Robin the boy wonder, as he was somewhat patronisingly dubbed during his prodigious rise to conducting stardom, will make a bracing Batman for Glyndebourne Festival Opera when he takes over from current music director Vladimir Jurowski in January 2014.
There's no doubt, I think, in anyone's mind down there in Sussex or indeed in the music world at large that he's the right man for the job. He learnt his craft with Glyndebourne on Tour (GOT) starting as assistant conductor on Mozart's Die Zauberflöte in 2004 and going on to be its music director from 2007-9 - an era culminating in a revival of Janáček's Jenůfa that was perhaps the best thing that Glyndebourne season, festival included. He's currently chief conductor of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, another canny appointment. In the main festival, his Hänsel und Gretel was much admired last season - I caught up with it at the Proms and thought it glowed - though Stephen Walsh had less to say about Ticciati's work with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in this year's revival of Don Giovanni.
Singers love Ticciati because the beat is clear for them as well as for the orchestra and he knows exactly how to support them, how much to drive them, and how to make musical sense of dramatic choices (the stretched silences in the Jenůfa were one of the most amazing phenomenons I've witnessed in Janáček performances).I watched him with admiration during a Jenůfa study day we shared prior to the tour performances, found him wonderfully collegial with his cast of covers engaged in excerpts from the opera and very easy, if almost overly modest and self-questioning, in conversation.
The hierarchy at Glyndebourne could hardly be more strong or healthy. Jurowski was always going to be a difficult choice to follow, a dedicated and always well-prepared master equally convincing in Mozart, Rossini, Verdi, Puccini, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev and Peter Eötvös. Ticciati is already acquiring that kind of breadth; and current GOT music director Jakob Hrůša, whose Don Giovanni in last year's festival was electrifying - admittedly he'd only just taken over from what must have been, in essence, Jurowski's interpretation - is already almost as impressive a figure. Ticciati returns next season to conduct Michael Grandage's new production of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro. Expect bold outlines and, hopefully, a few rather more interesting repertoire choices than of late in coming Glyndebourne seasons. The only big question-mark is where Jurowski goes next.
- Don Giovanni at Glyndebourne until 15 July. Read Stephen Walsh's review
- Glyndebourne Festival Opera and Glyndebourne on Tour details on the company's website
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