COVER

Tazewell Thompson more than 75 production credits at venerable companies including Actors Theatre of Louisville, the Goodman Theatre, Guthrie Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club, Oregon !!" !""# less aware of is the director’s lifelong personal and professional engagement with music. An early love of has led Thompson to stage for companies all around the world. Recently, Thompson shared his thoughts about the craft of working in a dramatic form of stories sung through.

One of your earliest successes was with a #O#! production was a major success. It was also my production of the Aaron opera The space on my own. I began a campaign of introduction to directing opera and meeting Second Hurricane. Could you tell us a bit about contacting friends and associates of Copland with and working closely with . that production? and librettist Edwin Denby to create the props and backdrops and furniture pieces for the At his home and studio in Peekskill, New opera. They included Willem and Elaine de York, I was granted close-up observation as The Second Hurricane, in New York City—my Kooning, along with Red Grooms, Robert Copland demonstrated on his piano the stories hometown. It was part of a month-long Wilson, Larry Rivers, John Cage, Alex Katz, Pat and ideas behind segments and scenes and celebration of Brooklyn-born Aaron Copland’s Steir, and others. They came forward to honor arias from the opera. He talked of his special 85th birthday. There were performances of their friends and supported the production by fondness for The Second Hurricane and how he !"# contributing artworks, scenery, and props for hoped the opera for young voices might gain Lincoln Center to Carnegie Hall to schools, the opera. I wrote letters to large and small new popularity. He was excited by the fuss of churches, and basements, and other venues "%' the citywide celebration for his 85th birthday. large and small. I had heard about this event venture into producing. Con Edison gave $500; “I am a native New Yorker. From Brooklyn. two years earlier. I had found and purchased a the NEA’s Opera Division gave $20,000. Willem Nice to have a big party in my backyard,” he recording at the Strand Bookstore of the opera de Kooning donated a painting toward the said. We spoke at great length of The Tender and became obsessed with wanting to stage fundraising. Land, his only other opera. I directed that at the piece somewhere. Glimmerglass in 2010. In my research, I discovered the opera I approached the organizers of the Copland premiered in 1937 as a concert at the Henry Please describe for us the process you have in celebration and Boosey & Hawkes—the Street Settlement in Lower Manhattan. I was preparing for an opera. Is that different from publishers and owners of the copyrights— able to rent the Settlement and give the opera your preparation for a play? for permission to produce and direct, and #!"!) Endless hours of listening to the score and I negotiated the rental fees. I was given aria and a ballet cut from the original and rereading the libretto over and over. Research! permission to be a part of the Copland was permitted to rewrite the libretto. The I always collect stacks and piles of visuals. I

30 SDC JOURNAL | WINTER/SPRING 2017 at The Glimmerglass Festival PHOTO Karli Cadel/The Glimmerglass Festival

THE WORK I MUST DO

do the exact same approach when I direct In my rehearsal hall, research of photos and artist is called upon to do so much more: act +! artwork overwhelms the walls, and I refer their roles convincingly; dance; learn combat; wherever the play’s environment is set. That to them often in the staging. I reinforce and perform from impossible heights and depths music becomes my listening device feeding demonstrate what the singers already know on outrageous scenery, wearing sometimes my imagination as I read the play and develop from the music in terms of how a psychological outlandish costumes; all the while singing at images. gesture or movement can express so much. #!=>"!" all kinds of languages over the gigantic sound When you’re directing opera, are you led most by I love big operas with large choruses. I of a great orchestra. the music or the libretto? enjoy movement in unison with big groups and telling stories through the subdivisions In addition to Copland, you’ve directed operas Both. They are symbiotic. The music provides of groups, bringing out and encouraging written by a huge range of well-known modern the emotion, the setting, the atmosphere, the individual moments from the chorus as they composers, from Poulenc to Benjamin Britten to soul of the composer, and the temperament continue to remain connected to the whole. . Are there particular qualities or issues of the characters. The libretto provides the More intimate scenes are treated no differently that you are drawn to in the work you choose to concrete meaning of the language of the than I would approach a two- or three-hander direct? opera, the narrative. in a play. Great stories. Unforgettable characters. Brilliant Unlike directing a play, I spend no time around The time to rehearse an opera is much shorter music. Operas that have contemporaneous a table discussing character and motivations than for a play. Understandable. Singers )?#" and meanings underneath the libretto. During P"Q new and compelling with the telling and !#4!" the score, by heart. A day-after-day rehearsal presenting of the opera that hopefully will the maestro’s sing-through rehearsal my !#"" captivate and leave a lasting impression on an impressions, and then we are on our feet no carefully planned out; otherwise a singer will audience. later than the third day of rehearsal. have very little to give vocally as the stage and orchestra rehearsals approach. Today’s singing

WINTER/SPRING 2017 | SDC JOURNAL 31 Lost in the Stars at The Glimmerglass Festival PHOTO Karli Cadel/The Glimmerglass Festival

You’ve explored the Gershwin opera Porgy and Bess remember a time when a rehearsal hall was [It was] one of the great experiences of my life in multiple stage productions as well as directing !"! as an opera director. Imagine directing Lost a televised version of your production. What most carefree experimentation and practical jokes. I in the Stars in the place and all the settings appeals to you about that particular piece? so wish to direct more Gilbert and Sullivan. and circumstances that inspired it—South Africa—with South Africans! [It is] a work A community that I recognize personally and We wanted to ask you about the experiences you’ve about deep and wide racism—apartheid— culturally. A humble people loving and living had with directing operas that had particular that unfortunately speaks to us [as] vividly and thriving and surviving; a community of resonances with the locales in which you were today as it did in 1951. A great work of social hope and pride and determination. And, of working. When you directed Porgy and Bess for the "# !" New Orleans Opera Association in 2010, was there masterwork score. The work is a shattering, memorable, classic score full of great standards a different resonance in that city, given that it was gut-wrenching, intimate tale of the struggle recorded by a variety of great musicians. It is a still recovering from Hurricane Katrina? of the quest of two fathers to recognize, supreme masterpiece. #! The city was in recovery. The audience was chasm of the apartheid system, with themes of @!Q# aware of the parallels of the great hurricane personal heartache and pain, compassion and A Christmas Carol is for theatres across the in the opera. However, like the denizens of understanding, reconciliation and forgiveness, country. Always a sellout, deservedly so. the opera, the resilient spirit of the people and moral transformation—all set against Kurt in the city is what I recall most. There was an V") What are the joys and challenges of directing an involvement from an audience that was not opera with the kind of verbosity as Gilbert and merely holding tickets. Not eavesdropping or Many members of the company had Sullivan’s Patience? gawking, but attending and witnessing truth. Q!# Their truth. Their experience. They surrounded apartheid system. They knew this tale No challenges. Only great joy. I’m not a the event unfolding on stage in a very personally. They were passionate to tell the fan of comic opera. But I love Gilbert and personal, meaningful way. story. The audience was unlike any audience Sullivan. I love everything about the wacky I’ve ever experienced in opera or theatre. cloud-cuckooland, Theatres of the Absurd & And with your 2011 production of Kurt Weill’s Lost People stood up and shouted at moments of Ridiculous, outrageous world of G and S, the in the Stars in Cape Town? What was the impact ])V#" thrilling patter songs, hilarious language, and or meaning for you of directing an anti-apartheid leaving on an ill-fated train trip. Sobbed openly the memorable melodies. Patience—a blatantly opera in such a historic place? How did audience at scene. Laughed at moments of clever, ever-enchanting, and fantastically members react to it there? deception and irony. Cheered loud and long silly satire of the Aesthetic Movement—was at the ending. Unforgettable. I must also add: extraordinary fun to rehearse. I cannot to be in Africa, the land of my ancestors, was

32 SDC JOURNAL | WINTER/SPRING 2017 Dialogues of the Carmelites at The Glimmerglass Festival PHOTO George Mott/The Glimmerglass Festival particularly and personally special and moving Through life at the convent, I entered and won the page and in the empty space. Among the to me. oratorical contests citywide and statewide. many bouquets Zelda threw my way, I caught, I knew all the great hymns and Gregorian grasped, and devoured the reading list of plays You’ve had some strong influences in your life who chants. I was soloist for the great feast days of and authors I should want to know. were associated with performing. What are the Christmas and Easter. I know practically every different ways that these people in your life led you song written to honor Saint Patrick! For almost 30 years, wherever I was in the to the path you’re on now? world, Zelda advised and guided me through Then, of course, there was Latin. I was an altar my career with tender and tough love. I will I was made a ward of the state of New York boy responding in Latin to Father Farrell’s remember, love, and miss Zelda forever. # prayers in Sunday Masses and all other events when I was eight years old; taken from my at the altar; separate advanced religious !#)Z# instructions with reading, writing, and Latin performance of? played alto saxophone. I hardly remember his in conversation! The roots of Latin were an playing. My paternal grandmother had dreams incredible kick-starter for me in directing opera I heard many an opera at the convent. Sister of a musical stage career. So I suppose deep in some 25 years later in foreign languages. Benvenuta, who possessed a beautiful voice, the marrow of my bones, while I was an egg in played long-playing records of the warhorses: my mother’s belly, was an unbeknownst wish I was encouraged to elaborate on the stories Carmen, Aida, , The Magic to express myself in the world through the arts I made up to entertain my “siblings.” I never Flute, and others. It was literally “Greek to me,” somehow, some way, some day. performed in the plays because I was a natural but oddly seductive and thrilling. Wherever comedian and caused chaos at rehearsals when I am in the world and I hear certain operas, Z"]!# I disrupted the proceedings by showing off I am immediately transported back in time the nesting, nursing, nurturing, protective, and with impressions of the nuns and volunteer to the memory of hearing Sister Benvenuta’s loving guidance of the good sisters of Saint workers and breaking up the casts with wonderful scratchy Longines Symphonette Dominic’s Convent in Blauvelt, New York. I had laughter. long-playing records opera series. many “mothers” during my seven years’ stay. It was the nuns who very early on, like any Many years later, my dearest friend and mentor ^#!_ mother would discover in their child, realized "!Zelda Fichandler, Dexter production at the Met of Dialogues of that I had artistic leanings. I was entwined with brought me to Arena Stage in 1987 as an the Carmelites, where the curtain rises and music constantly, on a daily basis. Everything Associate Artistic Director. I attribute solely %#!!] was sung: morning prayers at rising, at meals, to Zelda everything I know about the work in the form of a cross. I had a standing-room and, of course, during daily Mass. I was a choir of a director with actors and designers and !# boy and an altar boy. I read music very easily. how to unlock the puzzle inside of a play on circle. I burst into tears at the image of the

WINTER/SPRING 2017 | SDC JOURNAL 33 at Washington National Opera PHOTO Scott Suchman for WNO cross and the true story of the 16 Carmelite Opera is theatre. Who better to interpret the The director in me is playing a very strong key nuns of Compiegne and their courageous act form but directors from the world of theatre? role. The writer is constantly editing and being ###!" tough and ultra-precise about locating the denounce their vocation during the French So often, audience members—and artists!—draw exact words needed to get my point across. Revolution Reign of Terror. It left an indelible lines between theatre and opera. What do you feel mark on me. It is my favorite opera. the similarities are? How do you feel about the At times it feels like I’m trying to get through recent shifts in the forms that seem to be bringing an overdue term paper, but most of the time In 2002, I directed my own production at them closer together? Q#!")##!' Glimmerglass Opera, and subsequently at New a great new disciplined way of working; and for York City Opera and later Vancouver Opera. No difference to me at all. Never has been. never a moment do I not realize how fortunate I never tire of the piece. It always leaves me I am to have this opportunity weeping, shaken, inspired, and enthralled. You’re continuing to expand your experience with opera as well as your artistic skill set and are Do you have any advice for artists who want What continues to draw you—as a creator and writing a libretto! Are you comfortable describing to pursue careers as directors, librettists, and audience member—to the form of opera? the Glimmerglass Festival commission to us? composers for opera?

The assault and explosiveness to the senses I can say this: Francesca Zambello, artistic Have an absolute: “I cannot live another day from astounding music and the fun challenge leader of both Washington National Opera unless I do the work I must do as an artist in of making a world and inventing visuals and and the Glimmerglass Festival, commissioned the world of opera.” adding real dimension to sometimes outsized me to write an original opera. My own story. human beings. Not an adaptation. It involves a black family Listen to recordings. Read the librettos. Rent and community torn apart by the shooting DVDs of opera. Attend opera productions Over the last 10 years, an increasing number of #!"#) if you can afford it. Assist directors. Write opera companies have hired directors thought of as will have its world premiere summer 2019 at something every day. Distill it the next day. theatre artists to helm opera productions. Why do =")_^ Keep a journal of images. Adapt a one-act play you think this is? What do you think the crossover and honored female theatrical composer in into a libretto. brings to both forms? history, will write the music. I will also direct. Light candles for your journey forward as a It’s the smartest, most innovative move that What are the different modes of thinking employed ] opera companies have made in a decade. when you are writing an opera compared with ]"!"! directing one? Or is the director in you helping to and watches over you. I’m wishing you my own write the libretto, too? good luck. 34 SDC JOURNAL | WINTER/SPRING 2017