The ‘Ingenious Greek Maestro’ Zoe Zeniodi is back in Australia to make history as the first conductor from Greece to lead the opera at the Sydney Opera House and will conduct the ‘Così fan tutte’. Zeniodi speaks about the importance of this Mozart opera, music as transformative and the “joy” she feels in Australia, .
” I love Australia, and it only gets better the more I see. This is my third time here,” she says.
“I loved Brisbane, and now, seeing Sydney, I honestly have no words.
However, Zeniodi is working. “We’re in daily rehearsals, it’s intense.”
In love with the Emerald City
Zeniodi has been seduced by the ‘Emerald City’.
“When I got on the ferry for work and the moment it turned and I saw the Sydney Opera House, I shouted with joy – it’s never happened to me before. To feel so much joy to be on a small ferry going to work!”
She has spent her last three European ‘summers’ in Australia.
“Sydney is a fantastic city. You can walk everywhere. It has good public transport. The people look happy. Even at night, there’s a lot of mobility, and it’s a very organised city.
“You can’t want anything more than to live in a city designed with its citizens in mind. Everyone I asked has told me so, which is not a response I hear in many of the parts of the world I have visited”, Zeniodi says.
Mozart’s ‘Così fan tutte’ runs from August 1 to 17.
“It’s an older production of Opera Australia” the maestro says.
“It directed by the renowned David McVicar, but this time, it’s completely different, with different singers and me, a new conductor.
“It’s a wonderful production, stylistically and as a concept. Così fan tutte is quite a complex opera, it involves only six characters on stage for three hours.”
Mozart conjures methexis
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s most famous opera buffa, entertains and like all good comedy, it provides deeper insights into the human condition. It pokes at human farce. Così fan tutte holds a mirror to our vanities. Mozart questions our notions of faith, makes us look at our infidelities, our passion, love, and lust, and the natural human jealousy, and rage.
“It has comic elements. It is light, boyant, beautiful, and comedic, yet it’s also tragic, like all comedy, it is also a drama.
“It may feel light but it is deep. Four young people are looking to each other to explore these issues of faith and infidelity and it all begins when over a bet. “We can all find a connection with some, or all of the characters.”
Art, in this case theatre and music, opera spark important conversations for Zeniodi.
“[Music] offer new perspectives…makes you rethink things… Even traumas can be worked through music, allowing you to go further. I believe we can experience redemption through engaging with a work of art, a connection I would even describe as ‘methexis’.
Methexis, an ancient Greek term describing the ritualisation of theatre. Or, when audience and performance become one
“Without them even realising it, being in a room with other people, experiencing something vivid at a given moment, can dramatically change you. You may come out of it quite transformed.”
Così fan tutte, written 234 years ago by Mozart, “shows that no matter how much humanity has progressed –and changed – regardless of technological advancement, our internal issues remain the same”.
“You can see that, ultimately, that’s what it is to be human. However far humans may advance, some parts will always be the same throughout time.”
At the helm, armed with concentration
As the “heart” of the orchestra, the conductor takes charge in performance and for that “absolute concentration” is essential for Zeniodi.
The conductor in an opera “keeps alive a space with a large orchestra of 50, 60, 70 people, the actors on stage – everything we have all prepared for so long”.
“All of this comes together at the moment of the performance, all experience absolute concentration,” she says. When methexis is reached Zeniodi likens it to a collective “form of meditation”.
“A tremendous power every time” she’ says be it a “performance or rehearsal”.
“At that moment, there is nothing else; time stops. You are not aware of the space you are in either, in the sense that you cannot observe and exist in it and see other things”.
“It’s such an intense concentration that you’re really in touch with a part of yourself that you wouldn’t be able to reach otherwise.”
With concentration comes the passion to inspire, to breathe into -as the word suggests- the orchestra, the singers, even the audience, the shared experience that will bring them together as “one” for Zeniodi.
“This ability to inspire in time and space, in other people, and connect them through a shared experience that lasts from five minutes to three or even eight hours is mind-blowing and singular. It’s transformative.
Zeniodi’s methexis leads to Aristotle’s catharsis where music and theatre transform the minds of the audience embraced with the musicians, singers and actors, in a ritual facilitated by the conductor.
“Through these conditions, the conductor, the music, and the audience are allowed to also be in a meditative space-time frame and to connect so deeply with it that they forget everything else around them, allowing very important internal processes to take place,” said Zeniodi.
She has experienced it all her life.
“It’s a potent stimulus, which makes me want to reach 97 and still perform. I don’t intend to stop.”
An accidental conductor
The journey to has not been easy for the Greek maestro. Zeniodi had reached a significant point in her career as a pianist, playing all over Europe, when an accidental choice, 20 years ago, would lead her to Professor Thomas Sleeper in Miami. Her “mentor” she says. Zeniodi took his course “by accident”.
“I had never thought of conducting . After 10 lessons, my professor called me into his office and said I should become a conductor. I said that I couldn’t be a conductor because I was a woman.
“He was in disbelief and said, ‘You are in America; you can go to the moon; I don’t understand what you mean. Work hard; I know what you’ll do in ten years; you must become a conductor’.”
Zeniodi spent the next four years in the locked-up home studying for her doctorate.
“During the Ph.D., I never went out, except for orchestra rehearsals. It was a difficult process and took much dedication. I did it because Professor Thomas Sleeper was extraordinary—a fantastic musician—and I realised how much I could learn.”
Her life as a concert pianist “had reached a high point,” and Zeniodi felt “complete with it”.
“This felt like the next, and natural step – it was a turning point in my life, and this man showed me the way.”
Ms Dynamite burns bright
Hailed as ‘Ms Dynamite’, due to the intense energy accompanying her conducting, Zeniodi has travelled the world. Before this time in Sydney, she was in Buenos Aires, to open the season at the Teatro Colon with the Filarmónica de Buenos Aires. The first woman to do so.
Living from suitcases for months, the maestro connects with the people wherever she travels.
“I love travelling; I couldn’t do this job otherwise. I’ve been travelling from a young age, seeing and understanding how other cultures live and discovering that we are all equal.”
Conducting at the Sydney Opera House is “a dream come true”.
Opera Australia offered for Zeniodi “this opportunity” after they saw her work for Opera Queensland.
“Two days later, they offered me a contract- it was amazing.
“One of the most beautiful operas in the world, in a place with a beautiful energy, the Sydney Opera House with the sea all around it.”
Zeniodi wants to remain healthy and continue collaborating “with directors, artists, singers, and fantastic orchestras—people who want to create meaningful things together”..
“I want to keep working as much as possible for the community, especially the children.”
Music – a teacher and friend
As artistic director of El Sistema in Greece since 2023, Zeniodi provides children free musical education. She believes that to learn a musical instrument can help children concentrate, “especially in an age of distraction”.
“It provides them with an outlet for their emotions, and being part of an orchestra, or choir, children learn teamwork and communication in probably the only setting that is not competitive”.
Teamwork and sharing are other benefits, she adds.
“In the orchestra and the choir, everyone knows they are part of a much larger ensemble and are all equally important. Therefore, they understand from a very early age the value of teamwork. Music brings you in touch with yourself and with others.”
She adds that music gives children a free space for interpretation. “There are no lines or absolutes. It can be something completely different for everyone, and that’s freedom. Music offers freedom- after you give them structure, notes, and the language- and tell them, ‘Now speak your way, find your way. It creates free-thinking individuals.”
She often advises young people who dream of making it in the world to have “wings as well as roots.”
“We must have dreams and chase them to make them come true. But to make them come true, we must be in touch with reality,” she says.
“We must know who we are, our great talents, our strengths and weaknesses, and where we stand in the world at a given time.”
Zeniodi believes they mustn’t be afraid to dream big, but they should also not be scared to change course if they realise they cannot achieve what they want and that it is not for them.
“So many times, I see young people wanting to achieve things they may not. And the frustration is so great that it breaks them.”
“They must receive the right advice from an early age to understand that there is Plan A, Plan B, and Plan C. There are many things that one can be happy doing without them being solutions of necessity. One must have wings, dreams, roots, and contact with reality.”
‘Così fan tutte’ by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart will be performed at the Sydney Opera House from August 1 to 17.