Domingo Hindoyan had just moved to Switzerland, a serious culture shock for a 20-year-old kid from Venezuela, when he discovered a filmed concert of Christian Ferras performing Jean Sibelius’ violin concerto in 1965. As a violinist himself, Hindoyan was captivated by the French musician’s “earthy” playing — but as he kept re-watching the tape, he found his eyes drawn to the 29-year-old conductor, Zubin Mehta.
“I just was impressed,” says Hindoyan, “how he was conducting so precise and so beautiful the Sibelius concerto. I said: ‘There is something going on.’ ”
Hindoyan, 46, now finds himself the music director of L.A. Opera in a city — and a concert house — shaped by Mehta’s baton. He begins his new role with a production of Georges Bizet’s “Carmen” starting Saturday at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.
Remarkably, Hindoyan is only the third music director appointed by the company, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this month.
L.A. Opera’s new music director, Domingo Hindoyan, will commute from his home in Switzerland to helm shows in Los Angeles.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
The timing is bittersweet: Los Angeles is getting one charismatic Venezuelan conductor while saying goodbye to another. Hindoyan has known Gustavo Dudamel since they were boys in Caracas and admits to feeling sad, “because I would have liked him to be here. We are very close friends, and actually one of the conversations we had is, what a pity that we couldn’t be together a little bit in L.A.”
It’s hard not to draw comparisons, but it’s a testament to the country’s renowned music program, El Sistema, that so many Venezuelan conductors have risen from its ranks. (Another alumnus, Rafael Payare, leads the orchestra in San Diego.) Hindoyan can’t explain it but notes, “I think for us, classical music is almost like soccer in Brazil or in Argentina. It’s a need of: Let’s go there.”
He adds, “Venezuela is a country that’s always dreaming for a better future, so it has this drive that you every day want to be better.”
Hindoyan left his homeland 26 years ago to study music in Geneva — and that’s where he stayed. Switzerland is where he met his wife, opera singer Sonya Yoncheva, and where they raise their two children. (He’ll take the 11-hour flight to L.A. for opera productions, at least three a year, but will not be relocating his family.) He’s a proud Swiss citizen, but his multicultural adventures make him feel that he is simply “a citizen of the world.”
Those adventures began in childhood. His mother, an attorney, was born in Syria to Armenian and Turkish parents, and met Hindoyan’s father — a classical musician — in Venezuela. Hindoyan grew up hearing Arabic, Turkish and Spanish. Since he moved to Switzerland, he has learned Italian, French and his wife’s native language, Bulgarian.
“At some point, you have all these languages, all these cultures together,” he says, “and you realize that nationality is almost just a paper.”
The cast of “Carmen” performs as L.A. Opera’s new music director, Domingo Hindoyan, conducts a dress rehearsal.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
As the son of a violinist and onetime president of Orquesta Sinfónica Venezuela, Hindoyan was indoctrinated with classical music. His father practiced every day, “like a clock,” Hindoyan says: “7:30 scales, Paganini caprices and Bach sonatas and partitas, Mozart concertos at 1 [p.m.], and then work at the orchestra. I used to go to concerts every Sunday morning, and at some point they changed the subscription concerts to Thursday evenings.”
Hindoyan studied violin from age 5. In his teen years, El Sistema was as much a part of his life as school and sports, and it stoked his inner fire to excel.
“There is a drive,” he says. “There’s an ambition to become someone to make music. But I always say to my friends: music is more than that. It’s sometimes very simple — it’s a harmony, it’s a chord that takes your guts and you want to reproduce it yourself, and you want to play it again.”
“That’s why we actually become musicians,” he says. “It’s because of what the harmony and the music produces in your body.”
Young Hindoyan was particularly captivated by Jascha Heifetz’s violin sound and by the codas in every first movement of Bruckner’s symphonies. At 13, he would crank up the volume on Bruckner’s eighth — the way his 12-year-old son does with the score for “Jurassic Park” today — and listen to a specific moment over and over.
L.A. Opera’s new music director, Domingo Hindoyan, grew up in Venezuela and is close friends with Gustavo Dudamel.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
He was made concertmaster in his youth orchestra and was always curious about what all the other instruments were doing. His father had a sizable library of orchestra scores at home, and Hindoyan often put on recordings and read along. Occasionally his conductor would have him lead a Bartok dance or Grieg suite from the podium.
In 2005, the Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim visited Lucerne with the Chicago Symphony, and Hindoyan attended the rehearsal and introduced himself. When Barenboim learned that Hindoyan’s mother was Syrian, the maestro had him audition on the spot for the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, Barenboim’s group composed of Arab and Israeli musicians.
A few years into this life-changing appointment, Hindoyan told Barenboim about his desire to conduct, so Barenboim let him take over during a rehearsal — and his formal conducting studies commenced. Later, Barenboim secured an audition for Hindoyan to be his first assistant conductor at the Berlin State Opera.
That is where, in 2016, L.A. Opera president Christopher Koelsch first saw Hindoyan in action. In the subsequent decade, he became principal guest conductor at the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra and, in 2021, he was given his own orchestra: the Liverpool Philharmonic.
In Liverpool, Hindoyan has commissioned new operas and also introduced a wealth of music from Latin America by composers like Roberto Sierra — which, he says, the Liverpudlians lap up and clamor for more.
L.A. Opera invited Hindoyan to conduct its production of “Romeo & Juliet” last year — a tacit audition for the job of succeeding James Conlon, who retired as music director after 20 years. Koelsch and company were impressed enough to offer Hindoyan a five-year contract.
L.A. Opera’s new music director, Domingo Hindoyan, is looking forward to collaborating with the community.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Hindoyan has many ideas about how to seize the day in L.A.: He’d like to bring opera out into the community, stage concert versions of rare works and collaborate with Hollywood movie directors — James Cameron in particular. He’s also eager to go on hikes and long road trips and to take his son to Universal Studios.
He has observed a unique kind of interaction from L.A. opera audiences and speculates that something about the year-round good weather and blue skies yields a “relaxed freedom” among Angelenos.
“I think it’s not the worst place to have an opera house,” he says.