Tim Cornwell: The Big Yin of opera is Scots ambassador

In 2009, to great local delight, he became chief conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

He was in the city last night, with the leading mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly slated to sing Brahms’ Alto Rhapsody with the orchestra, and will conduct Richard Strauss’s Alpine Symphony in the Edinburgh International Festival.

But in Berlin, ten days ago, there was a chance to see him in his other job, which he also took in 2009: as music director of the city’s Deutsche Oper.

He went there after San Francisco, to make “something glorious in the best tradition of German opera houses,” he said at the time.

Berlin has three opera houses in a country where municipal opera and concert halls play a central role in people’s lives, but also in part a legacy of a divided city that had rival cultural centres for both east and west.

On a night, Runnicles said, when there might have been about 20 other concerts or events in the city, every seat was full.

The production was Jenufa, by Leos Janácek, a 1904 opera where small-town morality ends in infanticide, in a stark and stunning staging by the star director, Christof Loy.

Berlin’s a crossroads of modern history, where the legacy of 20th-century history bears down on every corner, and a city of generous spaces and contemporary architecture, with an art scene that’s drawn Scottish artists such as Douglas Gordon or Susan Philipsz to base themselves there.

The Berlin Philharmonic, under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle, lays claim to be the world’s most exacting orchestra; the programme for one of its concerts reads like a music theory essay. Deutsche Oper, in a formidable 1963 opera house, replacing one destroyed in 1943, has its own subway stop.

Its a pleasure to see how Runnicles, a Scot who has made and maintains an international reputation while keeping his home ties, plays to his Berlin following.

He joined the singers on stage for a full two rounds of applause, looking with his long, white curls like a kind of operatic Billy Connolly; his return is greeted with cheers at the intervals.

Runnicles is Berlin-based, but ever on the move. In the US, he maintains strong ties with the Philadelphia and Atlanta orchestra (he is principal guest conductor there), and with chamber concerts at the Grand Teton Music Festival.

With Jenufa, Runnicles was proud to have brought Loy to direct in Berlin for the first time, and see audiences build to sell-outs on word of mouth after the premiere. In his huge opera and orchestral experience, he has built a “family of artists” from which Scotland also benefits.

A highlight of this year’s BBC SSO season will be Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde. It features Swedish soprano Nina Stemme, who has sung the role across the world and recorded it with Plácido Domingo, and the leading English tenor Ian Storey, who sang the role in Milan and has also sung with Runnicles in Berlin.

Runnicles also took the Scottish soprano Karen Cargill to that city, helping accelerate her international career.

He counts other visiting artists in Scotland this season, like pianist Garrick Ohlsson, as friends as well as colleagues.

The movements of conductors of Runnicles ilk are dizzying. Robin Ticciati’s early career at the Scottish Chamber Orchestra has helped launch a stellar future; he takes over as music director of Glyndebourne next year at the age of 29.

The Royal Scottish National Orchestra’s appointment of Peter Oundjian as its new music director will bring new links with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra he also heads. Like Runnicles, both conduct widely beyond those gigs.

The Scottish Government, without a foreign office of its own, has championed international cultural diplomacy, backing festival conferences and gatherings of culture ministers at the festivals this summer. Runnicles and his ilk, native Scots or not, with their contacts and clout, are already a globe-trotting conduit for culture to and from Scotland.