Francesca Zambello

Hey. Hi, Michael. It's great to be here with you.

Well, I think all of us have to uh face the realities of that we were already working in an art form that needed a reboot. Um I think everyone knows that classical music and opera were in a time of, you know, obviously declining audiences and change, and this, in a way, has accelerated that. I don't think it's accelerating it for the worse. I think that at the end, it hopefully will give us a new perspective, a new way of producing. Uh but of course that's not going to be like tomorrow, that's going to be in the next decade. Uh and I think that a lot of the amazing work that was bubbling up over the last decade will accelerate now in terms of creating new works, different kinds of works, uh different interpretations of beloved pieces to us. Um and and ultimately, it's not a bad thing. I hope that it will be a good thing, and I'm somebody who believes we have to look to the good in everything. Um and so, for the organizations that I serve, Glimmerglass and Washington National Opera, we are each place thinking of different ways of going through the next year to 18 months, and what then happens on the other side of the the other side of this. You know, we need to be really proactive and really creative. Uh and again, these are two very different organizations. One is a festival in a rural setting, and one is a part of the the national performing arts center. So, we're finding different paths in both places.

Yeah. 24/7.

Yes.

Well, it is and it isn't. That's one of the things that's it's 2,200 seats. Of course that's a big space, but the Met is almost double that. So, I always think of our opera house as being actually kind of intimate for an opera house. I mean, it's bigger than a European scale, but it's still it's manageable. Like, everybody can see people clearly on stage. Um Glimmerglass is 900 seats. Uh it's it is in a rural setting, and we're lucky that uh we're looking at ways of how we can produce in the future. You know, the sides of our theater open up to the outside. We're situated on 30 acres of land. How how are the What are the many different ways we can perform on that land in creating new venues, performing outside, performing in our alternate spaces, barns, all of that, which are all located around our property? For Washington, we're looking at, and we announced uh for this year, uh that we would not perform uh in the theater until at the earliest would be next spring, and we announced a project called Come Home, which is a mix of uh and that's inspired by Leonora's aria, Komm, Hoffnung, which would have been our opening production. And we are doing everything from working in virtual reality to taking a truck out to different communities throughout the city and performing live opera on that, uh and creating things like a graphic novel, um just doing a range of projects. Uh and the same thing with Glimmerglass this summer when we knew that we were not performing, we turned to producing a lot of online content that we hoped would mirror the spirit of our place, the ethos of Glimmerglass, as well as the incredible surroundings, the beauty of the surroundings, in all of our online content. We didn't want to produce uh just people singing in their living room. So, we did everything from filming Schubert songs in the forest to creating an animated feature around Djamileh, uh doing a new song cycle with Alison Cambridge about the life of Sally Hemings, doing a piece on Jungle Book, the opera we would have premiered this year for families, uh and we also ran our young artist program virtually for six weeks. So, we were very, very busy here, and we it's just sort of just sort of dialed down now.

Yes.

Absolutely. I mean, I think I think it's interesting that in the rest of the world, we accept that a uh a director or a conductor may be running a company. That's pretty standard in uh Germany. Um we accept that a choreographer runs a dance company. So, I always find it strange in America that we don't have a lot of artists in the leadership positions. Um Houston, my colleague, uh Patrick Summers at the Houston Grand Opera, and a few other companies have an artist at the helm. But I always think, you know, there's this sort of weird distrust of the artist in America often between boards and administrators like, "Oh, they're going to do something crazy." Well, no, I mean, I think most artists, we want to make the art form survive and be better. So, uh I think the skills I learned as a director were many of them come into play as an administrator. I mean, I think particularly a director, you know, we are responsible often for a budget. So, that's a big part of administration, leadership is how to balance the creative, the product with the price. And so there was that, and then I also always felt very, uh you know, fiercely uh concerned in our business about uh perception, pricing, you know, issues that you confront as an administrator, you know, how to get people into an opera house. And so as a director, I thought about that a lot by what I was directing and what I was responsible for producing. So, in a way, that fit into being an administrator, and here, I'm talking to you from Cooperstown right now, uh I have an amazing staff, I've had an amazing staff, and in Washington, um where I'm the artistic director, I have a incredible collaboration with Tim O'Leary, who's the executive director.

Right, and now he is the general director of the Washington National Opera. And so, we we've got a great collaboration um, and I think that's what it takes, you know? An opera company, I was explaining this to somebody the other day who is very involved at ABT, American Ballet Theatre. I said, "You know, opera is such a messy art form." You know? It's like, there's everything, you know? There's the orchestra and the singers and the dancers and the supers and the production aspect. And, you know, opera is just messy. And so, you know, that's its beauty and its its problem is how to coalesce all the elements. And so, in the leadership position, it's really about doing that as well as creating uh, you know, my leadership style is about creating uh a team, and that every voice has a place at the table, everyone is heard. And we, particularly at Glimmerglass, because it's much smaller in terms of annual budget and whatnot, we have involvement from every aspect of the staff on what we put on the stage.

The difference between Broadway and most opera companies or uh theater companies, regional companies, is simply stated: it's not-for-profit or profit. But we're all in show business, and it is a business. Um and you can you can never forget that or overlook that. It's it's part of what we do is that, you know, we are there to sell tickets even in the not-for-profit world. Obviously in the profit world, you are responsible for delivering something that, you know, on Broadway is basically going to sell, for a musical, probably 10,000 tickets a week. Um in an opera company, you might sell, you know, depending on the size of the company, you know, it's a very different responsibility. I mean, I think about it here at Glimmerglass, you know, we're a 900-seat theater and we sell seven performances a week, so that's about 6,000 plus tickets a week. Uh that's and that's only for, you know, eight weeks in the summer. You know, the Washington, you do an opera, 2,200 seats, you might do in a week, you might do four or five performances. It's a completely different thing, and that's why, of course, the arts or um, you know, the not-for-profit arts uh need to have a fair amount of subsidy from patrons, donors, foundations, whatever. And so, it doesn't really change when you are trying to raise money from an investor versus a donor. Uh it's really all about capturing people's imagination who might help you financially. And they it it doesn't uh to tell you the truth, working in the two worlds, there's a huge amount of overlap between, you know, the financial aspects of raising money. And and I guess in in the not-for-profit world, in opera and in theater, I have always thought it is part of my job to make sure that I create or produce something that is going to attract an audience and that is going to sell tickets. Um I don't think we can be that selfish as creators to think, "I don't, you know, I'm only creating this for myself and my peer group." I always think about the audience, and I always think it's in part my responsibility to make sure that the audience—I don't want to say they have to be happy, but they certainly have to be, you know, challenged or entertained or engaged. Those are all the things that that that we should be doing.

Absolutely. And and I think to to venture a guess on what that's going to be is is not right. It's so soon. When I when I think even how I'm thinking now, today, you know, we're speaking uh shortly after the summer break, and at Glimmerglass, we are speaking about how we will produce next summer and what we will produce within the COVID guidelines. That's like nine months from now. When I think back to six months ago, when everything was closing down and we were all scrambling as to what we're going to do, everything changes every day. So, I think that we have to be creative in terms of, you know, content, new works, what we produce, how we produce, how much is online, how much is live. Uh I think that I think there will always be a thirst for live performances. People will be afraid to go to theaters. We know that. Uh so, it's going to be about creating not just something that will attract an audience, but being in an environment where people feel safe. Safety is going to be it's going to be like part of your ticket, part of your marketing is like, "We have a safe environment." And I don't even know if we can promise a safe environment. We can clean till we're blue in the face, but somebody shows up and they are infected with COVID, they may not know it, and they're sitting next to somebody, and, you know, we keep reading examples of that. So, whether a vaccine is going to cure that or not, I don't know, but I do think it's going to be our job to keep coming up with things that will invite an audience to be part of the dialogue, and and that's really, you know, that's what we're missing is that live, the exchange of energy and synergy that happens between audience and performer.

Uh-huh.

Uh-huh.

Yeah.

You know, I think, I mean, Porgy and Bess is a a complex work before the period of Black Lives Matter. I mean, it's a piece that asks a lot of audiences and performers now, and I will be curious if it will have the popularity with audiences when we finally create a world that is anti-racist, and I don't know if that's going to happen in my lifetime.

Um I do know, in terms of new works, I've been involved with I don't know how many new works. Probably about 200, I would guess by now, um whether as director or producing. In Washington, we have a very robust new works program called the American Opera Initiative that produces a lot of short operas, 20-minute operas and 1-hour operas. I've also been involved with so many complete new works, you know, whole evenings. And, you know, the average is uh, you know, 1 in 20 maybe that has a life. But is that really any different than it was during the periods of, you know, the enormous creativity of Mozart or Puccini or, you know, or Verdi? Um and that's why I think we keep being drawn to new works as they allow us to have new voices, tell stories, uh sing and write and compose and hear in different ways uh that reflect our society and our times. So, I I am all for someone who believes in not only encouraging them, but curating new works. You know, you can't just like it doesn't just come out of the the box. Um Particularly now, again, because we're asking uh a piece to do so much and we're investing so much financial resources in it. So to me, I love the creative process of working with composer and librettist. And I think one of the things that has been—

From the very beginning usually. Uh I mean, as a general director, I'm the person who's commissioning them and choosing them. So, that would be from day one. So, new works, you know, they are the lifeblood of of theater and of opera, I think. Uh nothing is more exciting than getting to work with writers and composers um in putting together a new work, because they are the creators. I always think of my job as the interpreter. If I'm the director or if I'm the person who commissioned them, I always think I'm here to help be a conduit. I'm here to help facilitate. I'm here to help them get it on the stage. Because as a director, there's no question dir- you know, I've directed many more times than they have composed or written an opera. Um and I think that's important. I think it's important to involve the people who are getting it onto the stage from the beginning, uh you know, again, a composer may be, you know, how many operas are they going to write in their lifetime? I mean, even uh extremely prolific composers of today uh are never going to, you know, achieve the numbers that, you know, Verdi, let's say, or cranked out. Part of that is just because of the logistics of theater now and the and the economics and the finances. But I do think it's a it's a very uh wonderful experience to work with living composer and living librettist because you get the the dialogue and the dynamic of putting the work together. No question.

Right.

Yeah, of course. I mean, and I think, you know, a lot of the mistakes of uh contemporary theater and Broadway is often to go to a songwriter rather than a storyteller. And, you know, the great it's like Verdi didn't write a lot of symphonies, he wrote a lot of stories with music. And that's maybe one of the reasons that he's one of the most incredible composers who's ever lived. Wagner was committed to story and theater, you know, Gesamtkunstwerk. I I I that's not to say that a great songwriter isn't potentially a great composer of a theatrical work, but I do think that they are different art forms. The art of song is different than the art of storytelling, a drama that has an arc. And, of course, the librettist or the poet or the playwright, whoever is providing the words, uh their input can never be underestimated, uh whether it is a song or a drama or a musical. You know, they are creating the structure, the the house, the frame, the skeleton that the composer is going to hang the music on. And that's why I've seen so many pieces, I mean, fail because the libretto in the structure was terrible, or the book and the, you know, the for a musical was terrible. It really when people say what's first, the the, you know, the words or the music, I do believe that the words, the idea is first, but then I do believe that the words have to give the structure first. They have to give They have to give the composer what to hang on. And that's why I think of the projects that I've worked on, the ones that have been the most successful and have had the best longevity are the ones that where drama and story and narrative and character come first. Prima le parole.

No.

Right. Right.

Right. The story is great, but—

Right. The story is great, but but some of the text is, uh, dodgy. It's problem—it's clunky. It's just clunky theater.

Yeah.

Well, I have to say, having worked in a number of other art forms, you know, obviously spoken theater, musicals, film to some degree, you know, I love opera. Uh, you know, it's it's just an incredibly messy and wonderful art form, and that the reason that it speaks to me is that it has everything in it, and I believe you can tell big stories, passionate stories, uh things that, whether it be particularly today about social and political issues, whether it be about the uh issues of the human emotions and our psyches and penetrating our deepest feelings and emotions, opera speaks the most to me about that. And that's why I'm committed to it, and that's why I'm committed to making it uh as available to as many people as possible, uh and to keep creating new works and commissioning composers and librettists as well as re-examining and reinventing or rethinking about our classics. I don't think Aida, Boheme, and Carmen are going to die, but I do think that we're going to see them in different ways and in different lights. Uh and I also think that we're going to be looking at a lot more new work, a lot of different ways of producing, you know, whether it's logistical things like how long is an opera or how it's produced, where it's done. Uh all of these are things that we're going to be re-examining in the coming years, and that's a good thing because it's going to make the art form that I love and I think uh you're probably your listeners love as well, um and those are big questions. It's great to ask big questions and to try and answer them.