me. The first time I played it was here at Interlochen with Clyde Roller. And he was such a funny man. He had a box of animal crackers twined around his shirt button and if you played something well he'd throw you an animal cracker. (Laughter)
KIMPTON: I don't see that in a lot of union contracts today. (Laughs)
DOUVAS: And he had a lot of expressions like, "Oh, fish fuzz!" (Laughter)
KIMPTON: Whatever it takes to motivate young people, right?
DOUVAS: But the Symphonie fantastique is one of my favorites and I've played it really every place I've been. It brings back happy memories of Interlochen, of the Cleveland Institute where I played it under James Levine who was conductor of the school orchestra. I played it in Atlanta. I played it at the Grand Teton Music Festival. And then it was our tour piece for Met Symphonic concerts. And I played it at Aspen. And I'm playing it again this summer, I can't wait!
KIMPTON: Well, then I guess you're kind of going to go back to work if we play this piece. We'll try to gloss over that. The great piece, Symphonie fantastique by Hector Berlioz. This is the first movement, and as Elaine says the "mad oboe scene." Let's listen. This is the New York Philharmonic here with Leonard Bernstein.
(Plays First Movement of Symphonie fantastique by Hector Berlioz)
KIMPTON: Well here you are in New York, and the great legacy that Bernstein of course left the city, and the opera has been there for so long. It's like a dream job in a lot of ways, isn't it?
DOUVAS: It is. I have to remind myself, pinch myself and say, "Am I really here?"
KIMPTON: How many performances a week do you typically do when the opera is in season?
DOUVAS: Four is the standard number per individual but I don't want that to be mistaken for a four-day workweek as the newspaper is fond of saying during the negotiating times. We rehearse.
KIMPTON: Right, I was going to ask and then the rehearsals are on top of that. And how many hours a week are in rehearsals?
DOUVAS: Rehearsals take place four or five days a week for about three and a half hours. I don't play all of them. There are two principal oboes. We divide up the work. There are seven performances of opera every week. So, we split them up.
KIMPTON: It's a lot. So, when you think of, you got to be on your A-Game every time Levine or Fabio Luisi or whoever it is points to you. How mentally do you prepare yourself for a performance? Particularly one in which you may...do you sometimes have a rehearsal and a performance on the same day?
DOUVAS: Definitely.
KIMPTON: So, you've got a lot of hard work, and you have this very fragile thing called a reed that do wear out and have to be constantly remade and tweaked and shaved. And then mentally you got to be on top of that because sometimes the reed is deteriorating while you're playing it. So, tell our audience a little bit about how you have to stay right at the peak of your game all the time and what that means for you in terms of preparation.
DOUVAS: An oboist spends so much time making reeds, more time really then you spend practicing. They could use daily attention and you have to have back ups because they do deteriorate on the spot. And sometimes one reed can't last through a long opera. Some of which are five or six hours long. And I commute from New Jersey. So, rehearsal in the morning, performance in the evening. I'd like to cut down on driving time so i frequently do my teaching in between. And to try to be fresh for a 7:30 opera after such a day...
KIMPTON: Takes a toll?
DOUVAS: Well, I wouldn't say so. One of my colleagues described opera players as distance runners as opposed to sprinters. I'm used to it. I can mentally reset my clock before the performance, and settling down into my chair and playing beautiful music is, on some level, relaxing after a long day of being critiqued at rehearsal and critiquing other people while I'm teaching.
KIMPTON: So, what happens to the reed? You said it's actually deteriorating while you're playing it sometimes. Does the cane simply, the vibrations, gets waterlogged?
DOUVAS: Waterlogged is a factor. Clogged up with the debris of blowing through it. It just loses its springiness, its vibrancy, its quality and you have to retire it. Sometimes they literally crack.
KIMPTON: Oh, well true, right. Just for our listening audiences to know, the reeds are two pieces of cane that have been shaved in a very particular way and theres' a whole set of very expensive knives that you have to have to cause them to...
DOUVAS: The machinery that goes into making that cane the perfect size and the perfect shape would be mind-boggling for most people.
KIMPTON: But it has to have this very particular opening, aperture, and then that's where the air is blown through. Gradually, the cane, of course, is an organic substance and it's going to wear out.
DOUVAS: We're dealing in hundredths of millimeters which is something the engineers who make our equipment can't believe.
KIMPTON: It's an art to make them but it is oftentimes the bane of oboe players, of double reed players.
DOUVAS: The one thing I'd say in terms in preparation is on any day that I have a long Wagner opera, something of five or six hours long, I try to make a point of doing nothing else that day. It takes the whole day just to mentally prepare to concentrate for that long.
KIMPTON: So, how many reeds do you typically have in reserve for a longer run or a Walk"ure or...?
DOUVAS: I like to have three sturdy reeds if I need it. Now and then a miracle occurs. I think I played all of the Die Meistersinger that's recorded on DVD on one reed. It was a lovely reed. Very sturdy.
KIMPTON: And you wish it were back all the time. (Laughs)
DOUVAS: Oh, I wish I could just have one like that that stays!
KIMPTON: Well, we'll come back here and talk a little bit more about the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra of which Elaine Douvas, our guest today, is the principal oboist. Let's go to a little Ravel. Alborada del Gracioso. You've played this?
DOUVAS: I haven't played it. I decided to make an arrangement for oboe and piano so that I could enjoy running my fingers over this lovely piece. But I've never gotten to play it in orchestra. It's one of my favorites.
KIMPTON: Well, maybe it's on your bucket list, right? Your wish list. Alright, and this is going to be with the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by...
DOUVAS: Pierre Boulez.
KIMPTON: Oh, that's right.
(Plays Maurice Ravel's Alborada del Gracioso performed by the Cleveland Orchestra)
KIMPTON:You're listening to Island Cabin Discs on Interlochen Public Radio. I'm Jeff Kimpton, your host, and my guest today is Elaine Douvas, principal oboist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in New York, and currently on the faculty of the Juilliard School.
(Continues Maurice Ravel's Alborada del Gracioso performed by the Cleveland Orchestra)
KIMPTON: That's a piece that Elaine Douvas has not played. The Ravel Alborada del Gracioso with the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Pierre Boulez. So, you're in the pit and of course up above you is this incredible group of singers, special effects, and staging, we won't get into the Robert Lepage, all the machinery cranking. But there's really two parts of this. And you're in the pit and then there's the opera above. How do you marry the two? Do you have video down there, can you see what's going on, and can you hear? Are there monitors?
DOUVAS: Well, we hear the singers directly. Not through monitors. It's distracting when you can see the stage.
KIMPTON: I was wondering if it would be.
DOUVAS: Usually, I'm sitting with my back to the stage right in front of the conductor. But for some operas they move the wind section off to the side near the front wall of the pit. From there you can see the stage and it's terrifically distracting. You get involved in watching and enjoying the story and next thing you know you've missed an entrance.
KIMPTON: And hearing some amazing singers as well.
DOUVAS: Yes. Now that they make so many DVDs you can just go buy a DVD and see what's happening on the stage.
KIMPTON: So, is it the conductor who kind of pulls the whole thing together and for you that makes it a whole even though you're part of a whole?
DOUVAS: Yes. And some conductors who are not used to opera find it very difficult to make the motions large enough for the stage to see it and not so large that it encourages the orchestra to play too loudly.
KIMPTON: So, there's been a lot of press in the New York Times about James Levine's physical medical condition. It's very sad. Fabio Luisi has now come in. Can you give just a list of some of the really memorable conductors you've worked with who have been particularly inspiring and successful?
DOUVAS: Well, those two are very inspiring. Of course, I've worked for Levine for 35 years at the Met and he was my conductor in school at the Cleveland Institute. I love working with Levine. He works in such detail and builds the sound of the orchestra and the character of the drama. Luisi is great too. He'll be different. We haven't experienced him for long enough to see exactly how he will build the orchestra if it becomes his to build. Levine still says he's coming back.
KIMPTON: Well, he's very stubborn and very passionate. Were you at Cleveland with Jorja Fleezanis when she was there? Because she talked about Levine, too.
DOUVAS: Yes, I was at Interlochen with Jorja Fleezanis, also.
KIMPTON: That's right. She talked about that he conducted and also did chamber music with her at Cleveland. So, it's an amazing little group of people who have moved around together and it's very fascinating. Um, pit stories. I'm sure there's times where things don't always go exactly as you would expect either musically in the pit or on stage. Any that come to mind that are funny or romantic for our listeners?
DOUVAS: Well, the top of the funny list is the day we were playing La Boheme. Levine was on the podium. And at the very beginning the four starving artists in the attic decide to burn a play so that they can get some heat from the fireplace. And the fire got out of control. It was smoking and smoking and I guess one of the singers was gesturing to Levine and pointing to the fireplace that something needed to be done. And finally a big, burly stage hand in a t-shirt came out with one of those giant cans of fire extinguisher. Levine cut the orchestra off and gave him a thumbs up. And he squirted the fire and put it out and then the singer, Mario Sereni, poured him a glass of wine and gave it to him. (Laughter)
KIMPTON: And the audience applauded.
DOUVAS: Yes, and then we resumed the opera. That was hilarious.
KIMPTON: So, many different things, musically, technically, voice, people can get ill. Sometimes the sets don't move like they're supposed to move. It's incredibly complicated. It really is.
DOUVAS: Well, we are asked to not schedule things immediately following pit rehearsals. All pit ending times are approximate and that's because if the scenery breaks down we're expected to stay until the rehearsal of the music can be finished.
KIMPTON: And James Levine did something very daring with this incredible orchestra that's often hidden in the pit is he took it out of the pit. And you have become an amazing onstage orchestra in your own right getting front and center applause instead of applause with the singers. How is that process?
DOUVAS: It's fantastic opportunity for us to keep our hands in with the symphonic repertoire. And, of course, it builds the orchestra's quality and morale. We're hoping so much that this continues even if we don't have Levine with us.
KIMPTON: So, is it a little different for you being on Carnegie Hall stage than in the pit? Or do you have a different sense about it? Of course the size of the hall while you're looking out would be almost, well, the Met's bigger. Do you approach it differently or not?
DOUVAS: Not really. Both the Met and Carnegie Hall have great acoustics. It's wonderful to enjoy the acoustics of Carnegie Hall but the mindset is really no different.
KIMPTON: I know some question is whether or not there's any amplification of any voices or the orchestra. I've always said there's not.
DOUVAS: Well, there's not supposed to be. Occasionally they do have to amplify things that take place backstage, especially if it's behind heavy scenery. I don't know.
KIMPTON: I've been told "no."
DOUVAS: I've been told "no" also.
KIMPTON: That really speaks to the acoustics of the Met, then. When you have a full 80 piece orchestra in the pit and then singers on stage and yet it carries and you hear. It's remarkable, right?
DOUVAS: Yes.
KIMPTON: Let's move onto another piece of music. This is some wonderful piano music. The Goldberg Variations. Do you know the Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould?
DOUVAS: Of course I do! I'm a Glenn Gould fan. I've seen all the movies.
KIMPTON: Wrapping your hands in cold cream in 68 degree temperatures, right? Anyway, this is the Goldberg Variations. Did you ever have a chance to see Gould perform?
DOUVAS: No.
KIMPTON: I didn't either. I would love to because he's a fascinating character. Let's listen. Glenn Gould, the Goldberg Variations. This is the theme and the first variation.
(Plays Bach: The Goldberg Variations performed by Glenn Gould)
KIMPTON:Glenn Gould, the Goldberg Variations. Elaine, you are a passionate teacher. You teach at Juilliard. You do workshops around the country. You return to Interlochen almost every year to do the very famous Oboe Institute. Tell us what you're seeing in young oboists today. How are they coming to you? Are they better prepared? More technically proficient today than they might of been thirty or forty years ago? And what do they need as young oboists today?
DOUVAS: Well, I think the analogy with the Olympics is apt. I do a lot of figure skating as a hobby in my spare time so I follow figure skating. I remember the days when to do a triple jump is a big deal. Now men are doing quadruple jumps. The bar has gone up astronomically, and not just technically, but artistically also. And it's very hard for any musician to attain gainful employment. (Laughter) There's much more reed making knowledge around than when I was a young player. Kids in highschool now have been trained to make reeds and that has such an effect on their ability to play in tune, to make consistent attacks, to control their dynamics. So much of it comes from the reed. I'm lucky to work in such a famous school as Juilliard. The students are astonishing. The level at which they play, it's heartbreaking to see them go to audition after audition and nobody gets hired. I can't understand this. Nobody plays their best at an audition. If they'd just give them a chance to get started. Let them play their two years probation period and grow and grow. Some things have to be learned on the job.
KIMPTON: So, do we need more new orchestras that are created for that purpose? More New World type of groups where people can have an opportunity? Or will this drive people to create different chamber groups and create their own opportunities to play since there are limited opportunities in the big orchestras?
DOUVAS: Well, wind instruments--our best literature is the symphonic literature. A wind player can't last for long on chamber music. There are many great pieces but not enough to sustain you for a lifetime, in my opinion. So, more than more training orchestras I wish there were more orchestras, professional ones that are supported by their town. There are really no bad orchestras. They're all full of recent conservatory graduates who play brilliantly. And it's heartbreaking to see so how many orchestras are in financial difficulty and cutting their seasons and going out of business.
KIMPTON: Which reduces the amount. There's a statistic I heard about a year ago given that the live music making in real orchestras continues to be a rarified environment in terms of employment and growing employment. "The number of music majors in American colleges and universities has increased by 15,000 in the last twelve years." I think it speaks to the power of the arts, the power of music, that many people deeply are committed to music and ultimately as the professional opportunities aren't there they wind their way into other things still staying connected to music. But in these times in which there's less work there are more players. Many are coming from overseas, international students of incredible talent. And the world of classical music is actually growing overseas a little faster than it is here. But it's an interesting thing to see the number and the increasing quality that's happening even though the opportunities for, at least orchestral playing here, are becoming more limited.
DOUVAS: It's sad.
KIMPTON: Yes, it is. It is. But, nonetheless, there are still great oboe players who are needed to play Swan Lake. (Laughter) And we're going to move to Swan Lake here. And you were very specific about the piece you wanted here, the "Dance of the Four Cygnets." Tell us a little bit about what our audience is going to hear. Maybe you could talk a little bit about the characteristic sound, in this case Tchaikovsky or Prokofiev.
DOUVAS: Yes, if you ask most kids if you ask them "what made you choose the oboe?" will immediately identify their early experience with Peter and the Wolf where the oboe is portraying the duck. And here in Swan Lake the four little swans are played by a couple of oboes. (Sings the opening line of "Four Cygnets") (Laughter)
KIMPTON: Well, let's listen to our "Four Cygnets" here. This is the "Dance of the Four Cygnets" from Swan Lake by, of course, Peter Tchaikovsky here performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Muti.
(Plays "Dance of the Four Cygnets" from Swan Lake)
KIMPTON: That's the "Dance of the Four Cygnets", Swan Lake. Philadelphia Orchestra, Riccardo Muti. The Met made a great step with it's launching of the HD broadcasts. Suddenly, an audience grew that perhaps was listening on public radio which was great.
DOUVAS: It was a brilliant idea.
KIMPTON: It was a brilliant idea. How did it go over with the musicians? Was it a little controversial at first or did people recognize the brilliance of what it would mean? Because it's helped ticket sales grow. It's created a whole new generation of people who are becoming more and more interested in opera.
DOUVAS: Well, I believe the first couple of seasons of HD broadcasts were money losers.
KIMPTON: Yes, they were.
DOUVAS: And now it's become very popular and very profitable for the Met. From the performer's standpoint it is more pressure. We're also on Sirius Radio live four nights a week. You know, somebody who doesn't play for the orchestra came up to the explanation of this week's payroll and said, "Gee, I wish I got that much extra money for doing what I would do anyway." Yes, we're trying hard every night! But it is extra pressure when you know it went coast to coast and not just the 4000 people who are in the audience. I guess we've done it for so long now that it's a habit and it just is a harder job than it used to be for that reason.
KIMPTON: I bet it is. Mentally, there's the everybody needs to know that everybody's got to be prepared whether you're a trumpet player, a violinist, an oboe player. There's a physical, mental, musical...there was a term used in the '80s called "automaticity" that gradually the exercises, the patterns, all come together with the knowledge, the ear. Everything has to come together at that point in time. And if you know that millions are listening besides 4000, mentally you have to think about that.
DOUVAS: It's pressure.
KIMPTON: But you do it so well. And it's brought a whole new generation to opera. Do you see opera continuing to grow as a result? Because regional opera attendance is going up as a result. So, people aren't substituting this as a virtual. It's spurring them to come to New York and go to opera elsewhere.
DOUVAS: It's great. Well, I've attended a couple HD broadcasts myself. It's fun. You can eat popcorn and watch the opera and be there in a sort of community feel with the audience who loves music also.
KIMPTON: Right. And just thinking that as an audience, when you're not in the pit, do you ever go just to your Met yourself and sit and watch and listen?
DOUVAS: Oh, yes. The Busman's Holiday. Yes, we do that.
KIMPTON: Do you find that you're able to do that or does the critic come back as a result? Is it hard to divorce listening to all the fine points of these operas that you know like the back of your hand?
DOUVAS: Criticism, critique is not foremost in my mind. I'm enjoying the scenery and the singers and answering some questions that I can't answer from the pit. How much does it project? How loud do I need to play?
KIMPTON: Yeah, sure. You know Elaine, as they say in the South, you're steppin' in tall cotton all the time with great, great musicians, singers, instrumentalists, conductors. It's a very rarefied world that we live in and we really appreciate you being here and sharing it with us. But even then there are certain moments in time that you as either a performer or listener are transcended to yet another place. Anything come to mind in your life that you think of as you always come back to and say that was an amazing experience?
DOUVAS: Well, I think Levine's last performance of the Walk"ure which was the end of the 2011 season, felt like a historical experience while we were doing it. Everyone was just giving it everything they had. I wish I'd had better reeds on that day. It was a really hard week. But that will always live in my memory.
KIMPTON: Perhaps because people knew it might be the last.
DOUVAS: Yes, I think so. I certainly hope it won't be, but...
KIMPTON: Anything else in your career?
DOUVAS: Many of the symphonic things that we did in Carnegie Hall with Levine. Brahms' Second is the top of my list. Also, I enjoyed so much playing the Schumann Piano Concerto, one of my favorites. Of course, many of the famous singers, especially when there's a newcomer with a really exciting voice. I remember everything Jon Vickers did was just so dramatic. His Otello, and his Fidelio, and his Parsifal. He was astonishing.
KIMPTON: And that energy that they are able project has a kind of a transcendent effect on the orchestra as well. Because you're making music together. It's really a duet in a way and very exciting.
DOUVAS: Yes.
KIMPTON: Elaine, this has been so much fun. I know there are many more pit stories that people want to hear and the behind the scenes at the Met. But we're running out of time. And it's been terrific being here! Thank you for being back in Interlochen and inspiring young oboists here once again, and for being a great alum of Interlochen and representing all of us. We continue to watch and look for you in the pit when we're out at the State Theater watching the HD broadcasts.
DOUVAS: It was fun taking that trip down memory lane!
KIMPTON: It was. It was a lot of fun. And hopefully this little respite to the island gave you a little break before you go back to New York. We're going to close here with another favorite of yours. Do you want to introduce it for us?
DOUVAS: Well, the last one I choice is Jeux, a ballet by Debussy. Also connected with my love of ballet and the film Nijinsky. And I chose the performance by the Cleveland Orchestra because that was where I studied in Cleveland.
KIMPTON: That's exactly right. Cleveland Orchestra, Pierre Boulez. Elaine Douvas, thanks so much.
DOUVAS: Thank you.
(Plays selection from Jeux by Claude Debussy performed by Cleveland Orchestra)
KIMPTON: My guest today was Elaine Douvas, principal oboist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. For more information about the music you've heard on Island Cabin Discs, go to ipr.interlochen.org and click on Island Cabin Discs. Or write to us (ipr@interlochen.org) and refer the program featuring guest Elaine Douvas. I'm Jeff Kimpton, your host, thanking you for being with us today. The Executive Producer for Island Cabin Discs is Thom Paulson and this edition of Island Cabin Discs was produced by Brock Mormon for Interlochen Public Radio.