Conductor the Unsung Hero of Opera

(first published in The Cincinnati Post June 24, 1991)

The conductor is opera's "unsung" hero.

He or she spends long hours in "the pit" - in German it's Graben, or grave - and must cope with wayward singers, theatrical boo-boos and occasional unidentified flying objects from the stage (props, shoes, etc.).

It's very different from conducting symphony concerts, said Arthur Fagen, who makes his debut with the Cincinnati Opera this week conducting Rossini's "The Barber of Seville."

"In a symphonic program, you're in charge of every aspect of what's going on, so it's possible to come fairly close to attaining an ideal."

In opera you also have singers, the drama, the staging and the chorus, and "it becomes more difficult to pull it all together into a unified whole."

Singers are one of the elements making for opera's "unpredictability," Fagen said.

"One doesn't encounter this very much in America, but there are Italian singers who will always say in rehearsal, 'Si, si, maestro.' Then, the night of the performance, when the public is there, they'll do whatever they want."

Sometimes the fates take revenge, however. Fagen tells of conducting a Donizetti opera - a theatrical satire, fittingly - when the set collapsed on the tenor:

"The audience thought it was part of the comedy, and everybody was sitting there laughing hysterically."

A native New Yorker, Fagen studied conducting with former Cincinnati Symphony music director Max Rudolf at Philadelphia's Curtis Institute. He has conducted extensively in Europe and the U.S., including both the New York City and Metropolitan Operas. Married to an opera singer, he also served as an assistant in master classes given by famed Italian baritone Tito Gobbi in Florence, Italy.

The conductor's first duty, said Fagen, is "to identify with the dramatic content of the libretto and how that is expressed by the music." Next he must "identify with the singing," realize when the singers need to breathe, move and so on.

"Then the conductor has to bring out of the orchestra all the dramatic impulses necessary to express the action and the emotional undercurrent."

In a nutshell, "there's a lot of stuff going on."

And it's all important, he said, explaining: "You can't talk of individual elements as being more important than the others."

Rossini's "The Barber of Seville" will be sung in Italian with SurCaps at 8 p.m. Thursday and Saturday at Music Hall. Mezzo-soprano Wendy White stars as Rosina, with tenor Don Bernardini as Almaviva, baritone John Brandstetter as Figaro and bass-baritone Peter Strummer as Dr. Bartolo. Rosalind Elias directs. Tickets: $7-$32 (721-8222).

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At the podium

Also conducting at the Cincinnati Opera this summer:

Chris Nance. Bizet, "Carmen," July 3, 6. On the conducting staff of the New York City Opera, Nance has led some of the Cincinnati Opera's biggest recent hits, including "Faust" (1990), "Romeo and Juliet" (1989) and "Susannah" (1988).

"The excitement of the theater" is what draws conductors to opera, he said.

Anton Coppola. Verdi, "A Masked Ball," July 11, 13. Uncle of filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, this famed maestro acquired cinematic luster by conducting the operatic sequences in "The Godfather III." Although 1991 marks his 15th consecutive year conducting the Cincinnati Opera, he first conducted the opera at the zoo in 1953.

In opera, he says, "anything can happen and usually does. Singers are constantly forewarned that if they are throwing any objects to make sure they throw them upstage and not downstage into the orchestra pit."

Podium backup for the summer is associate conductor Thomas Cockrell, a three-year veteran of the Spoleto Festival. Cockrell must be ready to conduct any of the season operas; he attends three full rehearsals a day.