— Recently I recorded an amazing interview with Emilia Kabakov and when we talked with Emilia, she strongly recommended me to talk with you, because you knew Gerard better than any other people I have talked to.

— Gerard and I became friends in the 1990s, during the time he lived in Salzburg. We were still in contact when he became the director of the Ruhrtriennale in 2001, but during that period I was travelling frequently, and we didn’t see each other quite as often – not as often as we did back in Salzburg in the 1990s.

— Before I ask you about Gerard Mortier, could you share with me your story about your work with Ilya and Emilia Kabakovs. When did you meet them for the first time, do you remember that day?

— Yes, of course, I remember it very well. I met Ilya in 1987 when he immigrated to Austria. Initially he stayed in Graz, a city south of Vienna. When he first arrived in Austria, the news that a great Russian artist was now living in Austria spread like wildfire through the art world. I started my gallery in Salzburg in 1983, exactly 40 years ago. This summer we are opening an anniversary exhibition, which will have works from our very first Kabakov-exhibition. I remember, I drove to Graz from Salzburg – this was before I had my gallery in Paris – and I met this very gentle and wonderful man. He spoke German very well. As you might know, Ilya did not really speak English. When I came to see him in Graz, he was just doing his German lesson, he wanted to practice his German with me. I think this was in late June of 1987 and he had only arrived in Austria in April, if I remember correctly. When I left that day, I told him, that I had a gallery in Salzburg and I was very impressed by his art. It was the beginning of a wonderful friendship and we ended up showing his works in many exhibitions – in Salzburg, but also in Paris and in London and we did a lot of projects with museums. For instance, we were very involved in projects like the Monumenta at the Grand Palais in Paris. We showed many of his installations, but also several painting exhibitions.

— How did you first meet Gerard Mortier?

— Before Gerard Mortier, Herbert von Karajan was the director of the Salzburg Festival for many decades. He was a very impressive and extraordinary figure and directed the Salzburg Festival on the scale which was incredible. I knew the family quite well at that time, before he unexpectedly died in July of 1989. For the Salzburg Festival, this was a very difficult situation, because there was absolutely nobody prepared to take over his position. The Salzburg Festival was known for presenting only the best conductors, the best singers, the best orchestras in the world in their programme. Karajan was a person who really believed in the very grand musical tradition. He was not involved in avant-garde, he was not involved in the renewal of the music world. So, there were some clever people on the Board of the Festival who knew that for someone to follow in these footsteps, that person would need to be incredibly radical and different. They would have to face the burden of redefining what the Salzburg Festival stands for. Gerard Mortier had the reputation of working with great young talents in Brussels, where he was a very young, surprisingly successful director of the Opera. They had presented a series of Mozart operas; “Don Giovanni”, “Figaro”, and, I think, “Cosi fan tutti” which were radical and everybody in the music world spoke about it at that time. He had an incredible talent to offer a totally new view of Mozart. I think this attracted the Board to ask Gerard Mortier to become the director of the Salzburg Festival.

— You opened your first gallery in Salzburg in 1983. At that time the Salzburg Festival was run by Herbert von Karajan. Could you tell me about this time, was it a different period in comparison with Gerard Mortier’s era in the 1990s? What was the difference?

— Salzburg was one of – if not the – most relevant place in the music world. Herbert von Karajan had the best orchestras (the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic etc.). He had the option of inviting every signer he wanted to Salzburg. Nobody would have said “no” to Karajan. He was legendary for me, of course. As a young man I was fascinated by this climate. The first opera I saw in Salzburg was “Carmen” in 1985 with Teresa Stratas, and Karajan conducted it with the Vienna Philharmonic – it was unforgettable. Also absolutely remarkable was “Don Giovanni” in 1987. The stage the productions were very luxurious but also conservative. Karajan believed in great music and the big stars. But it was also from another world, in a way. Mortier was exactly the right person to take over when he died. He radically went into a different direction, inviting new and very different directors. It was a shock to the audience. It was an amazing risk, and it could have gone wrong. But Gerard was ingeniously right, he was able to win the audiences over. It was an exciting period and Salzburg became a place where opera was redefined.

— Did you first meet Gerard Mortier in 1992 when he became a director of the Salzburg Festival?

— I remember we were invited to listen to a speech he gave to express his mission, and his views. It was the first time I had seen him on a stage. A friend of mine gave a dinner afterwards. Gerard knew the gallery and when he was introduced to me, he immediately said: “We have to speak because I am interested in contemporary artists and I also want to involve contemporary artists in the Salzburg Festival”.

— Gerard Mortier started to include the contemporary program into the main program of the Salzburg Festival very quickly and in 1993 the Zeitfluss took place there. It was connected with the contemporary artists and the exhibition “Utopia: Arte Italiano” started very soon in 1993.

— After this first introduction, we had lunch and he shared some of his ideas of what he wanted to do. He immediately told me how he wanted to involve contemporary artists in his productions. And the first idea that we discussed was the American artist Robert Longo. I gave him the address and told him to write to him. I remember very well that he wrote a fax to Robert Longo. Longo called me when he received it, and I told him: “You have to come to Salzburg and work on this opera”. And then he did the stages to “Lucio Silla”, the opera by Mozart and worked very closely with the director Peter Mussbach. It was remarkable!

— Emilia told me that you introduced her to Gerard Mortier during a lunch. Do you remember that day?

— I remember that we did an exhibition in the Gallery with Ilya and Emilia Kabakov and gave a lunch for them. I had told Gerard about the Kabakovs previously and he was very interested in meeting them so I invited him. During the lunch we already made plans to see each other for dinner because there were a lot of people at the lunch, and we had so much to discuss. I remember we went to a restaurant which was called Riedenburg and we had dinner; Gerard, Ilya, Emilia and myself.

— In the Preface of the exhibition’s Utopia: Arte Italiano” catalog you mention that the exhibition was the first for a long time and it became a part of the main program of the festival. Could you tell me about it, please?

— When I met Gerard in 1991, he had already taken over the Salzburg Festival. There was a space which had been empty for some time because they had moved the ticket office into a new building. Gerard said to me: “Why don’t you organize an exhibition in this space and concentrate on Italian art?”. The summer program of the 1993 Salzburg Festival was focused on Italy. It was the peak of the avant-garde, of contemporary Italian music, like Luigi Nono.

— Did you have other projects?

— Yes, we did two projects, but after that the space was not available anymore. The second project was German art from the 1960s, because the next year they focused on German art (Stockhausen, Riehm etc.).

— I read that Gerard Mortier had difficult relations with the Austrian government during his term in Salzburg, didn’t he?

— I think this gets exaggerated a little bit. Gerard also had a lot of support; he had a lot of support from the Board, and was reelected after 5 years. If the relationship would have been that difficult, they would not have reelected him. There was opposition from the right-wing movement but the main government and the key politicians were not against him.

— And after Salzburg Gerard Mortier worked in Germany, France and Spain. Did you have any projects with him after the end of his Salzburg term?

— No, sadly not that many. I think his strongest years, best years were in Salzburg, he always said so. He had a big budget because of the comfortable situation in Salzburg, so he could do what he wanted. When he came to Paris, he brought many productions he had done in Salzburg. He did “Tristan and Isolde” with the American video artist Bill Viola and the incredible opera project by Anselm Kiefer in 2008/09. This was a huge commitment of Gerard Mortier. I had introduced Anselm Kiefer to him in Salzburg in the early 2000, maybe in 2001. Years later, during a dinner in Paris, they had the idea to do an opera entirely conceived by the artist, so Kiefer could choose the libretto, he could choose a composer, could choose the cast, he did the costumes, staging, this was very exciting.

Pavel Dobrotvorski