To learn from Maestro Paolo Arrivabeni about his journey before he steps on the podium to conduct an opera or a symphony is more than a treat. It is a brief excursion into some of the layers he explores before he picks up his baton. More than rehearsals with singers and orchestra, more than simply studying a score, more than even choosing what he intends with the music before him, we glimpse something of the intricate  thoughts, feelings, and aspirations, he aims to conjure up. As he so aptly says his goal is to create a bridge between the external realities of life and the beauty and emotions of the music. His artistic intention is to provide us with an immersive experience of the composer’s own vision.

Who is Paolo Arrivabeni?

One of the most in-demand Italian opera conductors of his generation, Paolo Arrivabeni’s repertory ranges from the great Italian composers of the 19th century to Wagner, Strauss and Mussorgsky. The 2024-25 season features “Simon Boccanegra” at the Opernhaus Zürich, “Madama Butterfly” at both the Opéra de Marseille and the Semperoper Dresden, “Maria Stuarda” at the Royal Danish Opera, “Il Trovatore” at the Staatsoper Hamburg, and “Aida” and “Nabucco” at the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

OperaWire: What do you want to “communicate” through a performance?

Paolo Arrivabeni: Through my work as a conductor, I strive to communicate to the audience the genius and profound artistry of the composer we are interpreting. By doing so, my goal is to create a space where the audience can momentarily detach from the external realities of life and immerse themselves in the beauty and emotions of the music. I see our role as artists and interpreters as a bridge, bringing to life the genius of the composer and offering the audience a unique, transformative experience that allows them to lose themselves in the music, even if just for a few hours.

OW: How do you communicate with the orchestra most comfortably? Most successfully?

PA: I communicate with the orchestra using my entire body to convey what I want to achieve musically. This includes not only my arms but also the expressions on my face. The amount of verbal communication I use depends on the time we have; sometimes there’s more room to explain, and other times less. However, the most important aspect is to express my intentions through gestures and physical presence. Often, there simply isn’t enough time to say everything I might wish to articulate, but skilled orchestras are accustomed to reading conductors who can effectively express themselves through body language. This physical dialogue becomes the cornerstone of a successful collaboration.

OW: How do you approach singers and orchestras when you prepare to do a work?

PA: I approach both singers and orchestras with great respect, acknowledging their artistry and individuality. At the same time, I come with a clear and precise vision of what I aim to achieve musically. This vision is always shaped by the resources available to me—whether it’s the unique qualities of the performers or the specific circumstances of the production. Balancing respect for their talents with a firm sense of direction allows for a collaborative process where everyone feels valued yet guided toward a shared artistic goal.

OW: What if any significant differences are there in working in an Italian house versus working in a German or French one?

PA: When comparing Italian opera houses to German or French ones, significant differences emerge, particularly in preparation times and processes. In German-speaking theaters, the preparation periods tend to be much shorter than in French or Italian theaters. However, the speed of learning and execution in German theaters is notably higher, which allows them to adapt efficiently to the shorter timelines. In Italy, there’s often an inherent advantage when conducting works by Italian composers like Donizetti, Bellini, Verdi, or Puccini. These masterpieces are deeply rooted in our cultural DNA, providing a natural connection and understanding that informs the artistic process. This familiarity offers a head start in interpreting and performing such works.

In Germany, the focus and expertise often lie in a different repertoire, where they have their own intrinsic advantages and traditions, just as we do with our Italian operatic heritage. Ultimately, while the pathways to the final product may vary—whether shaped by cultural, logistical, or repertorial differences—the resulting quality remains consistent, whether it’s Italian, French, or German. It’s the approach and methods that differ, not the pursuit of excellence.

OW: How do you approach conducting a new opera? What are your first steps? What follows?

PA: The first steps involve researching the period in which the opera was composed, studying the composer’s life, and understanding the historical and cultural context in which the work was conceived. This foundation is essential to grasp the broader environment that influenced the opera’s creation.

Next, I turn to the libretto, as it plays a crucial role in understanding the narrative, characters, and dramatic structure. Once familiar with the text, I immerse myself in the score, exploring its musical and dramatic nuances. In the early and even advanced stages of study, I consciously avoid external influences, such as historic or modern recordings, to ensure that my interpretation remains original and uninfluenced. I believe this allows me to develop a fresh and personal perspective on the work.

Only after forming my own vision do I compare my interpretation with that of other conductors who have directed or recorded the opera. This exchange of ideas can be enlightening and sometimes even inspiring, but it must never override or compromise the choices I have independently made. The goal is always to stay true to my artistic understanding while respecting the integrity of the opera and its creator.

OW: How does this process differ from conducting an opera you are more familiar with?

PA: The difference lies primarily in the fact that, with an opera I am already familiar with, I already have a deep understanding of the score, the libretto, the historical context, and the composer’s life and times. This prior knowledge forms a strong foundation that allows me to engage with the work at a more instinctive level.

However, even when revisiting an opera I have conducted many times, I always make a point of rethinking certain elements in light of new experiences and perspectives I’ve gained since my last encounter with the piece. This reflection often leads me to reconsider choices I made in the past that may no longer align with how I currently understand or feel about the opera.

In this sense, conducting a familiar work is never static; it is always an opportunity for rediscovery and growth. Each time I approach it, I find something new—new insights, new interpretations, or simply new ways to connect with the music and the drama. It’s an ongoing process of evolution and refinement, ensuring that my interpretation remains vibrant and relevant, both to me and to the performers and audiences I am working with.

OW: How would you describe an Arrivabeni performance? What are some of its characteristics?

PA: It’s difficult to define an Arrivabeni performance in specific terms because no two performances are ever the same. Each evening brings its own unique energy and nuances, shaped by a variety of factors—the mood of the performers, the chemistry with the orchestra, the singers’ interpretations, and even the audience’s engagement. For me, it’s this dynamic and ever-changing nature of live performance that makes it so special.

Every night, something may shift—sometimes subtly, sometimes profoundly—and that’s what keeps the art alive and authentic. My focus is on being fully present and responsive, allowing the music to breathe and evolve naturally. This adaptability ensures that every performance has its own identity, creating a singular experience for the audience and everyone involved.

OW: I understand you like to conduct Wagner. Can you say something about your connection to his music?

PA: I’ve had the privilege of conducting some of Wagner’s works, beginning with “Der fliegende Holländer” (“The Flying Dutchman”) and later “Lohengrin.” I feel a deep connection to his music, particularly because these two operas resonate with a certain “Italianate” quality—if I may say so—that aligns with the lyrical and expressive style of 19th-century Italian operatic writing. This makes them particularly appealing to me as a conductor steeped in that tradition. Wagner’s music captivates me with its depth and complexity, and I hope to have the opportunity to explore more of his repertoire in the future. His ability to weave profound emotional and musical narratives is something I find immensely rewarding, both as an interpreter and as someone who seeks to share that richness with audiences.

OW: Also, can you speak about the relationship between your views and feelings about Italian opera and Wagner’s?

PA: There is a fascinating and profound relationship between Italian opera and Wagner’s music, as the two traditions influenced each other in meaningful ways. For instance, in Giuseppe Verdi’s villa in Sant’Agata, you can find Wagner’s scores, which Verdi read and knew well. Verdi was certainly aware of Wagner’s innovations and musical ideas. On the other hand, Wagner himself deeply admired Italian opera, particularly Bellini’s “Norma,” which he held in the highest regard.

This interplay demonstrates that these musical worlds are not isolated compartments. Both Verdi and Wagner traveled extensively, exposing themselves to different musical traditions and enriching their own artistry through these experiences. Wagner’s works, while grounded in Germanic traditions, reflect a certain operatic grandeur and lyricism that resonate with elements of the Italian style. Similarly, Italian composers absorbed elements of Wagner’s musical language, such as his use of leitmotifs and orchestral richness, integrating them into their own operatic vocabulary.

Ultimately, the connection between Italian opera and Wagner lies in their shared pursuit of emotional depth and dramatic intensity, each influencing the other in subtle but significant ways. This cultural and musical exchange underscores the universality of great art, transcending borders and traditions.

OW: What was your musical dream when you were a young person?

PA: When I was young, my dream was to become a pianist. I enrolled in the Conservatory with that goal in mind, but there wasn’t an available spot in the piano class at the time. To allow me to enter, they placed me in the composition class instead. Initially, this wasn’t what I had envisioned, but I quickly fell in love with composition, discovering a passion I hadn’t anticipated. Over time, I was able to pursue piano studies alongside composition, and these two disciplines became the foundation of my musical journey. It was during these formative years that the idea of conducting began to take shape. My experiences with piano and composition gave me a comprehensive understanding of music that naturally led to a desire to direct and collaborate with orchestras. This evolution from aspiring pianist to composer and ultimately to conductor has shaped who I am as a musician, blending technical mastery with a deep appreciation for the creative process.

OW: What was your musical training? Where? Who was your most influential teacher?

PA: I began my musical training at the Conservatory of Mantua and completed it at the Conservatory of Parma, a city deeply connected to Giuseppe Verdi’s legacy. While many teachers influenced me, two were particularly significant: Camillo Togni for composition and Daniele Gatti for conducting. I transferred from Mantua to Parma because the former didn’t offer conducting studies, and this move allowed me to fully pursue my passion for orchestral direction in an inspiring and supportive environment.

OW: Who were your primary mentors?

PA: Daniele Gatti was a pivotal mentor who guided me during the early stages of my career. I firmly believe that conducting cannot truly be taught—it is something you learn through experience and observation. For a few years, I had the privilege of working alongside him, both at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna and other theaters. During this time, I absorbed a tremendous amount simply by being in his presence, observing his approach, and working closely with him. This hands-on experience was invaluable, shaping my understanding of the art and craft of conducting in ways that formal lessons never could.

OW: Do you mentor other musicians?

PA: I wouldn’t presume to call myself a mentor to anyone. If some of my assistants or students consider me their mentor, that’s for them to say, not for me. Over the years, I’ve had several young conductors by my side, working as my assistants, and I hope I’ve managed to pass on some of what I’ve learned. During my brief time as a teacher, I’ve had students who went on to establish independent careers, which is always gratifying to see. I’ve always tried to share my knowledge generously because I believe it’s essential to pass on what we’ve learned to the next generation. While I may not see myself as a mentor in the traditional sense, I do hope my guidance has left a positive and lasting impact on the musicians I’ve worked with.

OW: How has this differed from what you originally wanted? Aspired to? Actually done?

PA: I originally aspired to work more extensively in my own country, imagining a career deeply rooted in Italy. However, life and circumstances led me in a different direction, with most of my work taking place abroad. This shift happened naturally and without regret, as it gave me the opportunity to engage with diverse cultures, audiences, and artistic traditions. Working internationally has enriched my perspective and allowed me to grow in ways I hadn’t anticipated, and I’ve found fulfillment and comfort in these foreign environments. While my initial vision may have been different, the path I’ve followed has been deeply rewarding.

OW: How does your conducting mesh with your personal life?

PA: Conducting doesn’t “mesh” with my personal life because, for an artist, the two are inseparable. Being a musician isn’t a job you can separate from your identity—it’s who you are. I don’t stop being a conductor or a musician when I leave the theater; it’s a constant part of my life and my way of being. The idea of integrating work and life doesn’t quite apply to this profession because artistry permeates everything. It’s not like I leave rehearsal and suddenly become someone entirely different. Of course, there are moments when I take time to disconnect, relax and spend time with my loved ones, but my identity as a musician and conductor is always present, shaping my perspective and how I live. This is the essence of an artist’s life—it’s all interconnected.

OW: When and how did you decide to concentrate on conducting?

PA: I can’t pinpoint the exact age or moment I decided to focus on conducting—it came to me later in life. While studying composition, I found myself increasingly drawn to the great symphonic repertoire. Experiencing this music, both in study and live performances, had a profound impact on me. Symphonic music became my first love and ultimately led me to shift my focus away from the piano. Conducting felt like a more expansive and fulfilling means of expression, offering a broader palette to communicate musical ideas. It allowed me to engage with the richness of the orchestral repertoire in ways that were deeply rewarding. My journey into opera came later, after I had established a strong connection to symphonic music, but both forms have since become integral to my life as a conductor.

OW: What is your opinion about opera in our current culture? How does it differ in different cultures?

PA: Opera is an art form that naturally integrates into the social fabric of a society, just as painting, theater, or other artistic expressions do. It reflects the cultural identity and traditions of a nation, serving as both a mirror and a cornerstone of its artistic heritage.

However, the role and reception of opera differ across cultures. In some countries, there is a stronger connection between the public and classical music, particularly opera. This is often due to a combination of cultural factors, such as education systems that prioritize the arts, historical traditions that keep opera alive, and societal values that place importance on artistic engagement. In other nations, including my own, opera’s reach can be more limited due to gaps in cultural education or shifts in public interest. Despite these differences, opera remains a universal language—one that has the power to transcend cultural boundaries and connect people through its beauty, drama, and emotional depth. Its role may vary, but its importance as a timeless art form is undeniable.

OW: What are your upcoming engagements as a conductor?

PA: After “Maria Stuarda” in Copenhagen in January-February 2025, I’ll be conducting “Madama Butterfly” in Dresden. I’m thrilled to return to this theater, where I’ve conducted many times and always feel at home. I believe this will be my third “Butterfly” production, following others I’ve done in different venues. It’s a Puccini title I’m deeply connected to, along with “Tosca” and “La Bohème,” which I’ve also conducted in Dresden.

After that, I’ll be in Hamburg for “Il Trovatore.” Hamburg is another city and theater I love returning to—it’s a place where I feel very comfortable and enjoy working. “Il Trovatore” is a work I debuted in Macerata years ago. It’s always exciting to revisit this repertoire in a city that holds such fond memories for me.

Following that, I’ll be conducting “Aida” and “Nabucco” at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin. “Nabucco,” in a production I’ve conducted several times before, and I’m very eager to return to a theater I deeply admire. As for “Aida,” it will be my first time conducting this opera in Berlin, which makes it a particularly special project. Beyond that, there are more engagements on the horizon, but for now, I’ll focus on these exciting projects.

OW: What has been your experience conducting “Maria Stuarda” and performing in theaters like Copenhagen’s Opera House?

PA: I first performed in Copenhagen in 2013 with “Macbeth,” and I’m delighted to be back now. The opera house is truly spectacular—not only architecturally but also in terms of its advanced technology. It’s an absolute marvel and a joy to work in. As for “Maria Stuarda,” this is the fourth production I’ve conducted, making it perhaps the Donizetti opera I’ve conducted the most. Of course, I’ve conducted others, like “L’elisir d’amore,” but when it comes to Donizetti’s opera seria, “Maria Stuarda” stands out for me. I first conducted it in Berlin, followed by productions in Vienna and Rome, and now here. It’s an opera I know deeply and one I hold in great regard. Its drama and emotional intensity resonate strongly with me, making it a particularly rewarding work to bring to life on stage.

OW: What are the main challenges of conducting a bel canto opera like “Maria Stuarda?”

PA: The challenges of conducting a bel canto opera always begin with a fundamental premise: the conductor must love the art of singing and possess a deep understanding of the technical aspects of vocal performance. Conductors who come from a background as répétiteurs often have an advantage in this repertoire, as they work daily with singers and develop an instinct for their needs—knowing when they need to breathe, how to support them, and how to make their work easier.

Bel canto operas are extraordinarily demanding vocally, requiring a unique sensitivity to the singer’s needs. Each role is essentially tailored to the specific singer performing it, much like a custom-made suit. Just as no two singers are identical, the approach must adapt to their vocal qualities and capabilities. It’s crucial to work with the material at hand, maintaining a flexible and collaborative approach without compromising the overall dramatic structure and vision of the opera.

OW: Did you take a specific approach to highlight the conflict between Maria Stuarda and Elisabetta in the score?

PA: Not particularly, as Donizetti himself crafted the confrontation between the two queens with incredible dramatic effectiveness. The way he composed that scene is so powerful that it doesn’t require additional interpretive tools to bring out the tension—it works brilliantly on its own.

There are other moments in the opera where the dramatic action may need more support or emphasis from the conductor, but the conflict between Maria and Elisabetta is so vividly realized in the score that it naturally takes center stage without the need for significant intervention. My role in those moments is simply to ensure that the inherent drama and emotional intensity are conveyed clearly and authentically.

OW: What kind of reaction do you expect from the Danish audience, considering that bel canto is not traditionally tied to their musical culture?

PA: I expect curiosity. When an audience isn’t frequently exposed to a particular repertoire, it naturally piques their interest. My hope is to satisfy that curiosity with a performance that lives up to the expectations of this city and this remarkable theater. Interestingly, I was told this morning that the last bel canto opera performed here was “Lucia di Lammermoor,” and that was twenty years ago. If true, it highlights the rarity of this repertoire in Denmark, making this production of “Maria Stuarda” even more special. It’s a wonderful opportunity to introduce or reintroduce the audience to the beauty, drama, and intricacy of bel canto, and I look forward to seeing how they respond to this masterpiece.

OW: How does “Maria Stuarda” fit into your artistic journey, and which aspects of this experience will you fondly remember?

PA: From an artistic perspective, “Maria Stuarda” takes me back to my roots. I began my career conducting bel canto repertoire, focusing extensively on Donizetti, Bellini, and Rossini. For a significant period, these composers were at the heart of my work. Over time, I shifted towards other repertoires, especially Verdi, Puccini, and even more contemporary composers. However, returning to bel canto feels like a homecoming—a way to reconnect with my beginnings. Now, nearly thirty years into my career, I approach these works with a different perspective, one shaped by experience and maturity. That said, my respect for the score remains unchanged. Every interpretation is driven by a deep commitment to honoring the composer’s intentions, and this production has been no exception. What I’ll cherish most about this experience is the opportunity to revisit a genre that is so integral to my artistic identity, while bringing the wisdom and insights I’ve gained over the years to this masterpiece.

The post Q & A: Conductor Paolo Arrivabeni on Why His Work Is Never Static & How It Is an Opportunity for Rediscovery and Growth appeared first on OperaWire.

The team behind the work is composer Blake Allen and director / writer Will Nunziata. Allen, an award-winning composer, violist, and producer, enjoys “merging merging the worlds of opera and musical theatre with traditional classical forms,” while exploring queer themes “juxtaposed against the hypocritical meritocracy of Disney ideals.”

Meanwhile, Nunziata is NYC-based award-winning director, writer, and creator of theatre, concerts, television, and film, whose short film “The Old Guitarist” earned him awards at the London Movie Awards, New York Movie Awards, and Paris Film Awards. Meanwhile, his screenplay for “Lillith” has earned recognition from the 2023 Hollywoood Blood Horror Festival and the New York Screenplay Competition. He also directed such plays as “Figaro: An Original Musical,” “White Rose: The Musical,” “Van Gogh: An Original Musical,” “Faygele: A New Play, and “Miss Peggy Lee,” among others.

The duo spoke briefly to OperaWire about their new collaboration, will get a preview in early 2025.

OperaWire: What was the inspiration for taking on this opera adaptation?

Will Nunziata: I have always loved Virginia Woolf and her work. As a former singer and now writer-director, I have always felt that “The Waves” had a rhapsodic, musical quality to it – the “ebb and flow” of the novel cries out “orchestra” and “singing.” At the beginning of the year, I re-read it, and “saw” it on the stage and “felt” it should be adapted into a full-fledged opera. I couldn’t believe no one else had ever done it, so after I wrote a draft of the libretto, I contacted my friend Blake who was already thinking of writing music to an opera-version of “The Waves.” Truly! He had a 50 song playlist for it on Spotify already! It was fate, and I am so excited to be working with Blake on this.

Blake Allen: Virigina Woolf has been an important literary figure of my life for many years. The way she is able to explain motivations and emotions through her cerebral, stream of consciousness feels more akin to how I feel music can express these same feelings. I have been wanting to adapt “The Waves” into an opera for years, so when Will approached me to collaborate on adapting the piece, I had to jump at the opportunity to say yes.

OW: What inspired you about the novel?

WN: What inspired me most is “The Waves” profound exploration of human consciousness and the nature of time. The novel, with its poetic language and stream-of-consciousness style, delves into the inner lives of six characters, tracing their interconnected journeys from childhood to old age. The novel’s structure, with its recurring motif of the waves crashing on the shore, creates a sense of rhythm and movement that I found deeply musical. The characters’ thoughts and emotions, often fragmented and fleeting, seemed to lend themselves naturally to operatic expression. I cannot wait for people to hear what Blake has created – a gorgeous, original, moving, thrilling, devastating, and poetic 21st century masterpiece of a score!

BA: I am enamored with how there are multiple ticking clocks occurring simultaneously: from the tides of the ocean, to the rising and setting of the sun, to our seemingly predetermined lives, to how friendships ebb and flow. We all collectively have our own thoughts that we never share with one another, and here is a story of six friends who share the same time space as one another, but we never experience what would be expressed aloud. Friendships morph and change, and we may never know what our loved ones actually think of us when they are alone with their own thoughts. And it is a wonderful challenge to depict this through music.

OW: What excites you about this challenge?

WN: I get excited by a challenge, and to be working with Blake on an opera based upon one of literature’s most gorgeously written novels has been a thrill. We are both having so much fun in the “sandbox” working on this. The novel’s themes of love, loss, and the search for meaning have resonated with both Blake and me on a personal level – which excites us to know that it will most likely resonate with others. In adapting The Waves for the opera stage, I seek to capture the essence of Woolf’s prose while also creating a work that is also dramatically compelling. I believe that The Waves is a timeless work of art that speaks to the deepest truths of human experience – a novel that I have returned to again and again over the years, and each time I discover new layers of meaning. I am honored to have the opportunity to bring this extraordinary work to life on the operatic stage with my dear friend, Blake. I also hope the opera honors Virginia Woolf for not only her work on “The Waves,” but for her breadth of artistic contribution to humanity worldwide.

BAA: Speaking of an inner monologue, Will has done something wonderful with the libretto – he has morphed the exquisitely languid prose of Virginia Woolf into fluttery encapsulations. How does a composer then take snippets of ideas and develop them into leitmotifs and create forward motion when we experience the same scenario through six different vantage points? It has been a thrill to create simultaneity. Much like the choral-like moments in the operas of Mozart or the multilayered polyphony of of the music Ligeti, I am striving to create a piece of music that allows an audience member to return and hear something new every time they experience the work – so they can follow along with a different character each time. Maybe the first time you hear the piece, you might resonate with the torrid pain of counter tenor, Neville. But then upon further investigation, one might hear the sullen languish of the mezzo soprano Rhoda. I am striving to investigate, through Will’s brilliant words, how each character not only stands alone, but affects another, and morphs into a collective, singular current.

The post Q & A: Composer Blake Allen & Librettist Will Nunziata on Their Upcoming ‘The Waves’ Opera appeared first on OperaWire.

On August 6, the head of the Slovak National Theatre, Matej Drlička, was informed of his dismissal by an officer from the Ministry of Culture. He was one of the many directors who were dismissed by the new Minister alleging Drlička had criticized her ministry and had an alleged preference for foreign over Slovak opera singers, among other reasons.

The dismissal set off a wave of protests with thousands of people taking to the streets of the Slovakian capital to protest against the country’s culture ministry. The crowds claimed that the dismissals were a political purge by Robert Fico’s populist left-wing Smer-SSD party, which won parliamentary elections in Slovakia and formed a coalition government with the center-left Hlas and nationalist SNS parties. The dismissal also saw many musical figures resign from their posts in Slovakia including Robert Jindra and Martin Leginus. Opera Europa also condemned the move and Karolina Sofulak withdrew from her engagement with the National Theatre.

OperaWire recently spoke to Drlička about his dismissal and the rise of authoritarian governments in Europe and around the world.

OperaWire: When you were fired from the Slovak National Theatre, was this something you were expecting or did it come as a surprise?

Matej Drlička: This government was installed after the parliamentary election a year ago. So as soon as the culture segment learned that the Minister of Culture would be nominated by the Slovak Nationalist Party, we knew we would be in trouble. The Slovak Nationalist Party is well known, in a negative way throughout the years. This party always brings the worst politics into the lives of people. Usually, the leaders are basically ashamed of our country either because of their race or homophobic or anti-Hungarian or anti-Romani views. They’re always beyond the red line and very far right.

It is also the oldest Slovak political party which was founded at the end of the 19th century, so they should have learned, but they didn’t learn anything. Every new chief president of the party always brings a new level of atrocity. The Minister of Culture is a pretty well-known figure in Slovakia because she was a TV presenter. TV presenters are very popular in our country. So this lady was fired by her original employer, which is a private television station. She was fired because of her racist expressions on social networks and then she founded her own disinformation channel on the Internet, where she was spreading the news that Covid was made up and the craziest disinformation you can imagine. So when we learned that this lady would be the Minister of Culture, we all knew that we would be in trouble and that this was not good news.

Of course, she has no idea about arts whatsoever but she has some knowledge about media because she was a TV presenter.

The elections were democratic and we could be unhappy, but we couldn’t question the results of the elections. So we all said, let’s wait. The first thing that she did was she sent a letter to the Czech Minister of Culture, which, for some reason, she put it on Facebook. And the letter was just ridiculously stupid and everybody laughed because there were grammatical mistakes. She was speaking about some sort of new era of cooperation between Czech and it was just a ridiculous letter saying nothing to our neighbor, which is pretty much a well-developed country. So we said this lady is going to just be funny. But later we learned that she would be dangerous and very soon, she started to be very offensive towards the minorities, especially the LGBTIA+ minority. Then she started to speak about her vision of the future of arts and culture. Her vision was that “Slovak culture will be Slovak and no other.” So this quote became very famous.

And so there was a discussion of if we are in Slovakia, what other cultures should it be? Even if you do a Verdi opera, you speak about Slovak culture because it’s interpreted in Slovakia. Every country that performs international repertoire still makes it a national opera, it’s still a national theater, and you somehow appropriate it even though it is an international repertoire.

But we realized that she’s extremely uneducated, extremely incompetent and that she doesn’t care. And then she started to fire people. First, she fired the director of a gallery of arts for children, which is a fairly small but important museum, and replaced her with her neighbor who lives in Austria and is a yoga teacher. But you can imagine the surprise because the minister said that “the Slovak culture should be Slovak and no other” but hired someone who lives in Austria.

There were a lot of petitions against this decision and some protests in front of the gallery. There were some letters of support from abroad and asked her to reconsider the decision.

Then they started to attack the culture funds, which is one way of financing independent arts and they changed the law so they could gain political control over the funds, which for the last 15 years were put aside from the ministry so that there was no political influence possible. All the money was distributed through independent expert juries.

Now they want to put it back so that the minister can control it then. They also changed the law of the Slovak National Television, so that they get it under control, especially the news.  So there was a lot of destruction.

Because Slovakia is a very young country, the mechanisms in culture that were functioning, and were very fresh. The funds for art, the funds for audiovisual, and the way the directors of the national institutions were being chosen were working well. Results started to be seen. But she basically ruined everything that was installed by her predecessors.

OW: So did you start hearing that there was a possibility of losing your job?

MD: I was receiving messages concerning myself. So the Slovak National Theatre has drama, opera, and ballet. When I was leading the theater, the order of popularity in our theater was the drama and the sales of the tickets were hitting 95 percent of occupancy. And one of the reasons is that all the actors also act in Slovak either in TV, in series, or in movies.

Then there is ballet, which is also almost sold out and we get 96 percent but these numbers were achieved during my management. And opera when I arrived in 2021, the occupancy was around 54 percent and we grew to 86 percent. So we did a lot of reforms in terms of opera.

The Slovak National Theatre has played a very important historical role in Slovak history and has always seen the actors of the Slovak National Theatre speak out and it was always the wish of all ministers to control the Slovak National Theatre and to have a hand over it especially in the drama department. Politicians were always afraid of the Drama Department, especially those who were openly autocratic.

Under my management, I gave total freedom to the director of the Drama Department. So the repertoire we were doing was pretty much critical, not towards a specific politician, but it was very critical towards our own country, how we behave, and towards Russia, among other things. But of course, this is what theater should do. And of course, this made them very upset.

So first, I received messages from friends who told me I should probably go easy on the programming and should ask my actors to do more comedies and less critical works. So we were gently being warned that we were going the wrong way for the politicians, especially for the minister. And we said, “fuck off.”

So we continued with our brave programming and the reaction of the public was extremely positive. So all the premieres and the reprises were always packed.

In April-May, I started to feel the real resistance from the ministry. They started to cut the financing because the main control of the ministry over European institutions is the budget. We are like all the other national theaters or all the other big theaters in Europe, we are 80 percent financed by the state or by the region and 20 percent by the income from the tickets and sponsors. This is pretty much the standard in all European countries.

So they started to cut all the money for investments which meant we couldn’t buy a new technology for the theater and we couldn’t afford a new website, which was still quite okay. But we just felt that they were trying to make us upset.

But then they announced that there would be major cuts in the main budget, which is basically the salaries of the employees. So that was like the first wave and a clear signal that they were not happy. And since we didn’t really change our strategy of programming, I started to speak up openly in public on social networks or when I was a guest and criticized the fact that I felt that Slovakia was going to the far right, the same way as Hungary.

I also said that freedom of speech was being censored. Auto-censure was something that I started to notice in other theaters from my colleagues. To get the money and to live a quiet life, they started to auto-censure themselves.

So I took the risk and I spoke out quite openly. There was one moment during a TV Oscars-type gala that was streamed and I was giving a prize there. So I had a speech where I was very open about how I felt about the politics of the country. And basically, I got the message that I was dead after this and I had gone too far.

And then I was just basically waiting for my dismissal which came in the middle of summer on the sixth of August. I was on my sick leave that day. I was sick for two or three weeks and the last few days, I was still recovering. And during this sick leave, one morning, they came to my door and I was wearing a bathrobe. So I was dismissed in my bathrobe from the officers of the ministry. And it became a funny story in Slovakia and there were a lot of cartoons and memes about this.

So when there was the first protest with around 18,000, there were a few hundred that were wearing bathrobes in the protest as a symbol of how they dismiss General Directors in Slovakia.

OW: Many people stepped down from positions as soon as they heard you were dismissed from your position. Robert Jindra stepped down from his position at the Košice State Philharmonic and then the director of the “Un Ballo in Maschera” withdrew.  How do you feel about the support you have received?

MD: There are three areas that I have to talk about. As far as the management of the Slovak National Theatre goes, when I was dismissed, the Economic director stepped down and then the director of opera stepped down, among others. My management is no longer there.

There is a new interim general director. It’s also a blonde lady from the media. She was a TV presenter and there was major resistance inside of the theater, especially from the drama department. So she’s realizing that she’s driving a car that is trying to reject her. So she feels very lonely in the theater.

Then people like Robert Jindra stepped down from working as chief conductor in another orchestra, but he was very expressive about the minister. He’s a Czech conductor and he left Slovakia, saying that this country is going in the wrong direction. Then Karolina Sofulak, the stage director of “Ballo in Maschera,” said that she could not imagine working under these conditions for the theater. So it was an important gesture and was an extremely warm message that they sent to us. I received a lot of messages and support after I was dismissed from the opera in European communities and a lot of theaters.

The minister and prime minister were sent letters where they were asked to reconsider their decision. That was signed by the most important theaters in Europe. But of course, the prime minister doesn’t read these kinds of letters and the minister has no idea what the Vienna State Opera is. So they don’t care and we didn’t change their mind.

The Slovak National Theater will continue somehow. But the biggest problem of the Slovak National Theatre is that the new interim director has no clue how to run a theater and things are falling apart. The second problem is that ticket sales stopped and they have a major problem. When we did this “The Cunning Little Vixen” it was sold out like 100 because the community knew that it was our production. It was a successful production and that’s the end of an era.

Everybody knows that something ended with this production and now, when I look at the sales of “Butterfly” or whatever, it’s 30-40 percent of sales, which is terrible. So, I think they’re going to have big, big problems.

OW: So the community is also supporting you in a way?

MD: We proved over those three and a half years to the operagoers that the reforms we did were correct. The quality of the orchestra, of the choir, of the guests, of the productions all went up. I started to change the theater from a repertoire to a production house because of the quality. We started to work with International stage directors as well as Slovak stage directors. We wanted to try to open up to the world. The opera community is not as immense as you can imagine in a small country. It’s a very small group of people and they see the difference and they know when the difference is happening. And now they’re expressing their opinion by not attending anymore.

So that’s the Slovak Theatre.

OW: What actions are you taking to continue spreading the word about this new minister?

MD: There is a strike action which is going on and I joined this platform which is of people working all around the country from all different fields of arts and culture and the creative industry. So we called this cultural strike. It’s strike awareness, telling you that we are ready to go into a hard strike if you don’t recall the Minister of Culture. So it’s thousands of people, hundreds of institutions, and we do press conferences where we try to show the general public what the minister is doing.

Of course, the Prime Minister and the Minister are pretending not to listen. I do know that the coalition is starting to crack and I know we will achieve some kind of results. I don’t know if it will lead to the dismissal of the minister, but we are definitely gaining the attention of the general public and media. So these activities are going quite well.

OW: How have other institutions been affected?

MD: There is the reality of the other state institutions, which is the biggest danger of what’s happening in the fields of culture. My colleagues, who are general directors of the 30 state institutions, most of them just look down and they want to survive and they comply with the Minister’s ideas. And this, for me, is the saddest story.

Inside their institutions, there are people who are on strike awareness but the representatives of the institutions, the CEOs shut up and they get in line and follow what the minister says. They think it’s a good strategy.

I spoke to many of them and they said, “Matej, for you, it’s over. But we want to survive. We have to protect the institutions from inside and we have to protect our employees.”

I told them they were wrong. If they think that by doing this, they will protect their employees, they are wrong. The Minister will end up cutting all of their budgets and in the end, they will fire them. And at the end, they will destroy many of these institutions.

Funnily, one of the guys that I was trying to convince the most was the general director of the Slovak National Museum, which is a fairly large institution that has 14 castles all over the country.

And I told him, “your institution is so big that if you speak up and if the others would speak up they can’t fire all of you at the same time. I told them to join the fight.”

I initiated this conference call where I was trying to give them some warrior spirit. And I said they fired me because I was the only one who was speaking up. And I told them if they entered the arena, we could reach results.

So this friend of mine from the Slovak National Museum, said, “Matej, maybe you’re right, but I want to stay.” But in the end, he was fired.

OW: After your dismissal was there a plan for the National Theatre?

MD: When they dismissed me, for four weeks, they didn’t find anybody to replace me. That’s one of the absurdities of the whole thing. They fired the director of the National Theatre and they have no backup, and for four weeks, there is no backup. And then they come up with this blonde lady who is crying every time she goes to work.

Because the replacement, it’s not an authority from the Theater World. It’s a nobody.

OW: The Minister of Culture said that one of the reasons for dismissing you was that they wanted to have more Slovak artists and fewer International Artists which they claim you put first. I know that there are not many international soloists at the company. Can you explain what the Minister of Culture meant and what was the disconnect?

MD: Disconnection is a nice way to put it. But they lied and one of the reasons why they dismissed me was according to them I was bringing political activism to the theatre, which is not true. Being critical of society is not political activism.

And one of the reasons was also that I was giving too much space for international soloists. I wish we had money for that, but luckily several Slovakian singers have made international careers like Pavol Breslik, and Štefan Kocán, among others. So bringing those singers back home brought the public. But they are still Slovak singers.

So politicians openly lied when they said that I turned the opera away from Slovak Soloist and gave it to international singers.

OW: Right now the world is going through a transition period and we’re seeing a lot of autocratic governments come to power. Do you think these protests will help bring back some clear stability?

MD: I don’t think that the protests from the cultural communities will be enough. What we are trying to do is to be the first wave and trigger bigger protests. This is what has always happened in the history of Slovakia. The artists were the first ones who stepped up and who started. But of course, it’s a small community and with every protest, we see that the politicians get more and more resistant. You need hundreds of thousands of people on the street to make them fear. So 20,000 people protesting is nothing to our politicians.

I’m positive about the fact that we all see it and people are not completely blind. I think we will achieve something but the negative part is that what is happening in Slovakia is now starting to happen in smaller sizes in Austria, Holland, Germany, and France.

I’m not a political historian or a political strategist but I’m a positive person and I think that by continuing and not shutting up, we will achieve something. But I’m afraid that the results are uncertain.

OW: What do you attribute to the rise in these extremist politics especially in Slovakia?

MD: The rise of Autocratic politicians and populism is something important to analyze. There are a lot of similarities between the way that Donald Trump speaks to his voters and the way that Orbán is speaking. So it’s not only strictly related to Slovakia. We see it all over the place, especially Europe, and North America.

Now, populism is the topic, and it’s different in every country. In Western Europe, it’s about the immigrants as it is in the United States.

In Slovakia, we don’t have any immigrants. So Slovakia, definitely cannot say that we have this kind of challenge. But what we have is the Russians and they are creating a Crypto War.

The cyber war with Russia is a reality and I think their main effort is now Slovakia, and people get fooled by this. So our current government is presenting Russia as the country that wants peace. And that’s it.

OW: So the spread of disinformation is not helping the cause. How do you think the arts world in general can help combat the misinformation and autocratic rise?

MD:  This is a question that I don’t know how to answer and it’s too difficult to answer. I think it’s very different from country to country.

I definitely have no idea about the measures and the size of the problem in the United States because I only have information from the media. So I think that the role of arts and culture is to continue and I think very soon in our country, we will have problems for culture. I think most of the people around me understand that we have to get ready for very tricky times, not only in independent culture, but also in the state culture.

Next year, there are plans to cut the budgets from 20 to 25 percent for state institutions, which will be for many of them the end, because they will not be able to survive. I think we are entering hard times, and I think there will be one moment when these people will realize it’s going to suck and they will have to fight.

Right now the problem is that people are afraid and think that they will somehow survive and that they will manage. But they will eventually understand that they will not manage. That might get us to the bigger wave of resistance and where I am confident that even though there is little optimism, we are democratic countries, and we are still united in our countries.

I think that if we have to stick to the idea of the European Union and we trust each other, we can survive. But we should only be the first wave. There need to be louder voices.

OW: What is next for you?

MD: Before taking the position at the National Theatre, I had several projects. I’m running a classical music festival in the capital city of Slovakia, “Viva Musica,” which was celebrating 20 years. I also run an artistic agency.

So, I come from business. I was an entrepreneur, so when I was dismissed, I just went back to my agency, which was functioning, well. So I just came back.

That’s the difference between me and most of my colleagues who spent their entire life in those institutions and they have no parallel life or parallel way to escape. So, I’m continuing with the festival and with the business.

I also became an activist and I’m going to organize a tour of discussions all over the country. I’m just building up a panel of interesting people from famous actors to musicians, and we are going to go to the smaller cities all over the country, to the far east of the country, and speak about what the ministry is doing and why it’s dangerous. So, this is one of my projects.

Since being dismissed, I’ve been spending a lot of my time with this open culture platform and this strike awareness. There are a lot of activities and we organize press conferences and prepare texts and files for journalists, and we start to we try to organize the community to continue the fight.

The post Q & A: Matej Drlička on His Dismissal From Slovak National Theatre & Rise of Authoritarian Regimes appeared first on OperaWire.

What does the future look like for female directors in opera? Opera San José, the opera company in the heart of Silicon Valley, California, now entering its 41^st season, gives OperaWire a look at two young trailblazers: the current CEO and General Director, Shawna Lucey, and Michelle Ainna Cuizon, presently in residence and about to make her Directorial debut with “La Boheme.” Together they share a vast imagination, hard-work ethic and strong sense for knowing how their work impacts the field.

OperaWire’s interview with both, makes it clear how women are bringing more than just their presence to the world of opera.

Meet Shawna Lucey

Shawna Lucey brings with her a feast of varied experience. “I began in acting,” she said, detailing her academic accomplishments completing degrees in Theater and Italian at the University of Texas in Austin, “then I moved to Russia and completed a Master’s degree at the Boris Schukin Theatre Institute of the Vakhtangov Theater in Moscow. There I worked in traditional theater physical action, fencing, rhythmics, directing, and dance.”

Having worked with the Bread and Puppet Theater, when she directed and designed her first project in Moscow, she created a puppet version of Primo Levi’s “If This is a Man,” which was performed in Moscow and then went on tour. As the only American (and sole foreigner) in a class of Russians, Shawna learned first-hand not only how to blend multi-disciplinary traditions of dance, music and puppetry with narrative, but as the sole American in her program, how to work with differentness and collaborators. In fact, it was collaboration that became a benchmark of her developing work.

“Then, I didn’t know a lot about opera,” Shawna laughed. “But, what happened next was dumb luck that changed my life. I participated in an orchestral reading of Verdi’s ‘Falstaff,’ and it was love at first note.”  She laughed again. “Because of my strong interest in how to affect an audience as a performer, as a director I realized that with music, I could do even more.”

Further, she began to explore the many different ways a performance could answer an audience need as well. “I began to ask,” Shawna said, “what the audience was clamoring for. It was crucial for the performance to satisfy that need. I studied the work of various opera personae – singers like Quinn Kelsey, J’nai Bridges, Rachel Sorensen, Aileen Perez; and directors, like Paula Suozzi, Jen Good, Matthew Shilvock,” and studied how the wealth of their skills helps bring life to a performance. That’s, after all, what the audience came for, something real, something live, and, definitely, something whole. Unless these artists bring their talents into the total performance effectively, the whole project will not come alive.

Collaboration was one key, Shawna emphasized, for them and for her as director. A newer model of authority seems at work in her artistic vision. Performance was not to rest only in the hands of the director. “It was/is very important to work with the performers above all, to listen to whatever they are trying to say,” and so make the whole process and the performance inclusive. Shawna stressed how much she benefited from her mentors and that one of her key goals is to provide the artists in her productions with the same gift. As she said, “my mission is to nurture new talent.” Directing in this way can smooth the way for this to happen.

When she came back to the U.S., she took another degree, this time a Masters of Science in non-profit art.

Then, she worked at Santa Fe Opera, Houston Opera, San Francisco Opera, among others, and realized too that it is crucial nowadays to show women characters as more than victims or weak-willed. We need to wrestle with these images in some way that remains faithful to the opera narrative and its music, but doesn’t fail to show women as also smart and powerful. One example is Nedda in “Pagliacci,” whom we can see as a smart woman, rather than not.

Then she added, as feminist directors, we must deal with the anger of women in the U.S. as well as elsewhere who know that in this field, and it is an uphill battle. “Where did your fierce direction come from?” I asked. “I had a strong feminist grandfather. He pushed me and my sister in this. I feel I am part of the chain of women moving through history.” She added, “I was sent  to a Catholic high school and I was under the watchful eye of the head nun who was a strong feminist. From her too, I learned that men were not always better at everything.”

This lively and articulate young woman wants to work on the international as well as domestic opera scene, and is very happily settled in San José with her young daughter. She sees the benefits for further development of the company, where she sees herself as an opera CEO, director, and a “global citizen.” Her upcoming directing projects include a new production of “Tosca” for the San Francisco Opera, “Falstaff” at Dallas Opera and “Pearl Fishers” at Santa Fe. In November, she will direct San José’s “Bluebeard’s Castle.”

Meet Michelle Ainna Cuizon

Michelle Ainna Cuizon, Resident Stage Director at Opera San José for the 2024–2025 season, on the other hand, started off singing. “I was a musical kid. I did Karaoke, where I grew up in the Philippines. Also, I sang in choirs and always saw music as a door opening, all kinds of music. At Manila University, for instance, I studied musical theater. Recognizing, however, how competitive the field was, I decided to become a voice major,” says Cuizon.

“My family had always had their hearts set on living in the U.S., and back in the 1980s, my grandparents set the wheels in motion. Since they were also very encouraging and supportive of my career vision, they thought moving to the U.S. could be helpful to me. Then, suddenly, the time came, and we set off. We landed and settled in New York, learned English and began to pursue the next phase of our lives. For me that meant applying to the Metropolitan Opera Fellowship by the Bank of America. I got one for 2022-23. Before Covid, I had been leaning toward directing opera, and this fellowship enabled me to begin working in the field. I never expected it, and long before I ever expected it, I became an assistant director,” says Cuizon.

Like Lucey, Michelle found herself strongly influenced by watching other women directing, among them, Metropolitan Opera Executive Director, Paula Suozzi. “There was a woman with so many roles, which I realized she couldn’t manage if she weren’t efficient and well-organized,” says Cuizon.

That’s it, she thought; only with focus could she achieve what she wanted. During her one year fellowship, Michelle worked on eight operas, including “The Hours” and “Champion,” after having surmounted the challenge of working on Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth of Mtensk,” in Russian!

“English is already my second language, and here I was facing the challenge of assisting on an opera, that was totally foreign to me. What a challenge,” says Cuizon. Now, she is studying Italian, and says, “really a must for opera directors. This time it is much easier.”

Michelle is proud of her time learning from other talented directors and singers, like Patricia Racette on “Susannah,” J’nai Bridges, and Aileen Perez, Last season she assisted Shawna Lucey on the Broadway World awarded production of “Romeo & Juliet.” She also assisted Stephen Lawless on “Barber of Seville,” Dan Wallace Miller on “Rigoletto,” and on the Bay Area premiere of “Florencia en el Amazonas,” assisting Crystal Manich, and at Opera Theatre of St. Louis, and worked on “Julius Caesar” directed by Elkhanah Pulitzer. In addition to being Opera San José’s Resident Stage Director this season, Michelle will assistant direct at the Metropolitan Opera this coming winter to assistant direct “The Magic Flute – A Holiday Presentation” and “Tosca“ with Sondra Radvanosky in the title role.

“I have learned so much from Shawna Lucey of course. It is clear when she sees something she wants she makes up her mind to do it. I benefit so much from her example,” says Cuizon. From both women, what we get is how much they are learning from each other. Rather than the stereotypical competitive stance between women, vying as they had to the scant array of positions available to them, they have returned to the age-old one in which women band together and urge each other forward, contributing to the sense of belonging.

“It is Shawna who inspired me from the start and has encouraged me to put forth my vision, Shawna, the young mother of a nearly four year old, who gives so much. If I can give… then I will be living out the dream which I have been living since I myself was mentored by some of the most remarkable people, who see me as I am. I have faced opposition as a woman, let alone moving to U.S., speaking a different language, taking charge as of a whole production and finding new skills and seeing myself altogether differently,” says Cuizon.

Both of these young women have devoted themselves to their craft, despite their personal challenges of being a woman in a field largely dominated by men and the male point of view.

“In my production of the female heroine in ‘La Boheme,’ in which OSJ Music Director Joseph Marcheso will conduct, and opening on November 16th, I am trying to show strength of women, and women’s friendship, for instance in Musetta and Mimi. It is so important to see a complete woman rather than simply a victim for whom we pity only,” says Cuizon.

“Also, she aims to show a sense of belonging in this coming of age story. To show the relationships of the chars who are complex, asking questions like, where have I come from, and where do I belong. It is refreshing and invigorating to hear the wish to strengthen women’s capacities in an opera like ‘La Boheme,’ so beloved and endearing. To begin to see women as capable even as they suffer is definitely a good thing,” says Cuizon.

“What about your musical dreams?” I asked.

“To belong, to a community, to a place, to people,” says Cuizon.

She wants her culture to be acceptable outside of the Philippines. She also wants to establish opera in the Philippines and to raise interest so she can establish funding. To show it is necessary.

Let’s keep our eye on Opera San José among other houses in the opera world, and the women who offer their vision and their stunning ability to translate it into action.

The post Vast Imagination – Directors Shawna Lucey & Michelle Ainna Cuizon on Bringing their Vision to Opera San José & the Opera World at Large appeared first on OperaWire.

The Ring Cycle is a massive undertaking, one that requires an opera company with a built-in infrastructure to do it.

But it is also the peak of opera production and one that every director / manager dreams of doing. So despite, the massive challenge it entailed, Regents Opera’s artistic director Ben Woodward, who is also a conductor, pianist, vocal coach and arranger, and stage director Caroline Staunton, who is a staff director at the Staatsoper Berlin, could not be deterred from putting on a historic, independently-produced “Ring” in the U.K.”

The project, which opens on Feb. 9, 2025, was so popular that the company had to add another performance of “Götterdämmerung” to satiate audience’s passion for Wagner’s magnus opus. OperaWire spoke to the two about the “Ring.”

Opera Wire: Can you tell us a bit about Regents Opera and how it came about?

Ben Woodward: I founded Fulham Opera with a selection of others in 2010-11 and we were based in St. John’s Church in Fulham. We started doing opera in there, starting with “Amahl and the Night Visitors,” a little Christmas opera, and then a baritone friend of mine – he sang the middle king in that – said “That was great fun, let’s do ‘Rheingold’ – I want to be Alberich.” I spot a good idea when one’s thrown at me, so that started that. And when you do a successful “Rheingold,” the question then asked is, “Are you going to do the rest?” So we did our first little Ring Cycle in there with me playing the piano for the whole thing in 2014, and then in 2020 a guy called Nick Heath who ran something called Regents Opera (also called Opera a la carte – mainly touring opera around English country houses) wanted to pass it on so it had a legacy, so I essentially bought Regents Opera, the name and the client list off him. And although Regents Park exists, it doesn’t have that geographical connection that Fulham Opera had and so Regents Opera seemed the best name with which to carry on. So that’s when I started doing these insane things. In the meantime, I moved to Berlin, met Caroline – whether she regrets it or not I don’t know (laughs) – and she agreed to do this Ring Cycle with us and that’s why we’re here now.

OW: What’s the vision for Regents Opera?

BW: The vision for the company is: we continue with our country house opera stuff – this year we’ve done “Don Giovanni” and next year we’ll do “La bohème” around a variety of country houses in England and indeed in France. But we also do very large opera productions that probably belong in much bigger opera houses in an interesting, immediate, intimate way – and that’s what we’ve managed to do with this Ring. We’re doing it “in the round” (stage space), and so you’re right next to the people you’re listening to, which makes it very exciting. What happens after the Ring is still up for discussion. As I say, I know we’re doing “La bohème” next year on tour and we’ll just see how things go – the Ring is all-encompassing by its very nature.

OW: Does the Ring then go onto other cities, or will you be putting it on in London only?

BW: The nature of the spaces that we’ve been using means that there is the potential to pack together what we need and move it somewhere and then tweak it depending on other venues. So while there is not yet aggressive planning to bring it to Berlin or bring it to other places there is certainly the potential for it, which is something we have talked about before – but at this point it’s like a baby, we just want to get it out.

OW: Is this Ring doing anything in particular to cultivate interest in opera with future generations/younger people?

BW: We’re working on every possible marketing strategy we can – we need it to be full and we’re always looking for new audiences. So we’ve gone from the Freemason’s Hall – they’ve had a change of management so we’ve had to move, sadly – to York Hall in Tower Hamlets. It’s an interesting space: it’s a Ring in a boxing ring essentially – York Hall is the home of British boxing. I don’t know if we’ll be doing any silly marketing with boxing gloves, but we’ll see… Caroline hates the idea (laughs). Tower Hamlets is an interesting part of London, we’ll be marketing it to the people there, we’ve got ideas about an education project and we’re talking to people/schools about how that might work. We’re hoping to make this as inclusive and interesting as possible to all people, basically.

OW: Putting on the whole Ring cycle is a challenge in all sorts of ways. What was your reaction when you found out that the Freemason’s Hall (your original venue) could no longer host “Götterdämmerung,” the last opera in the cycle?

BW: They were very generous to us and they were very helpful in terms of the first three operas, but, you know, much like with governments or any other institutions when managements change, things change and it became such that in order to put on the Ring cycle not only do you need the performance nights but you also need a vast amount of time in the space to rehearse it. And the new management didn’t feel they were able to accommodate that. And that’s worked much better actually because it meant that it worked with Caroline’s schedule – she wouldn’t have been able to do it otherwise.

OW: Your Ring cycle opens in February 2025 and it’s already sold very well (we’re in October 2024). You’ve even had to add an extra performance of “Götterdämmerung” due to box office demand. Impressive results for one of the most demanding set of operas out there. What do you think is making this such a success?

BW: The immersive nature of it and the quality of the singing and the storytelling – I blame you for much of this (to Caroline, laughing)… “blame” isn’t quite the right word for it.

Caroline Staunton: When you’re doing a fringe opera production it’s important you cut corners, so, for instance, the venues that we’re using at the moment, there’s no potential to fly in scenery or to do epic scene changes and even the lighting has to be quite reduced because hanging points are limited and so on. But we haven’t scrimped on musical quality because his (Ben Woodward’s) arrangements are absolutely fantastic and his conducting is absolutely brilliant and we use top notch singers, and we do it without a single cut so people compare it to the Jonathan Dove versions, but I mean, he cut them and made drastic changes, they’re not authentic to Wagner, not true to it. We captured as much as we can and when you don’t have much set or location then you put the work into the people and make sure that the emotional journeys of the characters are as vividly realised as possible, and when you have people that are capable of doing that as well as singing the crap out of it… Then you also don’t have that distance of the orchestra pit, the performance happens around it, so you can hear the voice leaving the singer’s body if you’re in the front row and that makes it different and enthralling – you experience it differently. In many ways, once you’ve seen it, it kind of sells itself, it’s just getting them through the door in the first place – that’s the hard bit.

OW: You’ve re-orchestrated the entire Ring Cycle – that’s a huge undertaking. Can you tell us a bit more about the process, how you went about it, any challenges encountered?

BW: I keep it all, it just alters who actually plays it. I keep it as close as possible to the original Wagner. I mean, it is a labour of love. I have now finished “Götterdämmerung,” it’s all done. I usually spend three hours most mornings, I use a program called Dorico and I type the whole thing into it and I try to alter as little as possible, which might sound ridiculous but… So if the original is two clarinets running in thirds, and I’ve only got the one clarinet… if the clarinet is on top I’ll put the oboe underneath it so the oboe will then play it in thirds with the clarinet. Whereas if it’s two oboes in thirds I’ll keep the oboe on top and I’ll put the clarinet underneath to still make the thirds but you’ll get the sonority of the original. So I try to keep the set of colours as close as possible to the original, by being as reasonable as possible. There are other things like for instance, at the beginning of “Valkyrie,” Wagner splits the cellos six ways quite near the beginning and so what I’ve done is I’ve kept the cello on the top because you hear the top voice and then put the rest of the parts into the other string parts because I’ve only got so many strings to play with. So that’s kind of what the process is – it’s one of condensing… it feels like it might be imaginative but it’s not as imaginative as you might think, it’s just a re-arrangement of what we do. I’ve also taken out the percussion and the harps (which the director constantly moans about, says Caroline, laughing). The main reason for that is actually financial, you always end up spending twice as much on freelance percussion or freelance harpists, they charge you so much extra in taxis or whatever.

CS: And the space needed… if you’re going to do percussion then you do it properly so then space is needed for that. And we never really had a generous orchestra space – the  string players are amazing to be that cramped together, and we have a very good brass section and they do make noise, so to be that close together… they really are on board with this, it’s a love project for them as well because the circumstances are not as comfortable as you would like to offer them.

BW: Oh, they have to play out of their skins, they have to play out of their skins. It just wouldn’t work otherwise.

OW: Funding constraints often cause difficulties in maintaining standards – how do you deal with such issues?

BW: It’s on a knife edge. Opera is always financially extremely difficult to make work. I did an MBA in 2020 with the idea of “maybe I can learn how to make opera pay for itself” and the fact of the matter is it doesn’t. You put money in and you get opera out, you don’t get any money back. So, we’ve had lots of generous donors… my main job now that I’ve finished the score is to talk to all those donors and say “You know those £100 pounds you gave us for ‘Siegfried?’ Do you think you could give us £400 now that it’s the whole Ring?” It’s that kind of thing. I did write an Arts Council grant this week, and I have no idea if that was time well spent or not, we’ll find out in nine weeks’ time.

CS: That’s why the repertoire system is so strong in Germany because when it comes to a single performance of a single show dependant on chorus, orchestra, stage technicians, etc., there’s no performance in Germany that actually covers the cost of itself through ticket sales, whether it’s sold out or not. So repertoire pieces can quickly be put back up and don’t take the same performance investment which is why it would be a good idea to keep this Ring and try to revive it further down. The issue is that with venue rental rehearsals cost and even just lighting a show… a two hour show takes quite a considerable time to set up, and a sixteen hour show like the Ring takes considerably longer. And it costs money just to look at light.

BW: The costs are astronomical.

CS: But when Ben took on this project he was absolutely adamant that the singers get a proper salary and the musicians get a proper salary which of course adds hugely to the costs but it takes any amateurism out of the entire equation. And this is an incredibly professionally run project. It’s just that I think Ben got a few sleepless nights.

BW: Just a few. But yes, the fees we are offering are roughly commensurate with Holland Park fees. When I first spoke to our Wotan (or our late Wotan, Keel), I asked him what Holland Park would give him for doing a Wotan – he told me the figure and I shook his hand off. So that’s what we’re aiming at. There are these wonderful singers who are very serious about their art and are able to work with someone who demands really quite a lot of them.

OW: You both live in Berlin, Germany. What lessons are there – if any – for opera in the UK?

CS: Here in Germany opera is seen as a job, not as something that’s elite or lofty or exclusive. It takes so many different types of employees to make opera happen and because there is this wonderful quantity of it, it keeps going and it keeps moving, and we ought to keep thinking and communicating. You get those moments during a rehearsal with orchestra where you encounter the specialness of it and the sublimity of what you’re doing and then you do think, “yes, my job is a privilege” but also my job involves very often fourteen hour days and constant compromises and discussions and planning and then reversing the planning when a singer is sick or whatever. Everything is always on such a delicate balance but here it’s just very much treated as a job and there’s a seriousness and an authenticity that goes with it and people don’t waste their time thinking about how special they are because they get to work in something like that. There is this lovely knowledge that there is so much of it happening and there’s also an interdisciplinary support as well. There’s huge awareness of what’s happening in other houses and what other people are doing, not with a jealous eye but an interest in terms of “how are they telling that story, how is that singer doing in that role” and so on. It feels like there is a larger community and it’s lovely how you meet the same people again and again in different times and spaces and you do bond over these things but in a very real, practical way, which is not so much my experience in Ireland or in England where it just feels a bit more of an exception, perhaps because there isn’t that much of it. In these places there’s much more that stagione idea that we’re all here for this one thing and therefore this one thing is the only thing that we need to think of. Whereas at the moment for the last three or four weeks I’ve had three different operas in my head at any one time because I’ve been working on all three of them at the same time, including “Götterdämmerung” so actually four. So you just need to find a way to stay sane and get on with it. Obviously there is that lovely work that you can do at summer festivals, I’ve been to Salzburg a few times and so on and it’s lovely when you can rock up and only think about “Don Giovanni” for instance. So for example, in the last couple of months I’ve had a Janáček piece, a Strauss piece, I’m starting with a Puccini piece and then Wagner so I’ve had all those four guys in my head for the last couple of months at the same time, but that’s the version of working in opera that I particularly love. They all make you crazy by the way, and also I’m an overly emotional person so I’ve been known to cry in rehearsals (laughs).

OW: How about financially, any particular differences between Germany and the UK?

CS: There is more work available in Germany and the hours are a bit unregulated. What makes my job difficult is… I’m officially the regie-assistente or house director but unfortunately rehearsals are rehearsals and most of the time you don’t rehearse more than eight hours a day, but then other things take up the other hours of the day, mostly rehearsing the other pieces. We’re very unregulated, our job is very undefined and in many ways you decide yourself what makes you good at your job which means putting in the extra hours, being at all the lighting rehearsals and all that kind of thing. And I’d imagine in England it’s much more controlled in terms of how many hours you’re actually working and it’s also probably better paid.

BW: The thing is, you’re on a salary though…

CS: And during Covid that was amazing because the one thing you couldn’t do is be in a rehearsal room with people which is literally what I live for but the salary kept coming – they protected us all, it was really extraordinary, all the freelance people, otherwise it would have been a disaster.

BW: The nice thing about the German “fest” system of course is that all the singers and all the music staff get a salary, thirteen months a year, and the ensemble singers as well – it’s quite a different thing. I did at one point do a projection of what it would cost to create a British “fest” system, in the UK. Back of an envelope numbers… I still reckon that to make one “fest” theatre in every county in the UK it would still cost much less than what we spent on the Olympics, but you know, it’s just a mad thing… it’s, you know, priorities of different countries…

OW: So, Caroline, as a Stage Director, it’s more up to you then, how you go about it and how many hours you put in for rehearsals and that sort of thing?

CS: It depends on the time that you have, and obviously it depends on the availability of the singers, so the frustrating thing for instance is when you’re trying to revive a piece and the main role doesn’t come until two days before you’re about to be on stage, or each piece has its own circumstances and you just decide what’s the best way to deal with it or indeed to throw a fit and say, “there are lots of changes here.” But then you also decide how much time you get on stage and obviously they want to perform as much as possible but there are certain shows where for example in order to get the set up done in time you can’t rehearse in the morning if you’re going to have that show on in the evening so that becomes a lost opportunity to rehearse on the stage. Sometimes you can rehearse on the stage running with half the sets and not all of the sets, or not with the dangerous part of the sets that you want to teach the people how to use and all that sort of thing. So it’s a constant negotiation and you have to constantly keep your eye on the ball and then just somehow manage to get through everything. And as I say the Strauss opera that I’m working on at the moment, “Die Frau ohne Schatten” is just long, it’s very, very long and there are very many scenes and then on top of that. There are dancers and there are extras and there are children actors as well at the end, and I’m trying to rehearse every aspect of the show so I’m not yet managing any sort of a run through – that’s what we’re running on Tuesday when we’re on stage but then it’s only once with piano, once with orchestra and then the next one is a performance and so everyone is feeling a little bit like “right, okay” (laughs).

OW: So do you normally feel you get enough rehearsal time?

BW: There’s never enough rehearsal time!

CS: No, there’s never enough rehearsal time. Also, I hate performance, I just love rehearsals, I’m like Stanislavski. Stanislavski rehearsed “Otello” for two years and then never let it actually perform because he felt it wasn’t good enough (laughs). I adore rehearsals but when it comes to performances I’m a nervous wreck because there’s nothing more I can do, it just has to happen.

OW: Is this your first collaboration with Regents Opera?

CS: Yes, I got to know Ben during lockdown and then coming out of lockdown we started doing opera evenings in a wine bar close to the opera house in the centre. Ben’s really good with music and he was coaching them on arias and I came in with just some basic scenic approaches and we are both of the belief that once you combine a scenic element or a staged element with the singing element than the singing also improves. There’s something about refocusing your attention on the text and on the context of what it is that you’re singing that it instantly becomes less of a listen-to-my-wonderful-voice kind of experience and much more of a theatrical moment of a character really establishing something or saying something about themselves. So Ben saw that happening and we realised that in the rehearsal room as well we communicate very well with each other and we weirdly have the same goals and we overlap in terms of where it needs to be. How much of an impasse there can be in a rehearsal room if you and the musical director don’t see eye to eye. If the Stage Director and the Music Director don’t see eye to eye and don’t have a relationship everything just takes six times longer and then no one’s happy as well with the outcome, so that’s an absolute serendipity that we agree so much artistically and what the goal is and where we want to bring singers with their singing and their interpretation.

BW: Yes, it seems to work.

CS: Also, I’m not a radical director – at least not yet, or not with the Ring – so it’s not like I say “Can we stop playing here” and I need to have four minutes of silence because I have to do some dumb show acting, so none of those kinds of demands. Also in general, if I ask for something Ben is usually quite amenable and if he’s not amenable then he explains the error of my ways…

BW: And vice-versa…
CS: And vice-versa…

OW: What’s the main idea or inspiration behind this Ring?

CS: So Wagner used this idea of Gesamtkunstwerk which is the idea of the coming together of the various elements of what it takes to stage successful opera which is the musical element but also the text element and the scenic element and the movement element and how it all comes together to create this total work of art. So I’ve got a further take on this artwork theme which is to use the idea of the modernist art gallery to look at this notion of what happens once an object is presented for contemplation as an art work. So there’s the object and then there is what we called “plinthing.” In the act of plinthing the object transforms itself and offers itself as an artwork object and I’m interested then in how the subject encounters it and also what happens to the subject during the encountering of the artwork, how it changes them. So that’s the central metaphor for what I’ve been doing, this idea of the “Rheingold” in itself but also as a source of power and also related to the experience of love. Specifically – and this is recurrent throughout the entire Ring cycle – there is the idea that the test of how much you love something is how you are once you lose it. It’s extraordinary, I hadn’t fully appreciated how sad “Götterdämmerung” is. Siegfried in our production is not a traditional brainless hero just looking to stick his sword into things, he’s actually a very damaged, troubled man-child as a result of the origin story of his parents and the involvement of Wotan who’s also lost children, he lost his son – he was involved in the murder of his own son and then had to sacrifice Brünnhilde through pride but also through grief. Then you get this incredible villain in Hagen, who’s Alberich’s offspring, very much in counterpoint to what Sigmund was for Wotan. And something we’ve done throughout as well is that we have the black Alberich and the white Wotan, so Wotan has always seen himself as a kind of reflection of Alberich, one is white, one is black but the two of them are inextricably related. Then there’s the son of Alberich, very much the counterpoint to Sigmund and then just working through this inevitability – talk about spoilers, when you call your opera “Twilight of the Gods” you’re not in too much doubt about how all of this ends, you know.

OW: Are you working with a set designer and a costume designer?

CS: It’s one person in charge of both, stage and costumes. I have quite a lot of input into the stage designs because especially on a reduced budget it needs to be dramaturgically very astute, so I tend to conceive it and she makes it looks good. And then the costumes are very much her ideas. Then of course there is the make-up troupe. This is part dramaturgical and part… well, if you have eight Valkyries and they all want to look hot, well, you need make-up artists.

OW: Why should audiences come to watch/listen to this Ring?

BW: The singing and the story are both fantastic and it is complete, from the first note of “Rheingold” to the last note of “Götterdämmerung” we’re not making any cuts, it is the whole Ring cycle, fully staged, with orchestra, in an interesting space, done “in the round.” It’s the only full Ring cycle that’s happening in the UK next year, there are no other Ring cycles.

OW: What’s been the best part of directing the Ring with Regents Opera so far?

CS: The best thing has been the work with the performers. I come from a teaching background – I used to teach poetry and Shakespeare and that kind of thing – so I’ve always just loved to see that element of how… the act of interpreting a text, and using words and language and seeing how that changes into an attitude or a motivation or a mission. Singing is such an incredibly athletic, almost Olympian activity but then when you are on top of that you can also then get through to actioning text and using text in a way where there is genuine connection between people. It’s the nicest thing about staging it in this way rather than in the traditional proscenium with the orchestra pit – in the traditional way there is always the concern of the voices having to carry and go out to the front, but here, because the orchestra is actually behind the singers it means that I can be completely reckless with where I’m telling them to stand and which direction to sing in and to keep it moving and so on. Also the text itself is so fascinating, I think Wagner is also quite underrated as a librettist and one of the major artistic features of the Ring are the alliteration games that he plays throughout. On top of that his word choice in so many moments is just incredible, and then the marriage of this poetic element to the leitmotifs, which is one of the most significant features of the orchestral scores (apart from their brilliance). The leitmotifs are these recurring patterns of melodies that are linked to specific events or sometimes specific objects – there’s the spear motif, there’s the curse motif, there’s the love motif, there are lots of motifs but it just gives you so much information to incorporate into the staging. And again, we’ve reduced down on big flying scenery but we try to get as much from the score and the text into the staging and you then find that a gesture can be as meaningful as an expensive piece of scenery or timing a look between two people at the right moment or that kind of thing. And then Ben’s provided me with singers who are not only up for this challenge but are very capable of fulfilling it. So, that’s my favourite part, yes.

BW: Rehearsals… (laughs) This thing has been an enormous project. Creating the score is one thing and then seeing the whole growth of it – it’s been a huge project, from testing every possible bit of everyone, and making this whole thing work, to making sure all the relationships work, to making sure that everyone is doing a nice job and everyone is as happy as we can possibly keep them and to make it happen in such a way that everyone’s paid and we all make a tremendous, extraordinary piece of art with it. The reason for doing this has been to tell the Ring story and for me to conduct it with magnificent singers and a fantastic artistic partner. That’s what this enterprise has been about and it’s been a huge enterprise. Don’t know what will be next, but we’ll figure something out.
CS: Sleep!

BW: Sleep, what’s that?!

The post Q & A: Regents Opera’s Ben Woodward & Caroline Staunton on Putting on Wagner’s full Ring Cycle Independently in London appeared first on OperaWire.

The production was first created in 2005 and has not been performed since 2011. Now as the company prepares for the revival, famed choreographer Kitty McNamee will be making her directorial debut reviving the production.

McNamee choreographed the production when it was first premiered and has since worked with the company on productions of “La Traviata,” “Don Carlo,” “La Rondine,” “Lucia di Lammermoor,” “The Tales of Hoffmann,” and “The Marriage of Figaro.”

In preparation for her debut as a director, OperaWire spoke to McNamee about directing “Romeo et Juliette” and her work in choreographing throughout the years.

OperaWire: What excites you about making your LA Opera debut as a director?

Kitty McNamee: Stepping into the role of director and working with the cast to create multidimensional performances is exhilarating.

OW: “Romeo et Juliette” is a work with parties, fights, and then many intimate moments. What scene are you excited to direct?

KM: I’m excited about Act one, Scene two: Capulet’s Ball. I’m fascinated by the tension between privately fashioned and socially sanctioned identities and this scene creates the opportunity to explore that with the full company of chorus, supers, and principals. The focus is constantly shifting from the extravagant public display of the dances to the more clandestine moments of plans being laid, lovers being met.

OW: How do you balance the work with singers vs with other dancers and choristers on stage?

KM: Each production is unique. On “Romeo et Juliette” I am working with everyone. Within Act one, Scene two: Capulet’s Ball there is quite a lot of choreography for Juliette. Her aria “Je Veux Vivre” is staged as a waltz with Juliette and five suitors drawn from the chorus. The suitors try to win her affection and attention until she dances headlong into Romeo at the end of the aria. The Madrigal, Romeo and Juliette’s first meeting, is a “Palm to Palm” duet, with three chorus couples upstage of the principals echoing the movement of the lovers. This is one of my favorite choreographic moments, working so closely with the singers to unite the text, music, and movement in one pure, romantic expression.

OW: Tell me about your work with the director over the years and what have you learned to prepare you for this directorial debut?

KM: I have had the great good fortune to work with some incredible directors. My responsibility is to listen, absorb what their needs and desires are, and do my absolute best to fulfill their vision choreographically. Opera is such a collaborative process, that it is very fulfilling to make an individual contribution that functions to make the whole stronger. It’s quite freeing and I have learned a tremendous amount. (I am directing and choreographing this production – so that balance is going well!)

OW: You’ve done a lot of opera over the years. What are the challenges of choreographing opera especially when it is not always the first thing people think about when going to a show?

KM: The greatest challenge is being prepared to choreograph across a spectrum of movers; from trained dancers to chorus to principals. Understanding how to make movement that supports the vision of the director and the physical demands of singing is key. I savor the task of fitting the choreography seamlessly into the whole of the production.

OW: As a dancer and choreographer, how did you end up doing opera? Was the transition difficult and what kind of adjustments do you have to make?

KM: In a deliciously full circle moment my first opera as choreographer is also my first opera as director, “Romeo et Juliette.” The transition was truly a trial by fire. For many years I was the Artistic Director of Hysterica Dance Co., a small but mighty contemporary company in LA. I had complete artistic freedom and a company of curious and gifted dancers who were open to spending lots of time playing and creating in the studio. When the director of the original production of “R & J,” Ian Judge, brought me on he sat me down and gave me a stern talking to. His advice stays with me today “be prepared, don’t play, come in ready to set it quickly and move on.”

OW: Is there a special memory of a production in opera that you have done that is your favorite?

KM: “La Traviata” is very dear to me. I have done several versions of the opera including a traditional production sung by Rolando Villazon and Renee Fleming (astoundingly beautiful.) The Art Deco-inspired production created by Marta Domingo remains my favorite. I was given very specific visual prompts to research and then set free to dream up a choreographic vocabulary all my own. It was such a creative and inspiring process.

OW: What is the opera that you have found most challenging?

KM: “Don Carlo” was the most challenging. So dark.

OW: What opera would you like to do that you haven’t done yet? Any dream company that you would like to work with?

KM: I am very interested in working on new operas and working with some of the incredible composers (particularly female composers) who are generating new work; Anna Clyne, Ellen Reid, Missy Mazzoli. Would love to work with The Met, Santa Fe Opera and am fascinated by Teatro Amazonas in the heart of the rainforest.

The post Q & A: Kitty McNamee on Her Directorial Debut at the LA Opera appeared first on OperaWire.

The work is built around rarely heard pieces from Renaissance composers operating at the dawn of the creation of opera, such as Peri, Cavalieri and Caccini, and will include, among other forms, large-scale and single-voiced madrigals, which will be presented by soloists and Pichon’s Pygmalion ensemble, consisting of orchestra and choir, presented from a modern perspective using new technologies in a dialogue with Gibbons electronic music.

The work’s central theme is love, but not in its sentimental form. Pichon and Romeo Castellucci, the director and co-creator, selected pieces that focus on the darker side of loss, tears, suffering and bitterness.

To find out more about “Le Lacrime di Eros,” OperaWire visits with its principal creator, Raphaël Pichon.

OperaWire: You will be conducting the Pygmalion ensemble. What were your aims when you formed the orchestra and choir in 2006?

Raphaël Pichon: My idea was to create a collective musical experience, a human adventure in which I could be part of a choir and an orchestra as a violin player.

It was a decision that changed my life.

At the time, I was confused by the French habit of having the choir on one side and the orchestra on another. I wanted to create a fusion and an equality between the two; the choir needs to be instrumental like an orchestra and the orchestra needs to be vocal like a choir. This is the key to so much repertoire. This needs to be at the centre of a project and what I wanted to achieve with Pygmalion.

OW: A common theme that runs through your work seems to be a desire to explore connections. Would that be a fair statement?

RP: Music is an essential and possibly the oldest means for creating connections. It is a universal language that is able to connect people even in situations in which they cannot speak the same language.

It is a fundamental reality. Music is a means of connecting humanity.

I am a very curious person, and when I was a teenager, music stimulated my curiosity. When you are suddenly fascinated by music, you want to know more, such as how it is constructed, how it works, and what are the sources of its inspirations. They are questions that move you beyond music. They open up connections that allow you to discover history, art, geography, politics and more.

Music also develops in response to connections; people who travel assimilate different cultures and influences, which they use to create new musical languages.

OW: What is your philosophy for making music?

RP: We have a responsibility to the new generation. The musicians of the 60s and 70s who were involved in rediscovering the music of the past were working at the margins. They were interested in developing a new philosophy about art and music. They did important work regarding the technical aspects and instruments, on rhetorical aspects, on color and drama, and in rediscovering past repertoire. We need to reopen the sounds of music coming from the past. The question is, what do we do now with this legacy? What is our role now? The rediscovery of our repertoire is not finished, but we are not in the same position; early music is now mainstream. This is fantastic news, but let’s make sure that we are not now stuck in a new tradition. We need to reopen the dialogue.

It is important to understand the world around us. Perhaps this is now more difficult than in the past; perhaps classical music is in a crisis. It is a question of political legitimacy.

Can classical music speak to us today? Can it continue to change our lives and to be an essential actor in our lives? The answer, of course, is yes. There are so many young musicians all over Europe. The conservatories and music schools are full of musicians who want to transmit their convictions about classical music.

For me, we need to live in a permanent laboratory. We need to continue with the current repertoire, but we also need to experiment. Experimentation needs to come with connections, and that is the purpose of “Le Lacrime di Eros.”

OW: So, you have no interest in recreating the music of the past for its own sake?

RP: I am very interested in discovery and exploring the music of the past along with its performance practices, but I am not interested in creating a museum. Classical music isn’t a museum; it is a living, present art form. Historically informed performances are very important, but I want to use this knowledge to take classical music forward; we need to progress.

OW: Could you elaborate on what you want to achieve with “Le Lacrime di Eros?”

RP: The purpose is to create the opportunity for musicians and audiences to rediscover a relatively unknown period in the history of music, that is the years leading up to the birth of opera at the turn of the 17th century, which was an amazing time, full of experimentation. The Florentines, using their intuition and new technologies, were inventing staging and machinery and using it to experiment with ways of presenting the human passions, including, of course, with music and theatre. They wanted to recreate the Greek theatre, but also a lot more. They tried out many ideas with the dream of creating a total art form, similar, in some ways, to Wagner. They wanted to bring everything onto the stage: music, commedia delle arte, perfumes, water and exotic animals, for which they created machinery and specialization of the sound.

So, why not use our new technologies and our accomplishments in the area of sound, such as sound mapping and computer technologies that interact with acoustics? This is the same approach that was employed in the 16th century, in which the great egos of the Medici and the Barberini engaged in endless competition from which emerged dramma per musica. We still don’t know enough about this period. There was an amazing amount of experimental music, including polychorality, harmony, combinations of instruments, ornamentation, and form. The constellation of experimentations was amazing. It was a unique experimental moment in our history, and for me it is a mirror of our time. We are full of questions about the nature of opera and the direction it should take. We need to reset the genre. This is the idea at the heart of “Le Lacrime di Eros.”

OW: How is your working relationship with your co-creator, Romeo Castellucci?

RP: I had the chance to meet and get to know Romeo years ago as he worked with my wife, who is a singer, and I became fascinated by his theatre; for me, he is one of today’s most amazing poets. He has the ability to open unexpected windows into the librettos that he is dealing with.

I first worked with him on Mozart’s “Requiem” in Aix-en-Provence. It was a unique experience in which I discovered a really humble, sensitive and respectful man, and we developed a really great collaboration. We have since done other work, including a double album called “Stravaganza d’amore,” based on the material we are using for “Le Lacrime di Eros.”

I’ve had this dream about staging “Le Lacrime di Eros” for years now, and after working with Romeo, it became crystal clear to me that he was the man I was waiting for to stage the work. When I first suggested the idea, he knew immediately that he wanted to be involved.

OW: How will “Le Lacrime di Eros” be presented on stage?

RP: We start rehearsals on Monday, so I cannot give you much detail about the staging at this point.

I discussed the details of the project with Romeo, and he is fascinated by the ways love presents itself with new faces in today’s society; this is what we will be exploring on stage, through music and the art of pictures. We have identified five different forms of love, but you will not really see them as separate entities; there are no borders between them. I have the opportunity to present them with different kinds of musical languages, ranging from polychoral, dance music, laments, madrigals, as well as more archaic forms. So, it will be a kaleidoscope of genres.

There are still aspects that I am waiting to find out about. Scott Gibbons wants his music to enter the human cell. Microphones will be in the bodies of the performers. There will also be lots of machines, which will also have microphones inside them, because in modern society we are interacting more and more with machines, and they also speak to us about love. We will be using algorithms to create an immersive sound mapping experience.

The orchestra will not be on the stage.

OW: Could you give an example of how one of the five aspects of love will be treated?

RP: This is more a question for Romeo. However, if we look at loneliness in modern societies, in which people have become so disappointed about human nature, we see that people are facing a strong choice, and some prefer to be engaged with an animal. Obviously, I don’t mean sexually. It is about a deep expression of love but connected to an animal. I don’t know how Romeo will stage this, but it is going to be interesting for sure.

The post Q & A: Conductor Raphaël Pichon on the World Premiere of ‘Le Lacrime di Eros’ appeared first on OperaWire.

“She of course laughed and so did I, but I had already decided,” he told OperaWire in a recent interview on the occasion of being the winner of the 2024 Azrieli Commission for International Music.

The Mexican-American composer considers himself a creator of abstract folklore and has composed six operas, four symphonies, three cantatas, concertos for several instruments, and various chamber music, including for solo instruments. His music has been performed around the world at such venues as Teatro alla Scala in Milan, the Bertus Van Berlage Hall in Amsterdam, the Palacio Nacional de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, and Jones Hall and Alice Tully Hall in the United States.

In 2023, he was named Assistant Professor of Music in Composition and Theory at the University of Kentucky and was also awarded the Miami Individual Artists Grant.

He is also a conductor and specializes in 20th century and contemporary music. To that end, he is the Music Director and Principal Conductor of the Last Hundred Ensemble, Sinfonietta MIQ, Oaxaca and Guanajuato Symphony Orchestra, and Orquesta de Cámara de Bellas Artes, among others.

OperaWire spoke to the composer about his Azireli Award-winning composition “Simetrías Prehispánicas.”

OperaWire: What inspired “Simetrías Prehispánicas?”

Juan Trigos: It was inspired by a libretto that my father wrote based on texts by anonymous and well-known Nahua poets from the 15th century, and also by the love I have for the pre-Hispanic world.

OW: Describe the musical language of your piece and how you arrived at it.

JT: I would define the language of this work as a sort of abstract (“chromatic”) modality with strong attractions towards certain notes (pivot notes or axes), built by means of small cells and rhythmic pulsations derived from the metrics, symmetry and intrinsic reiteration of the text.

The aesthetics of my music in general, which I call Abstract Folklore, have to do with reflection – the internal process of assimilating my artistic and life experiences. In this particular composition, I arrived at the concept through the relationship between the text and what it evokes in me. Giving it the subtitle “Cantata-Oratorio” speaks a little to this idea, as well. Symmetries and reiterations, as well as keeping in mind the leading role of the choir (in multiple combinations), played a very important part during the work’s creation. The orchestration, which supports the drama, is also fundamental.

OW: What inspires your creative process?

JT: It depends on the piece of course, but in general, there is a marked difference between the creative processes for works with text and those without.

In works with text, it’s the story or the poetry that determines the atmosphere and aesthetic: it defines the genre and suggests the form. In compositions with words, it is essential to understand and assimilate the content. In other words, to let yourself be inspired by it. I have different processes between dramatic or theatrical source material (operas, cantata-oratorio) and the lyrical (cantatas, masses, songs, etc.).

Purely instrumental compositions also lead me to different creative processes, whether they are symphonic pieces, concertante forms, or chamber works. Inspiration also arises from specific abstract ideas. For example, the concept for my Symphony No.1 derives from the personal sound image of wild music. It is built by means of aggressive and well-defined musical gestures, reinforced by orchestration. Another example is my Ricercari series. In addition to the obvious allusion to the 16th-century form, each work searches differently, not only in the instrumental sense (virtuoso style) but also in the expressive sense. It’s a sort of continuous reflection of what has already been said, but from different perspectives. Less frequently, I have written works that are inspired by some kind of program or story, such as my Symphony No. 3 “Ofrenda a los Muertos” (Offering to the Dead), commissioned by the Houston Symphony for the multimedia project “La Triste Historia.” The curious thing here is that although I scored the orchestral work to be performed alongside an animated film, I wrote the music first, and they made the film later.

OW: What were some challenges you experienced while creating this work?

JT: I think the main challenge was to give both unity and personality to the choir, in combination with the instruments (the orchestration is quite atypical), without the voices losing their prominence. It was a significant task to create the many different sonorities through the soli, divisi, and tutti sections alternating between the singers alone and with the instruments. The concertante concept of the instruments is always in concordance with yet subordinate to the voices. This supports and complements the choir: it is organic writing and not simply an accompaniment.

OW: What do you hope audiences take away from the experience of your piece?

JT: As with this or any other of my works, I hope that audiences open their perception, listen to and engage with the music. Intellectual awareness is important, but the true understanding of art also comes through the senses.

The post Q & A: Composer & Conductor Juan Trigos on his Azireli Commission for International Music appeared first on OperaWire.

“I was lucky to have a great music teacher in my teens, who gave us very inspiring compositional assignments. I remember the experience of going to school as a teenager and thinking about my compositions I was writing for the class, and fell in love with the experience of spending my thinking time on abstract sounds. There was something about how elusive sounds are, and at the same time so visceral, that was a very good fit for how my natural thinking and creativity functions,” says composer Yair Klartag in an interview regarding his Azrieli-Winning commission “The Parable of the Palace.”

The Israeli composer has been commissioned by such organizations as Donaueschinger Musiktage, Münchener Kammerorchester, MATA festival, Münchener Biennale, and ZeitRüume Festival, and his music has been interpreted by such ensembles as Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Munich Chamber Orchestra, Geneva Chamber Orchestra, Tokyo Sinfonietta, Wrocław Philharmonic Orchestra, Ensemble Recherche, Ensemble Musikfabrik, Ensemble Mosaik, Ensemble Linea, Meitar Ensemble, and the JACK quartet, among many others.

OperaWire: What inspired “The Parable of the Palace?”

Yair Klartag: It is named after a parable that appears in the end of the “Guide for the Perplexed” – an amazing book by Maimonides (1138–1204), in which he tried to reconcile Aristotelian logic and reason with the Jewish beliefs. It tells the story of a palace, in which a mysterious king lives. There are different groups of people in different circles around the palace in different proximity to the king. The piece takes from the parable its geometric organization: in the core, there is the irrational – what goes beyond reason – and around it different circles with varying distances from the irrational. The inner circles are the circles of logic and science (that’s how Maimonides himself interprets parts of this parable). This image of circles surrounding an irrational core inspired the structure of the piece – the music spirals and circles around a very abstract musical material built from low double basses sounds and vocal material from the choir. The text is sung in its original version in Jewish Arabic. This is an extinct language that was used in Jewish communities in Arabic countries during the Middle Ages (Maimonides was residing in Egypt while writing his book) – it uses mostly Arabic words but written using the Hebrew alphabet. It was an important point for me to discuss such universal ideas (reason and irrationality) through the writings of a Jewish thinker who learned about Greek philosophy through Arabic translations. In the face of the horrors of the present, it was helpful to connect to a common humanistic historical universalism like that.

OW: Describe the musical language of your piece and how you arrived at it.

YK: The piece is always moving in space – between high, dreamy sounds to low and earthy fundamentals. The general atmosphere is very mysterious with many slow morphing sound glaciers and some ancient-sounding melodies emerging. It’s a musical language that tries to hint at the medieval nature of the text and the perceptual space that is between the rational and the irrational.

OW: What inspires your creative process?

YK: I can name three main sources of inspiration: the content of the text (meaning the parable) and my understanding of it in terms of Maimonides’s position towards rationalism and beliefs, the language of the text – the jewish arabic – with all the cultural heritage and complexity it carries, and the instrumentation – the massive four double basses with the huge spectra and their interaction with the choir.

OW: What were some challenges you experienced while creating this work?

YK: It is always a challenge for me to deal with concrete text, and in this case, with text of jewish origin. For many years I wanted my music to be completely universal. In recent years, I discovered that the type of universality I was looking for, relates in many aspects to some parts of the Jewish heritage that I wasn’t fully aware of. I was enchanted with diasporic ideas of replacing territory with books and writings as a way of existence and longevity. I found the unbelievably rich corpus of ideas, especially around the metaphysical and the way Middle Ages thinkers like Maimonides or Saadia Gaon understood rationality was extremely relevant to my upbringing. I still don’t know how to define jewish music, but one aspect that I notice is recurring among jewish writers is “doubt” – there is at the same time adaptation of artistic romantic ideas, and a constant disbelief in their authenticity. This is very noticeable in writings of people like Heine and Kafka, and I have noticed that it is very relevant to my music as well.

OW: What do you hope audiences take away from the experience of your piece?

YK: I hope people can immerse themselves in the dreamy atmosphere of the piece, but still be conscious of what are the processes that happen and where the music is going. I hope it raises some question about how our rationality works and what’s its role when experiencing music and maybe blur the limits between the reason and the pure experience.

The post Q & A: Composer Yair Klartag on His Azrieli-Winning Commission ‘The Parable of the Palace’ appeared first on OperaWire.

Nobles is the recipient of the Azrieli Commission for Canadian Music for his piece “Kanata” for Large Choir. A JUNO Award-winner for “Classical Composition of the Year” in 2017, he has also been named Emerging Artist in Music from the City of Vancouver’s Mayor’s Arts Awards in 2009 and his work “Aurora” was the CBC’s official entry at the UNESCO international Music Council’s International Rostrum of Composers.

OperaWire spoke to Nobles about his inspiration for “Kanata” and its creation.

OperaWire: Tell me about “Kanata” and what inspired it.

Jordan Nobles: “Kanata” is derived from the St. Lawrence Iroquoian word for “village” or “settlement” and eventually became the basis for the name “Canada.” The work was inspired by my experiences traveling across the country with my family and reflecting on its vast, diverse landscapes. More than just its physical beauty, I was drawn by a deep connection to this land that I live on and how utterly huge and grand it is. Kanata is a meditation on this emotional connection.

OW: How did you arrive at the musical language for “Kanata?”

JN: The musical language of “Kanata” is highly textural and atmospheric, relying on layers of sound rather than traditional harmonic or melodic structures. I’ve used fragments of place names—small phonemes from the original Indigenous names—as the vocal material for the choir. These phonemes create a fabric of sound that shifts and evolves without a set rhythmic structure, allowing the piece to unfold organically, almost like a landscape. This approach allows me to create a meditative space where the audience can experience the essence of the land and its history, rather than focusing on literal representation. I arrived at this language after experimenting with the way sounds can convey meaning beyond words and how music can express something as immense and intangible as the spirit of a place.

OW: What inspires your creative process?

JN: My creative process is often sparked by a deep sense of curiosity and a desire to explore how sound interacts with space. Whether it’s the vast open spaces of the natural world or the acoustics of a particular venue, I’m always drawn to how music can inhabit and shape a space. Nature itself is a huge inspiration for me—its stillness, its complexity, and its capacity to evoke strong emotional responses. I also find inspiration in visual art, architecture, and even silence, which I often see as the canvas upon which I build my compositions. The act of discovery—whether it’s finding new sounds, structures, or ideas—drives my process and keeps it evolving.

OW: What were some challenges you experienced while creating this work?

JN: One of the biggest challenges in creating “Kanata” was navigating the balance between honoring Indigenous place names and not overstepping by appropriating them in any way. Many of these names have existed long before colonial settlement and carry stories and meanings that connect the land to the people who have lived there for millennia. As I’ve researched these names, I’ve been struck by how much knowledge, identity, and tradition are embedded in them. These place names resonate with a sense of belonging and memory, which I found quite meaningful. However, most of them, the ones that are not established ‘official’ names, are not my stories to tell and it would be inappropriate to use them as such.

Furthermore, as I thought about it more and more, it also felt less and less appropriate to use the colonial names for these places; that doing so felt like yet another act of erasure, of asserting colonial ownership and the primacy of the colonizers’ position on the land. These places have had names for millennia before settlers arrived, given to them by people whose relationships to the land are so much more long standing and intimately held. It felt wrong to reassert colonial dominance through the text of the piece.

This led me to focus on using phonemes and fragments of names, allowing the music to evoke the landscapes without speaking for them. Another challenge was capturing the sheer scale of Canada’s geography in sound—how to translate that sense of vastness into something that can resonate within the confines of a concert hall. By using fragments of these names as the textural foundation of the work, I hope to honour the depth and meaning they carry. I’m not trying to recreate or speak for those traditions, but rather acknowledge and celebrate them through sound. This approach reflects my personal journey as well—understanding that the land is not just a physical space but a living history that continues to shape our collective identity.

OW: What do you hope audiences take away from the experience of your piece?

JN: I wish “Kanata” would evoke a feeling of awe and respect for the places we inhabit; and to perhaps offer the audience a moment or two of stillness and beauty. Ultimately, I hope my composition creates a meditative space where people can listen, reflect, and feel a part of something larger than themselves.

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