Arguing With Himself: Mark Lamos and the Anatomy of Directing Mozart’s La finta giardiniera at New York City Opera by Anthony E. Cantrell A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Theatre) in the University of Michigan 2013 Doctoral Committee: Professor Leigh Woods, Chair Associate Professor Naomi André Professor John Neville-Andrews Associate Professor Mbala Nkanga ii Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to the memory of my beloved aunt, Dianna M. Holcomb, who generously and lovingly supported me and my educational pursuits all of my life. iii Acknowledgements The following people must be recognized for their enduring support and encouragement on my journey to complete this dissertation: to my Dissertation Committee members, Professor Naomi André, Professor John Neville-Andrews, and Professor Mbala Nkanga for their insightful and perceptive contributions to my study; to Dr. Elizabeth Adams for her brilliance in helping me frame and justify the entire project at a time that I was lost in the woods; to Philip William Ruehl, Jr. (“The River”) for his unconditional friendship and profound guidance; to my Dissertation Committee Chair, Professor Leigh Woods, for his countless hours of editing, meaningful and eloquent suggestions, incredible patience, and personal drive to see this through to the end; to Mark Lamos, the inspiration and tremendously generous subject of this study; and, most gratefully, to my wife, Elizabeth Cantrell Whirledge, for her unrelenting confidence in me, her deeply empathic emotional support, and whose love is an ever-fixed mark which does not alter when it alteration finds. iv Table of Contents Dedication ii Acknowledgements iii Abstract v Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Chapter 2: La finta giardiniera: Mozart’s First “Flashes of Genius” 21 Chapter 3: Synopsis of La finta giardiniera 39 Chapter 4: Rehearsal Log: Staging the Concept 44 Chapter 5: Rehearsal Log: “Stumble” and Full Run-Throughs 184 Chapter 6: Rehearsal Log: Technical and Dress Rehearsals 238 Chapter 7: Conclusion 269 Works Cited 290 v Abstract Opera has long been the dominion of singers, composers, and conductors. Opera scholarship has been produced largely by music historians, musicologists, and ethnomusicologists. Recently, the trend is changing in opera studies to include those artists chiefly responsible for mounting productions: opera directors. These studies, however, have focused primarily on critical reflections on the director’s final production rather than the rehearsal practices and directorial methods employed to foster a production to opening night. As the scope of opera scholarship is expanding to include performance texts, a study detailing the day-by-day, moment-to-moment challenges and triumphs of an opera director in rehearsal shall provide greater clarity and appreciation of the often ineffable craft of directing for the stage. The resume of director Mark Lamos includes productions on Broadway, the Metropolitan Opera, and a Tony Award for the Hartford Stage under his leadership. His 2003 production of Mozart’s La finta giardiniera for New York City Opera was an ideal choice for documenting a rehearsal process since Lamos endeavored to reimagine the opera Mozart originally composed. First, this study provides the relevant historical context in which Mozart wrote La finta giardiniera in 1774-75. Second, the rehearsal log captures Lamos vi working with the entire production team beginning with the first company meeting through Final Dress Rehearsal. The log is inspired methodologically by ethnographic fieldwork and participant observation reports produced in the social sciences to gather information and make meaning of a cultural event, namely, an opera director at work. The log of nineteen rehearsals is divided into three chapters that include the early rehearsals to stage the production concept, “stumble” and full run-throughs, and technical and dress rehearsals. Each rehearsal day is subdivided into three sections that introduces the rehearsal themes (Exposition), records the real-time proceedings of each rehearsal (Development), and analyzes Lamos’s directorial choices in the context of other directors faced with similar artistic challenges (Recapitulation). Lastly, the Conclusion includes critical reviews of Lamos’s production, an analysis of Lamos’s directing methodology, and considers how my study contributes to a nascent field in opera scholarship. 1 Chapter 1 Introduction The singers, understudies, stage mangers, the rehearsal pianist, and the associate conductor all wait eagerly for director Mark Lamos to respond to the problem at hand. The rehearsal has come to a standstill, and all realize the import of the moment. The course of the entire production of Mozart’s La finta giardiniera at New York City Opera might weigh on this one decision facing the director. Knowing he cannot stall any longer, Lamos put his face in his hands and exclaimed, “I feel like I’m fighting with my own brain trying to figure out what I did.” Mark Lamos, and many others before him, have tried to “figure out” precisely what directors do. Opera directors, however, have not attracted the same attention as the directors of film and theatre. This is why it is important to capture Lamos “fighting with [his] own brain” as a way to enhance an appreciation of the artistry of directing opera. The art of directing for the stage is difficult to document. Most practitioners are hard-pressed to define precisely what it is they do or how they achieve satisfying artistic results. One perspective, however, is clear for most directors about their profession: it is the doing of it that most defines it. Directing is instinctive. Directing is experiential. Directing is trial and error. As a result, investigating and analyzing what directors do from day to day in the rehearsal 2 hall is one approach useful to formulate a clearer picture of the craft. Performances are the most visible manifestations of what directors do, but performances represent a product more than a process. There have been quite useful efforts to capture this process in the world of spoken drama, but there has been one corner of the directing world that has been all but ignored, and that is opera directing. Opera has long been viewed as an elevated art form dominated by composers, singers, and conductors. Opera scholarship has been largely ruled by musicologists who do not often discuss productions in their musical analyses unless they can provide helpful historical contextualization. David J. Levin comments on why this trend is ripe for change: Academic writing on opera has not ignored questions of performance. But for the most part, these questions have been historical…What we do not possess—what musicologists and non- musicologists alike have tended to shy away from—is a sense of how stage performance can shape and even alter our understanding of opera. (6) Since stage directors have considerable influence upon the interpretation and final outcome of an opera production, their work needs to be considered more closely as a way to “shape and even alter our understanding of opera.” There is, indeed, ample justification to consider the interpreters of the in the search for meaning in opera, but stage directors are equally influential members of the production team. 3 Still, very few scholars and critics, even those in the arts, know what stage directors of operas do, how they think, or what their specific challenges are. How, exactly, is their job like or unlike directors of spoken drama? Are these distinctions few or many; profound or trivial? And how does one best go about finding the answers to these questions? Since directing opera has largely been left out of most discussions of stage directing, a viable framework must be sought to foster a deeper conversation about the specifics of the craft. An extremely useful methodology has existed for decades in the social sciences and humanities. When anthropologists, folklorists, dance ethnographers, and ethnomusicologists begin to investigate a new culture and its art forms, they rely heavily upon ethnography to document the daily lives, rituals, ceremonies, and arts of that society. These studies have proved invaluable for future research and scholarship. Because serious inquiry has not been performed extensively before, opera directing can be construed as a “new culture” to be explored in this way. This methodology, using an ethnographic approach, stands to promote deeper understanding and appreciation of opera directing. It offers a viable way to appreciate a day to day, moment to moment artistic process that has yet to be documented in a comprehensive way. My interest in capturing an opera director in action from first company meeting to the Final Dress Rehearsal is what led me to New York City Opera to observe the production of Mozart’s La finta giardiniera directed by Mark Lamos. I attended full company meetings, technical production meetings, and all regular, technical, and dress rehearsals. I cast myself in a role similar to an ethnographer 4 who observes, captures, assimilates, and analyzes as much information as possible. My aim is to create a more complete picture of an opera director at work. An Elusive Art Maria M. Delgado and Paul Heritage write about the challenge of defining directing for the stage in their book of interviews with directors, In Contact With the Gods?: Directors Talk Theatre: The theatre director is both the most visible and invisible of artists.