REVIEWS: KAZUSHI ONO Kazushi conducts

Reviews for The Fiery Angel

‘….what the orchestra of La Monnaie achieves under its chief conductor Kazushi Ono, deserves high praise. Ono is a master of the development of sounds and phrasing, and at the same time he has a marked feeling for rhythm. Whether he conducts ‘Tannhauser’, modern classics or avant-garde, his profile is immediately recognisable.’ NZZ

‘Kazushi Ono is the name of the virtuoso fireman conducting, and he makes the orchestra kindle his instrumental flame throwers fully, with verve and rhythmical precision.’ Die Welt

‘Kazushi Ono conducts with fire and precision, the orchestra of La Monnaie, that is singularly virtuoso and homogenous….’ La Croix

‘At the head of the concentrated and energetic orchestra of La Monnaie, Kazushi Ono is once again the triumph of the evening. His conducting is energetic and precise, clear and profound. It brings out the violence of the story and the suffering of the characters.’
La Scène

‘It was left to Kazushi Ono and his orchestra to inspire us with Prokofiev’s motor-driven rhythmic patterns and sizzling crescendos.’ Financial Times.

‘Simply divine A blockbuster Fiery Angel inspires manic devotion in Hugh Canning.’ Sunday Times.  

Reviews of the LPO, February 2007

‘Kazushi Ono…charted the music's structural journey with rare insight.’

‘…..and it was lucky to find in Kazushi Ono a rare conductor able to keep intact the original programme's unusual juxtaposition of Fauré and Ravel with Sibelius.’ Telegraph.
 Reviews of TRISTAN & ISOLDE, LA MONNAIE, October 2006
 
Le Soir en Ligne
Kazushi Ono illumine le velours noir de cette production d'une myriade d'éclairages subtils. Sa direction fait montre d'un réel souci de transparence et il demande à ses musiciens une attention constante à l'équilibre des sonorités, au dosage des mixtures instrumentales, aux contrastes des nuances. Il parvient à alléger l'orchestre de Wagner sans sacrifier l'ampleur sonore des moments les plus poignants. On est habitué, sans doute, à un Wagner plus épais et plus compact ; en voici une vision plus translucide, un autre visage de sa vérité.
 
Kazushi Ono illuminates the black velvet of this production with a myriad of subtle lights. His conducting shows a real concern for transparency and he demands constant attention of his musicians to the balance of sounds, to the correct proportioning of the instrumental mixtures, to the contrasts of sounds. He manages to lighten Wagner’s orchestra without sacrificing its fullness of sound in the most poignant moments. One is used, without doubt, to a thicker and more compact Wagner; this is a more translucent vision, a different “face” of his truth.
 
 
Le Figaro
Kazushi Ono dirige avec une précision analytique remarquable cette partition si complexe. Un équilibre difficile dans le prélude où cette volonté de tomber dans le pathos conduit à une direction un peu trop retenue mais trouve sa justification dans la conduite dramatique de l'oeuvre. S'appuyant sur un orchestre très homogène, où les vents sont remarquables, il trouve, en outre, dans l'écrin de la Monnaie, le juste équilibre sonore avec la scène
 
Kozushi Ono conducts this complex score with a remarkably analytical precision. Balance is difficult to achieve in the prelude, where a willingness to fall into pathos leads to somewhat restrained conducting, but this is justified in the context of the work’s dramatic construction. Supported by a homogeneous orchestra, with very fine wind playing, he finds the right balance of sound and staging showcased in la Monnaie.
 
 
ConcertoNet.com
A la tête d’un orchestre Symphonique de la Monnaie en pleine forme, Kazushi Ono a une fois de plus conquis le public. Sa direction theatrale et analztique n’aura rien laisse au hazard: pate sonore somptueuse et sensuelle, jeu d’ensemble ample, dense et homogene, capable des plus fines nuances comme des eclats les plus fracassants.
 
Chaleureusement applaudi, ce Tristan et Isolde est certainement un des spectacles de la Monnaie les plus accompli de ces dernières années.
 
Conducting the Orchestre Symphonique de la Monnaie, which is on top form, Kazushi Ono has won the public over once more. His theatrical and analytical direction has left nothing to chance: a sumptuous and sensual sound-world, generous, compact and homogeneous ensemble playing, capable of producing the finest nuances and the most shattering outbursts.
 
This Tristan and Isolde was warmly applauded, and is without doubt one of the most accomplished shows seen at la Monnaie in recent years.
BBC Prom, 3 August 2006: BBCNOW/Ono
  **** Royal Albert Hall, London

Andrew Clements: Saturday August 5, 2006 The Guardian
Any Japanese composer who works within the western musical tradition has to make his or her own reconciliation between east and west, between what they take from their native culture and what they use from their western models. Born in 1955, Toshio Hosokawa divides his time between Germany (where he studied with Isang Yun and Brian Ferneyhough) and Japan, while his beautifully conceived scores are gaining more and more attention across Europe. Conductor Kazushi Ono and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales opened their Prom with the UK premiere of Hosokawa's Circulating Ocean, first performed at the Salzburg festival a year ago.

The impressive 20-minute movement is the latest in a series of Hosokawa works about the ocean. It is inspired by the water cycle, in which evaporation leads to clouds and falls back to the ocean as rain, a process that Hosokawa likens to the technique of circular breathing used by the players of Japanese sho. It also provides him with a ready-made musical scheme that ends where it began, in wispy threads of sound, and in between moves through a series of wave-like episodes. Some of them, like the falling rivulets of woodwind and metallic percussion, or the sinuously uncoiling solo for bass flute, are frankly pictorial, while others are more abstract studies in orchestral texture and layering, all minutely detailed and precisely shaped.

Ono, music director at La Monnaie in Brussels, is an impressively attentive conductor. As well as steering the BBCNOW expertly through the thickets of Hosokawa's score, he ensured carefully detailed support for baritone Christopher Maltman's graphically charted journey to despair in Mahler's Lieder Eines Fahrenden Gesellen, and then gave a measured account of the most enigmatic of all 20th-century symphonies, Shostakovich's 15th, which with every performance seems to raise more questions than it will ever answer.

BORIS GODOUNOV Premiere 18. 04.06

‘Musicalement, c’est remarquable. Sous la direction généreuse et altière de Kazushi Ono, l’Orchestre de la monnaie se fait tour à tour peuple et boyard, qu’il exhale l’antique plainte ou proclaime la rude epopee.’

Marie Aude Roux   Le Monde 20.04.06

 ‘Musically, it is stunning. Under the generous and regal direction of Kazushi Ono, the Orchestre de la Monnaie transforms itself, turn and turn about into the populace or into the boyars, whether it giving vent to the ancient lament or proclaiming the grueling epic.’

‘A la tête de l’orchestre symphonique et des choeurs de la Monnaie, Kazushi Ono donne à la Musique de Mussorgski une couleur très différente des _nterpretations russes. Plus lumineuse, sa direction permet de souligner la ligne mélodique de l’oeuvre en évoquant le meilleur Verdi.’

Jean-Louis Validie Le Figaro 20.04 06

‘At the head of the Symphonic Orchestra and Choir of the Monnaie, Kazushi Ono Mussorgsky’s Music in very different colours from Russian interpretations. Altogether more luminous, his direction highlights the work’s melodic line in a way evocative of the best Verdi’.

Jean-Louis Validie   Le Figaro 20.04 06

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‘La Partition retenue est évidemment l’originale et on goûte sans reserve aux sonorités sans complaisance mais si envoûtantes d’un orchestre taillé à la serpe, que Kazushi Ono dirige avec une remarquable precision. À la fois ample et rugueux, nerveux et lyrique, son orchestre n’est jamais inutilement lourd, et on apprécie la transparence d’une interprétation qui met remarquablement en valeur les jeux des timbres et des sonorités.’

Michel Debrocq Le Soir 21.04 06

‘The chosen score is obviously the original one and one is unreservedly treated to accents that whilst uncompromising, are utterly bewitching from this rough-hewn orchestra directed with remarkable precision by Kazushi Ono. Both sonorous and rugged, spirited and lyrical, his orchestra is never unnecessarily ponderous and one is able to appreciate the transparency of a rendition that highlights in remarkable fashion the interplay of colour and tone’

Michel Debrocq Le Soir 21.04 06

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‘Kazushi Ono holt mit dem Orchestre symphonique de la Monnaie in überwiegend rasch gewählten Tempi und einer geradezu schonungslosen Akzentuierung der instrumentalen Gesten ein überwältigendes Maximum an Schärfe, Präzision, griller Farbigkeit und dramatischen Irrwitz aus der kantigen Partitur heraus: eine elektrisierende Interpretation, auch wenn man sich vielleicht manches noch ein wenig differenzierter, verbindlicher gewünscht hätte.’

Julia Spinola Frankfurter Allgemine Zeitung 20.04 06

'Kazushi Ono with the Orchestre symphonique de la Monnaie chooses predominantly quick tempi and a relentless accentuation of the instrumental gestures, drawing from the angular score an overwhelming sharpness, precision, brightness of colour and dramatic humour: an electrifying interpretation, even if one would perhaps have liked some of it to have been a bit more sophisticated and beguiling.'

Julia Spinola Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 20.04.06

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Unglaublich intensive ist nach meinem Empfinden die musikalischen Deutung durch Dirigent Kazushi Ono. Er versteht es die Spannung den ganzen Abend über ungloaublich hoch zu halten, ohne dabei ins plakativ Laute zu verfallen, fast schon im Gegenteil, alles ist fein gezeichnet, manchmal beinahe kammermusikalisch. Die Musiker folgen ihm dabei auf kongeniale Weise. In den letzten monaten hat man das Monnaieorchester nicth mehr auf solchen hohem Niveau musizieren gehört.’

Hans Reul BRF Aktuell 19.04.06

The musical interpretation of conductor Kazushi Ono is to my mind unbelievably intense. He is able to sustain an unbelievably high tension over the whole evening, without falling into the trap of becoming just loud and brash. On the contrary, everything is finely drawn, at times almost like chamber music. The players follow him in this in obliging fashion. In recent months the Monnaie Orchestra have seldom been heard to make music of such high quality.

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‘En La Monnaie, el espectáculo estuvo sostenido por la sensacional dirección musical de Kazushi Ono, un maestro en estado de crecimiento artístico imparable, que sabe mantener las tensiones dramáticas en su justa medida y crea adamás una atmósfera pasional irressssstible. La orquesta y el coro del teatro le siguieron en estado de trance.’

J.Á.Vela del Campo El Païs 20.04 06j

‘Under the magical direction of Kazushi Ono, the performance at La Monnaie, was sensational. Kazushi Ono is a maestro of unbelievable artistic growth, and who knows how to maintain the perfect dramatic tension while creating an atmosphere of irresistible passion. The orchestra and choir of the theatre were mesmerised.’

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‘Kazushi Ono, der Brüsseler Generalmusikdirektor, dirigiert mit groβer Leidenschaft und viel Gespür für die vielen Brüche und Taktwechsel in Mussorgskis Partitur.’

Stefan Keim WDR 3 20.04 06

'Kazushi Ono, the General Music Director of Brussells, conducts with great passion and with a good feel for the many breaks and time changes in Mussorgsky's score.'

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Die Stärke des neuen Brüsseler ‘Boris Godunov’ liegt zweifellos in der Interpretation. Der Chefdirigent der Monnaie, Kazushi Ono, baut groβe Spannungsbögen auf, die hin un herwogen, zwischen dem Pianissimo von Soli zum Fortissimo der Tutti, zwischen einer expressiven , modernen Rauheit und Kantigkeit der Partitur und den verwehenden sakralen Klängen, dei ausnahmslos aus den Kulissen kommen.’

Bayerischer Rundfunk, BR2 Kulturwelt 19.04.06

The strength of the new production of 'Boris Godunov' in Brussells undoubtedly lies in the interpretation. The chief conductor of the Monnaie, Kazushi Ono, builds up great arcs of tension, which surge back and forth, between the pianissimo of the soloists and the tutti fortissimos, and between the starkness and angularity of the score and the religiosity which without exception flows from the stage.' 

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‘Besonderes Licht fällt indessen auf das Orchester der Monnaie, das unter der Leitung von Kazushi Ono die eigenartig rohe Instrumentation Mussorgskys so prägnant herausarbeitet, wie es selten zu hören ist.’

Neue Zurcher Zeitung Peter Hagmann 22.04.06

'In the meantime the Monnaie Orchestra is in the spotlight. Under the direction of Kazushi Ono it brings out Mussorgsky's peculiarly raw instrumentation with a tautness which is seldom heard.'