CLASSICAL MUSIC : Conductor Recounts Time He Turned Pages for Poulenc

“Poulenc was a wonderful man, if a bit strange. One day he would be quite morose; then the next he would be quite jolly, full of jokes. His public person was urbane and charming, and he was an extraordinary pianist. He made the piano sound like an orchestra.”

Conductor Richard Bonynge was recapitulating his memories of Francis Poulenc, the French composer whose major operatic opus, “Les Dialogues des Carmelites,” Bonynge will conduct for San Diego Opera in four performances beginning Saturday and continuing through the 18th.

Bonynge first encountered Poulenc in London, where the young Australian musician lived in the halcyon 1950s. Through a colleague whom he had accompanied--Bonynge was trained as a pianist long before he joined the conductor’s club--he was asked to turn pages for Poulenc.

“In 1951, this tenor from the Opera-Comique and (French soprano) Denise Duval came over with Poulenc, and I turned pages for all their rehearsals and concerts. It was quite a privilege. They did big excerpts from his opera ‘Les Mamelles de Tiresias,’ which gave me a tremendous insight into the music and the characters.”

Later in the decade, Bonynge saw “Dialogues” from the composer’s viewpoint when Joan Sutherland (whom Bonynge married in 1954) sang the role of the New Prioress in the 1958 British premiere of the opera.

“Poulenc came over for about three weeks. He was tremendously helpful. I’ve read where people have said that he didn’t like rubato and insisted on keeping things exactly in tempo. On the contrary--he was not like that at all. If he liked a voice, he would let the singer do an incredible amount of things. For instance, Denise Duval did exactly what she wanted, and he loved it. For Joan, he would rewrite passages for her, putting them higher because that suited her better. Where she was supposed to sing a short B-flat, he let her hold it for two bars. He wasn’t at all rigid about how his music must be if he liked the voice.”

Although Poulenc’s “Dialogues” was completed in 1956, Bonynge stressed that the opera’s musical style has nothing to do with the post-World War II avant-garde experiments.

“No one need be frightened because it’s written in 1956--it’s very melodious. Its style is indebted to (19th-Century French opera composer Jules) Massenet. Poulenc occasionally uses harsh harmonies, but for a reason: to explain harsh dramatic situations. From the many times I’ve seen the opera or performed it, the audience has never remained uninvolved. Very often, the audience is in floods of tears by the end of the performance. Even if you take away the music, it’s a very moving story. You don’t have to be a Catholic to appreciate that.”

Much of Bonynge’s conducting career has been as the more-or-less required pit conductor when Dame Joan sings in a production. Now that “La Stupenda” is modulating into retirement--she gave her farewell U.S. opera performance last fall in Dallas Opera’s “The Merry Widow”--Bonynge expressed no intention of cutting back his conducting.

“I’d love to conduct for six months and then have six months off to do what I want to do, but it doesn’t work out that way. This last year I had exactly one month off, which of course is my own fault, but I don’t mind it. People ask me if I’m going to teach in my retirement, but I really couldn’t stand it. I did so much of it in my life already--when I was age 14 I had 28 piano pupils.”

In addition to his admiration of serious French opera, Bonynge likes to conduct the comic operas of Jacques Offenbach and maintains an extensive collection of 19th-Century autographed manuscripts of French composers. When asked to explain his Gallic proclivities, he claimed never to have stopped to analyze this trait.

“I haven’t the faintest idea. I adore a lot of things French--I always have--but I analyze very little. I believe in instinct; I’m not an intellectual. For a musician, instinct is one of the most important faculties: you have to trust your instinct.”

Nor is Bonynge a musical snob. His newest project is an upcoming revival of Emmerich Kalman’s hoary World War I operetta “Die Csardasfurstin.”

“They’re doing a new production of the operetta in Australia. I enjoy digging out old pieces that haven’t been done for a long time.”

Song cycle premiere. Sylvia Wen, the Chinese soprano who made a favorable local stage debut in San Diego Opera’s “Boris Godunov” last October, will sing the premiere of Craig Bohmler’s orchestral song cycle “Songs in Stone” with the International Orchestra Thursday at 8 p.m. in La Jolla’s Sherwood Auditorium. One of the finalists in the 1989 regional Metropolitan Opera auditions, the Beijing-born soprano studied two years at Milan’s La Scala Opera Studio before moving to North America. Bohmler, currently artist in residence at the Texas Institute for the Arts, based his song cycle on the poetry of Marion Adler.

Getting to the church on time. Friday at 8 p.m., Thomas Trotter, the young British organ virtuoso, will play the first recital on the newly rebuilt organ at St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral. City organist for Birmingham, England, Trotter will conclude his program, which is co-sponsored by the San Diego Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, with a transcription of Rossini’s “William Tell” Overture.

Classical guitarist John Lewis-McLaren and soprano Rolly Abernethy will give a benefit recital to honor Le Ly Hayslip, founder of the East Meets West humanitarian foundation at 5 p.m. Sunday at the First Unitarian Church.