Jeffrey Tate

One of Tate’s claims to fame is his production of a new Wagner "Ring" cycle at the Theatre Musicale de Paris/Chatelet through 1994, the first complete cycle produced in Paris since the end of World War II. He presented the Ring cycle again in Adelaide, Australia, and is in the process of presenting it again in Cologne.

Indeed, Tate is well known among classical music lovers in Germany. He assisted Pierre Boulez for the annual Richard Wagner festival in Bayreuth, southern Germany, early on in his career. In 2000, Tate conducted the premiere of Luigi Nono’s 1960s provocative and political opera, "Intolleranza," at the Cologne Opera House. “Intolleranza“ was originally conceived as a political work that opposed racial discrimination and social injustices. Together with German director Günther Krämer, Tate worked on adapting the work from the 1960s to present day Germany.

There’s a German influence in Tate’s private life, as well. Tate lives in London with his long-time companion Klaus Kuhlemann, a German geologist who he met while working in Cologne. “I doubt whether I would have had the courage and the strength to do what I did – especially in America, taking over 'Lulu' – if I’d been on my own,” Tate told The Independent.

Church crawling with gastronomic interludes

With “bases” in Geneva, Cologne, Paris and New York, Tate is a man on the move. He’s a voracious reader, a talented cook and an expert in Meissen porcelain. In “Who’s Who,” Tate lists his hobbies as “church-crawling, with gastronomic interludes.”

“I pride myself on a wide range of interests, which are necessary for me,” Tate told the Seattle Times. “Some musicians are very single-minded. I can be too, when I am focusing on a particular musical work with great intensity.”

“But I’ve learned a few things over the years. There really isn’t enough time to conduct repertoire that isn’t interesting to me, orchestras that I don’t find interesting. I’m old enough to say, ‘I don’t need that now.’ “

For all his success with music, Tate has said in several interviews that he doesn’t believe he will ever reach the very top rank of conductors. Perhaps this is because he started relatively late and has little formal training. Or perhaps because music alone is also not enough for Tate.

“Music in itself cannot be for me my whole life,” he told The Independent. “I do get enormous fulfilment from it, but I cannot admit to getting total fulfilment from it. I like to try to be as complete as I can, and music is only one element. If I only had music, I think I’d become slightly dead, you know. Certain part of me would become numb.”

Sheryl Oring