Rocco Landesman

Rocco Landesman has been confirmed as the new Chair of the NEA. For the past several years, the NEA has tried to quietly build and generally avoid controversy. A brash and confident New York producer, that doesn't seem to be Landesman's style. Of particular concern is a recent statement that implies he is going to value artistic excellence way, way more than geographic distribution:

"I don't know if there's a theater in Peoria," he says, "but I would bet that it's not as good as Steppenwolf or the Goodman," he said, referring to two of Chicago's most prominent theater companies. "There is going to be some push-back from me about democratizing arts grants to the point where you really have to answer some questions about artistic merit."

I am all for artistic merit. But if that is taken too far, all the funding is going to end up going to 5% of the arts organizations, groups that already get probably 75% of the funding. You can read a comment I made about it on Lee Rosenbaum's blog, Culturegrrl.

The consciousness of the conductor

(Opera New Jersey photo by Bruce Fuller)

I conducted my first opera in 1986. So it was something of a surprise for me that during the rehearsals and performances of LUCIA at Opera New Jersey I felt like I had learned something from working with the New Jersey Symphony. NJSO has a fine reputation and Opera New Jersey was very excited to have them as partners in the orchestra pit.

During the final rehearsals and performances, I placed my consciousness in a different place than I usually do. I was certainly performing "in the moment" a great deal of the time, but I came in and out of it--rather like a swimmer going under the water, but also coming up for air and looking around. LUCIA has moments that require one to "perform" but there are also plenty of pages in the score where the orchestra musicians do the heavy lifting and the conductor can go on autopilot for several bars at a time.

So, rather than constantly focusing on myself, on my performance, I was alternating between my performance and the performance of the many musicians. They, after all, are making the music. This moving in and out, allowed me greater freedom to communicate with the orchestra. If it were sports, it would be rather like being a player/coach or alternating between the roles of player and coach. It is not that I hadn't done this before, but that I did it with great frequency during the performances and dress rehearsals.

Another way I might describe it is like being a commercial or fashion photographer. You have set up the scene according to your concept, but you are also dealing with a group of folks who need to be inspired. The conductor is shaping the music which is moving through time and not only are you providing clues as to its future shape--the beat patterns, the cues--but also some sense of how it's going. In this way, I was able to provide a great deal of instantaneous, well deserved positive feedback as the performance went along, which, along with a certain amount of confidence in my cuing and shaping of the phrases, created a very effective feedback loop between all involved in the performance.

Yet another way to describe it might be working with glass or clay. Like those two media, the music is shaped and changed by physical gesture and the kinetics have to be combined with real time information, in this case from the musical sounds created by the singers and orchestra.

The result was generally and aggressive and tight performance which we all seemed to enjoy and the audience enjoyed too.

I haven't seen much on the web about the consciousness of the conductor, so I will seek some responses from some colleagues....

Cutting Blog

I've been busy preparing for our production of COSI FAN TUTTE in Memphis. One of the things that has to be done fairly early is deciding what music to leave in and what music to cut. Without cuts, COSI might be nearly four and a half hours long and three hours is about my limit. So I've used the blog format to create a cut list for the opera.

Don Smith pianist

While at Opera New Jersey, I stayed at a lovely retirement community in Hightstown called Meadow Lakes. I met several of the residents and one of the many remarkable ones is Don Smith. Don turns out to have been a pianist at the New York City opera in the late '50s. He is the pianist on the original recording of Douglas Moore's BALLAD OF BABY DOE which was conducted by Emerson Buckley. He played a production at Dallas Opera starring Maria Callas. In addition to Opera, he was the rehearsal pianist for the Ed Sullivan Show and then at Radio City Music Hall for three decades. Don keeps his piano chops up and plays classical music and classic pop songs.

Stage Management's Desk

Opera at Grounds for Sculpture

The busy schedule at Opera New Jersey included a musical theatre program at the Grounds for Sculpture near Trenton. Here, a fancy stroller blends into a sculpture.

Lucia Covers at Opera New Jersey

Earlier this week the young covers for Lucia got a chance to run the show on stage. Although they didn't use costumes, they outfitted themselves in ways appropriate to their characters.

It was good for me too--eight days between performances is a long time to go without a practice.

Midsummer presentation at Opera America

Two pictures taken by Opera America's Kate Ehle from the presentation at their offices last week.

Midsummer presentations

The studio artists at Opera New Jersey presented to readings of some of my MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, opera a cappella in Princeton and at the offices of Opera America. Here, our conductor, Keith Chambers readies for the performance with an improvised podium of old Opera News Magazines.

Test pattern on Lucia Scrim

Preparing for Lucia's 2nd performance.