Arthur Fagen

Pleasure to be here, Michael.

I'm originally a pianist, although I studied violin, played horn through high school, and studied a little clarinet, too.

Yes. I started actually when I was 21. I left Curtis after one year to go to Frankfurt and to be a korrepetitor with dirigierverpflichtung, as they say. Um,

At the At the Frankfurt Opera. I I I met Dohnányi, and I played for him when he was in New York conducting Falstaff at the Met. And to my surprise, he hired me.

Well, not actually. It's a good thing. It means you're hired basically as a korrepetitor with a as a as a coach. But you could be asked to conduct.

Well, actually when Dohnányi um hired me, I asked, "So, is there any chance I'll get to conduct?" He said, "Yes, I'll put you on the podium at least once during your first year." So, um I was assisting him. It was December of my first season, or November, and I was assisting him on Parsifal. And so I went up to him, and I said, "So, Herr von Dohnányi, when are you going to let me conduct?" So he said, "Okay, tomorrow you're going to do an hour of the bühnenorchesterprobe", which is the stage orchestra rehearsal of of Parsifal. So that was my first time in the pit. I did about 45 minutes. Orchestra tapped their stands, which are very important in Germany, because if you don't get the approval of the orchestra, you don't you don't get very far. And so Dohnányi said, "Okay, it went quite well. Um, I cannot give a 21-year-old kid a Parsifal performance at the Frankfurt Opera. But since you were my assistant on Un ballo in maschera, and that went well, I'll give you a performance." And so,

Exactly.

I did Un ballo in maschera, and they gave me another performance the following season. And then they did something very nice. They gave me a whole series of Swan Lake—not Swan Lake, excuse me, Sleeping Beauty performances to conduct. So I got about 25 performances during the following a season, during the following two seasons, with just an occasional opera, Ballo in maschera, and I did The Magic Flute, too.

I don't know. I I mean, uh, I've I've I've only conducted the suite from Nutcracker, but I did do Swan Lake, which I took over at the Staatsoper in Berlin from Barenboim, who actually did the premiere. Right. I can't say that one is more difficult than the other. They're just they've different difficulties.

Yeah, of course.

I think so, although so many years ago, I don't remember composition.

Actually, um if I have to get into the whole history. I went to Frankfurt with the idea I'll stay a year, see how it goes and, but I ended up staying 16 years. Right. I met my wife, uh, through Tito Gobbi, with whom I worked in Holland, and I used to play for his summer workshop for two or three years and, really, he taught me everything I know about Italian opera. And, um, I stayed for 16 years. We had two children. And, at a certain point, they were going, you know, they were in in elementary school in Germany, and my wife said that she really would like to bring up the kids through high school in the United States. Ah. So, within a period of one week, I had to choose between an offer to be Erster Kapellmeister, first Kapellmeister in Mannheim, or to go back to New York to become a cover conductor at the Met. And career-wise, of course, Mannheim would have been a better thing. But my wife said, "Look, you'll have an income and you'll and we'll be able to bring the kids up." So we moved back.

And I moved back to Long Island, where I grew up, and I used to commute every day to the city. But as things developed in in the States in terms of conducting a lot of opera, and I also became music director of the Queens Symphony and got to conduct a lot at New York City Opera, did a little bit of conducting at the Met. And we stayed 16 years. And then, when my, uh, youngest daughter was graduating high school—not my youngest, my middle daughter was graduating high school, and I only had a a third daughter, we had our kids spaced very far apart. Mhm. My wife said, "Well, you know, at this point, we can move back to Europe." And I had been guest conducting in Europe so I all that time while I was in living in New York, and that wasn't a problem. And that's when I took the job in Dortmund. So I was 16 years in Europe, 16 years in the States, 6 years back in Europe, and now back in the States.

Well, I, you know, I did study a little composition, and I did write pieces, but I didn't feel a strong urge to compose. Probably because I didn't think that I was good enough.

Okay, I'll pretend that I don't know The Marriage of Figaro and then I'm I have to learn it.

Well, I mean, there are two two major aspects. The first one, I mean, the the libretti of Da Ponte are unbelievable, really.

And it's quite difficult to get into. I I start actually with the piano vocal score. I mean, it's very easy. I mean, it's not a big deal to do it from the orchestra score, either, in a Mozart opera. It's not that, I mean, the the instrumentation is not that complex. You can hear it easily in your head. Um, I mean, this is I'm saying this, starting with the libretto based on the fact that, you know, I've done a lot of research into performance practice of classical music, of of Mozart, and I've, you know, played a lot of Mozart, I played, you know, many sonatas, chamber music, and so forth.

But, um, I think with opera basically, it's important to start also with the text. And it's a rather, you know, it's a rather complex process. Some of some of what, uh, Da Ponte does is is extremely refined, and it takes a pretty intimate knowledge of Italian language. I think it's very important for all opera conductors to know Italian very well, German, probably French, when possible. Mhm. I don't conduct, by the way, Russian operas because I don't speak the language, you know?

Of course, you can conduct them. And, you know, I've done many scenes from Russian operas in concert, but, uh, I feel in order to have authority also, especially if you have Italian singers in a in a in a in a cast of an Italian opera, I mean, you have to you have to know the language very well. So I'll I'll do that. But then, you know, I'll go through the I, you know, I I'll go through Figaro, and it's very hard to say how I would start from point zero because I actually worked we worked Figaro with Max Rudolf, we talked about all the tempo relationships in the second act finale, we talked, you know, is there a basic pulse going through through a a lot of Figaro? And there is, actually. And there is, and it works very well. And then, the very important thing is, and, uh, is unless it's a unless it's the end of a finale where there's a lot of patter going on, the tempo that one chooses has to make the text come alive. Mhm. You cannot pick a tempo based on whatever theories you have about what, you know, what is it what is a presto or what is an andante in 6/8 in Mozart. You have to realize that the text has to cut has to, in some way, has to come alive. Mhm. And, um, and then, of course, you could talk about, you know, Mozart style, phrasing, about ornamentation, about da capo areas, you know, if in in the Figaro, uh, I'm just trying to think if there's Yes, of course, like in Dove sono, the second, in the in the da capo, there there's there's there's there is room for real real ornamentation.

Yeah, it depends on it depends upon a conductor being able to help with, you know, uh, find something that works, and depends on a singer who's able to do it convincingly, too.

But I have worked with quite amazing singers. I have a recording of Rossini arias and duets with Kasarova and Flórez at the very beginning of his career. Mhm. And Kasarova was so immersed in a Rossini style that at every This we recorded at the Bayerischer Rundfunk with the, uh, Munich Radio, Münchner Rundfunkorchester.

Every single take, she improvised a diff- different ornamentation.

It it And how many people could do it? I think Bartoli could do it. But there are very, very few people who are able to do something like that.

Um, I've done I've done three productions of Fidelio, and I've done maybe eight or eight to ten productions of Figaro on my own. Um, they they are quite they are quite immense. The whole introduction to the second act of Fidelio is you have the feeling of really Yes, it's right. Beethoven in in in that introduction. Right. Um, well, there are fur- certainly some similarities. I think Fidelio was premiered on Theater an der Wien, right?

And Figaro also, I mean, you know, there's a very strong Viennese aspect to both Figaro and and Fidelio. Um, I mean, the aesthetic of Beethoven is so completely different from the aesthetic of of Mozart. And Fidelio, you know, aside from, you know, some humorous relief with the Rocco aria and also Jacquino and Marzelline, Mhm. there's a very there's a very dark aspect to Fidelio.

And there's also the aspect of political oppression in Fidelio that you also find in Egmont.

Right.

Graphic.

Well, let's talk more about Falstaff because, you know, I've done I've conducted 10 different Verdi operas. But I have to admit that the two that I'm missing are Otello and, uh, Forza.

We haven't done an Otello since I've been there. All right. But I've done I did many performances of Falstaff. And my first Okay, let's talk Falstaff. my first experience with Falstaff was, you know, I was the first Kapellmeister in Holland, in in in the with the second company, which was in Enschede. I don't know if you know about that. Mhm. Opera For- It was called Opera Forum then. And it was Tito Gobbi who was staging it.

And And the gentleman, the intendant, had no interest in coming to all of six weeks of staging rehearsals. So I worked six days a six days a week for six weeks with Gobbi, with, aha, Falstaff, which was a great a great school.

I do. And I and I had the tremendous fortune of playing six weeks of, in Frankfurt, playing six weeks of Tosca rehearsals with Jean-Pierre Ponnelle and six weeks of Tosca of Carmen rehearsals with Jean-Pierre Ponnelle. I learned more about opera from great directors, in a way, than I did from great conductors.

It's It's It's really remarkable what, uh, you know, I remember, and Dohnányi was the conductor for the Carmen, but he also, you know, he was a busy traveling conductor. He wasn't coming every day to the staging rehearsals. And I remember Ponnelle doing a musical rehearsal of the Carmen quintet. Mhm. I have yet to have, uh, have worked with a conductor who could do such a good musical rehearsal on a piece like the Carmen quintet.

Oh, very good.

Well, that's fantastic. By the way, I enjoyed I enjoyed the excerpts that I heard.

Of The Slave. Very much.

Right.

That's a very good question. Um, why is comedy so much more difficult?

Well, you've got a lot of the opera buffa, uh, buffa stuff.

You've got Italiana, you've got Bar- Il barbiere, you've got you've got Cenerentola, I mean, you've got you've got plenty, you've got plenty of stuff, actually.

20th century. I mean, um, I did get to conduct The Ghosts of Versailles a few performances in Chicago.

Oh, really? I met him in Chicago at one point.

And those comedic moments are wonderful, I think.

Well, you've got some of La mère coupable, the third, uh, uh, the third installment of the Beaumarchais trilogy in in The Ghosts of Versailles.

That's right.

It is, and I'm trying to think of the 20th-century opera I've done.

I've done that many times.

Yeah.

Well, I don't think I don't think musically it is as good. And I'm happy to be doing The Turn of the Screw right now. Very, very s- very, very disturbing piece. Britten did disturbing, but, very well.

Yeah, he also sings on the Britten, uh, recording the the prologue to, um, Turn of the Screw.

And I think he sings Peter Quint, too. He does both roles.

That's what I hear.

It's been, you know, I I know the music quite well now, but it's been difficult, because I don't have any emotional identification with any of the characters in Turn of the Screw. Mhm. Really, not. You know, in the way that I would with a Mozart opera or a Verdi opera or Puccini opera. By the way, I've conducted a lot of Wagner. I have that problem with Wagner characters, too. Well, I'm sure you do. And, you know what, I really want to tell you, speak to you about something which is very dear to me, and I know it's very dear to you. And that's an identification with those composers who are in Terezín and Schulhoff, who was in, you know, the other, in in France in the concentration camp, and so forth. These are the composers of the Shoah, during the Shoah period, uh, some of whom I have almost a family connection to, because Viktor Ullmann went to school with one of my mentors, Joseph Rosenstock, who was a, you know, the great, uh, writer of of, uh, words for Musica Aeterna, for Fritz Mahler, and so forth, and a teacher at Mannes of of history, a student of Schoenberg. He was in Hochschule with Viktor Ullmann. Viktor Ullmann, Krasa, Gideon Klein, Pavel Haas. Pavel Haas, and, of course, Schulhoff.

I don't know if I've told you this, but I'm involved now in um, reconstituting the manuscripts of James Simon. Is that a name that means anything to you?

He was at Terezín He was a Terezín composer who was, uh, murdered in Auschwitz in 1944 along with Ullmann, Krasa, Haas,

and he's written a couple of orchestral pieces. One of them is called Ahasver, story of Ahasverus. Yeah. And, I think, the Purim story. And we have somebody who's transcribing the manuscript into on Sibelius or Finale, and I I've been working on it even today.

I hope so. I mean, right now the the real emphasis is on BIPOC composers, and so I don't know if this will become a priority, but, for me, it's a big priority.

And we have already commissioned Shulamit Ran to uh write the first mainstage uh opera ever written based on the Diary of Anne Frank. There have only been chamber operas based on that theme.

Well, I I think, um,

You know, because my own developmental process as a conductor was a very long one. It took me a long, you know, I mean, some people are 25 and they have everything together, and it took me at least, you know, many years, and it's continuing now. And I can relate to everybody's difficult everybody's difficulties, whether it be their physical difficulties or their mental difficulties in in learning in learning scores. Also, um, I think it's important for peo- you know, in in my case, I had the great opportunity to uh work with many, many great European opera companies and orchestras and with many great European artists. So, as you were in Europe, too, I think it gives you a different perspective, and I think we are a certain in a way imbued with a certain kind of tradition, and I mean tradition in a good sense, having the experience of knowing how a German orchestra plays German music, how a Czech orchestra plays Czech music,

how an Italian orchestra plays Italian music, and all throughout these years from the time I was in Frankfurt, when I was, you know, uh, working even at that time, even before I was at the Met, working with Bergonzi and and and and and and great singers, I'm talking Gobbi, and I even coached Hans Hotter my first year there, Oh, Oscar Czerwenka. when when he was, but it was a speaking role, it was Moses and Moses and Aaron. But, I mean, and I've worked with Schwarzkopf, you know, I I I I I I conducted the final concert of her um, of her master classes in Amsterdam, and and and peo- people really, some of the great, great singers and artists of the past. And that also, you know, includes many, many soloists. I mean, I've conducted Starker, I've conducted Lazar Berman, I've conducted so many, you know, so so so many Istomin, uh, Browning, you know, so so so many great people, Igor Oistrakh, that um, I think, you know, I've kind of absorbed I try to absorb the best of of everybody, and, and then I try to transmit it. And I think I have an obligation, both in terms of of my conducting students, terms of the orchestras, in terms of the in terms of the singers. So I feel, you know, that I have something to give, and I want to give it, you know? Mhm. Whether it's recognized as being of a value is some another question altogether.

It's been a pleasure. Let's stay in contact.