David Stern

I'm all right, I'm all right. I indeed am in Paris.

Yeah. So, now I've live—I've actually lived longer in Paris than I—than in the United States, which, um, it's quite a—a—a—a concept for me, but yes. Um, I came over in 1990.

Been a while, yes.

You can say that. I no longer live there, so it's fine.

COVID got in the way. Do you have to mention that? Yes, it's so— [Laughs] Yeah.

Yeah. So, um, I—I arrived in Paris, uh, well, we arrived, my wife and I arrived, um, in 1990, fresh off our honeymoon, actually. Tomorrow is actually our 31st anniversary.

Um, and, uh, we came over, um, ostensibly for—uh, well, my wife was already playing in, uh, Musica Antiqua Köln, um, Reinhard Goebel's group, um, which is one of the—it was then one of the hottest, um, um, early instrument ensembles.

And, um, and I was coming because I wanted to find myself in opera, uh, repertoire, in the opera world. And the first person for whom I was assistant as a young thing coming out of New York, uh, was John Eliot Gardiner. Uh, so, um, immediately opera and period instruments were the new thing for me.

Uh, and I delved into it and found myself—I lost myself into in terms of that, and I was very happy doing so. And New York had been a different repertoire. Juilliard was about orchestral conducting. Um, Otto-Werner Mueller was, you know, this gigantic figure in everyone's life. And yet, it was—it was not really opera conducting, and it certainly wasn't period instrument. And I needed—I needed that kind of new, um, direction. And that's what I found in Europe. I found, uh, very much a—a world which where, uh, especially in the '90s still, new opera stagings made the front page of New York—of the local papers, of Le Figaro and Le Monde. Um, it—you could still shock society with an opera staging. Which is no longer the case in many places in the world. Um, that—it's one of the things I've always loved about Paris. It's that, um, opera is about passions, whether it's screaming at each other during rehearsals or screaming during performances. And, yes, it's true that Parisian, French, European audiences will boo if they don't like something. But isn't that great that there's enough—that's a—there's enough passion going on in the audience that that risk is there? In Paris, there's almost nothing worse than if everybody in the hall claps. Now, this is Paris we're talking about. If everyone in the hall claps, that means that you've pleased everybody, but you haven't really moved everybody. Because if you're going to move everybody, then somebody is not going to like it.

So, the best in Paris is when you have half the house clapping and half the house booing. That is truly a success.

You have to have the stomach for it, you know? Uh, and I've been in situations where there's been, eeeeh, ooh, and you live through it, but you realize that, um, if someone cares enough about it, they'll either love it to death or hate it to death, and what it means to take a chance.

Dortmund. Yeah. So, the I—I um—I started off in France doing a variety of of of opera assistantships as a young musician. And then from then on, I got myself involved in the Aix-en-Provence Festival.

And there, there's a—an academy for—an international academy for opera, which was started when I was there, and I was its first director. And it gave me a taste of what it really means to work with young people. And I realized, pretty soon off the bat, that if you're really going to work with somebody, then you have to work with someone in the long term. You can't just say, "Oh, I've given this young singer a role in an opera," and th—that that means that you've done something. When you've done something, it's because you've taken someone through different repertoires, and you've taken someone through a period of development. And three years before they could not sing X and Y, but then they come out singing, um, you know, B and Z after three years. And that's when you've really done a—a job. So, not long after I left Aix, I did some other gigs, and then I decided to create, uh, an orchestra of period instruments, and together with that, work on, uh, uh, working with young singers. And that's what we've developed, and we have now the program which lasts, uh, three to four years per generation. So, we are now only on our fifth generation, but it's, you know, three years each ti—at a time, so we're actually in our 17th year. And we do masterclasses, and we do small concerts, chamber music, we also do concertante versions of things, and full operas. And it's so nice to feel like I can—I take these singers and I get to know them, and they've done Mozart and they've done Handel, but they've also done Cole Porter, and we throw in some 19th-century repertoire, and, uh, we do some Monteverdi, um, and even some serious jazz where they have to improvise and, um, go into areas where the average, uh, opera singer doesn't like—doesn't know about, is is afraid to go in. And I love that development part, and that's—that's really, um, what's also important is that all the singers, no matter what generation they've been in, can come back and coach when they need to, and it's like an extended family. So, when I come back from working, uh, from a—a—a tour in Asia or in the States or in Europe, and I have a few weeks off, um, I get singers to come over, and they—and they coach, and I continue working with them, even if they have left, uh, Fuoco years ago. And that's—that's been a very important feeling. If you're going to be a singer out there, it's very, very diff—and only gets more and more difficult. And if you don't have a support system of of—of not just sending them out and getting gigs, but having them—what's great about Fuoco is that we allow them to mess up. We—we say, "You know, this is a chance—you may not get through this role. This might not be for you, but we're going to try, because if it doesn't work out, it doesn't mean you're not a singer. It just means you've learned something from the experience." I think it's—what's—we're all so afraid not to have achieved constantly, that for young musicians, young singers, they have to feel that they can try something and dare, and if you really dare, then there's a chance it won't work. So, there are— yeah.

Um, uh, some of those living people are, uh, so it's funny, um, um, we are going to be doing our first masterclass with a living composer working on her own works, and it'll be Kaija Saariaho.

Um, and Kaija Saariaho is one of—I mean, I love her music. Uh, and it's—it's extremely identifiable. It's—it's, um—it's a music that has no compromises. Um, L'Amour de loin, which came to New York, made a huge hit. I mean, her—her music is so respected. And I find it—it's not even a question of something that is that it—it has its own um, signature. When you as a composer, you—you know this. You—you know that's—there—there are times where you find yourself in your own music and you don't feel like you have to justify it. You're in your music, right?

God forbid you should. And you hear that when they do, and we're not going to name names, but you feel like there are certain people who said, "Okay, well, this is my hook. And I'm going to develop it because I know the hook works." And you—you lose—it loses its—its impact because it's no longer sincere.

And so, someone says, "Oh, are you an—are you a tonic composer? Are you a, uh, you know, atonal or tonal composer?" What—what a stupid question! What a stupid question! It's like, "Are you a Baroque singer?" What, you sing Baroque, you don't sing Baroque. I mean, there's no such thing as a Baroque singer. There's—there's a musician, and there's not a musician. I mean, uh, what are we talking about?

Oh, very. That's...

Okay. You start off by not just saying, "uh, Baroque opera," but "Baroque gesture." Ah, everything in Baroque music is about a musical gesture. And the whole relationship between rhetoric and music is something that was much more developed, much more studied, and codes—now, you could say there were too many codes, but of course, when you have too many rules, the the best—the best thing about rules is that one breaks them. So, um, there were codes of how to write for a gesture that expressed pride or love, or, you know. And, um, there are simply, uh, in Baroque music, you have to cha—choose what are the words that are most important in your phrase? What are the notes that are most important in your phrase? In modern, um, and I hate to say it, a lot of—of, um—a lot of even Baroque in America is about sound. It's about having the right sound. It's not about the right sound. It's about telling a story. And if you can tell a story, then you can say the words and use the words so that the words convey not just the meaning of what you're saying, but the gesture of the phrase. Good. So, it follows a path that goes much—that is much closer to normal speech than would otherwise be. Um, so, I work on—the first thing I do with my singers is they have to speak the text and speak it to me convincingly. If they cannot do it convincingly as an actor, then they're never going to be able to get through, because then they're just hiding behind the notes, and you can hear when someone's hiding behind the notes.

Well, that's what it is, because y—y—you're you're kind of—it's like you're taking a—a—a chisel, and you're, um, making sure that the word doesn't get hidden by the music, by the note, by the sound.

The sound and the music note has to has to exemplify what the word means. So, you—it's like saying nothing happens in Bach, because in the cantata, he says there's one phrase, and it's, uh, uh, "Gott, uh, du bist der Herr," and then you say, "Du bist der Herr, du bist der Herr, du bist der Herr, du bist der Herr." You say it 45 times, and you say it's always the same. No, it's not the same. Bach uses the gesture so differently that every time you say "God," in—in this term "Herr," it—it changes, and that's the expression. That's all the color that happens in Baroque. And what I love about Baroque music is that it forces the singer to make—to go—go the extra step. You cannot just rely on the composer saying mezza forte, um, mezza voce, uh, sotto voce, da-da-da-da-da-da-da. You have to do the work yourself. And so many singers or musicians think that there's nothing to do because there's nothing written. Oh my god. So, yes, this is what—this is the kind of world in Europe that I loved falling into when I first arrived here.

And it's what's sustained me, and it's the kind of work that I love doing when I go back to Florida or to Virginia, um, working with young singers in different, um, repertoires, because it doesn't change. It doesn't change. Even in Puccini, you understand it.

I'll never say no to Puccini, you know.

It really doesn't. Of course, you—okay, there are certain things sustaining in mouth, the vocal qua—vocal sou—um, the the the sheer difference between a forte in—in Mozart and and a forte in Puccini. But I tell you, if— the reason why I feel like I get how to conduct Puccini is because I have done Monteverdi.

Now, Monteverdi is all about reciting text and going—it's mostly recitative and s—a little bit of aria. When you slip into the aria, you cannot, all of a sudden, um, be completely disconnected from what you did as in the recitative. You have to be able to recite and sing and move back and forth. Now, with Monteverdi, it's already—it's more blended in Monteverdi than it is in Mozart. In Mozart, you have the ar—the recitative, then you have the aria. He in Monteverdi, it goes back and forth, it's so fluid. In Puccini, it's the millisecond. There's one moment of recitative and then all of a sudden it takes off. He never writes recitative. No one talks of a recitative in—in Puccini. It's all over the place! And you have to be a master of it, because if you over-sing— and there are these great moments when Puccini will just have one note for the singer, just one note, and meanwhile there's a—an incredible orchestral palette behind. And th— that one note is so difficult to enunciate because that's the— that's the recitative. That's the thought process. And meanwhile, the psychology is the orchestra. To get to that level, if you haven't done your homework with Monteverdi, you y—you're not going to— you're you're way behind for Puccini. Of course, not that Puccini should sound like Monteverdi, of course not, but the approach is the same. What we're trying to do, we're trying to tell a story. That's all we're trying to do, that's what you're doing in your—in your—

Um, well, because he does it, it's—it's so, um, it's—it's so subtle when, um, when he—when—when the singer stops singing and is all of a so—all of a su—well, stop, he's obviously still singing, but is all of a sudden reflective in her or his thoughts, the music bends, goes with that person, and it's so natural with Puccini that you don't notice it. If you're aware of it and you're thinking of it and you're looking for it, you'll find it all over the place, there's no problem. But, that's the—the beauty of it is that in its naturalness, you don't notice the details.

And that's—that's what's great about it.

Well, also, you have this incredibly driven overture, which has so much energy, and there's—there's a tremendous amount of, okay, there's Bach-like, um, um, uh, counterpoint and, uh, and it's...

Butterfly, right. And it drives you and drives you and drives you, and then all of a sudden, you're—your recit-ing and it's all conversation. It's nothing—there's no art—

And i—i—if you—if you look at all the little parts, it seems really complicated, and then when you listen to it, it's all—it just flows and it's one large thing, and it's—it's wonderful. So, that's—I think that's—that's the key—the key element of of the in—in really good opera writing is when it seamlessly goes from one to the other. Uh, you know, there's—just think of before, um, Che gelida manina at the be—when—in the beginning of—in the first act of—of Bohème, um, you have just the horn coming in with the A-flat. And that A-flat fills— gives us a sense of—of suspension of time, it's one note! Wh—it's one note!

No.

Absolutely. So, you have these people who just— and again, is he trying to fit into a tradition? No, he's just writing what he's in his—what's in his ear.

Well, that's betw— psychologically—oh my god. We can talk about—talk about me for the next two hours, because we could, and I'd start crying in about 20—10 minutes, but [Shapiro laughs] you know, Mimì is so afraid of really saying who she is, of divulging too much. She's so— and all she talks—she talks about how, um, uh, how she makes flowers out of silk, but they're not real, they don't smell, they don't have, but—but—but then, the the—when the first light of spring comes over, that is—that's mine. That's my light. And then, the—the orchestra comes in because it's exactly that. It—she's finally allowed to express herself, and the entire orchestra expresses itself beforehand. But if there weren't that difference of this—this—this—this shyness—this shyness and this hesitancy, then the later wouldn't—we wouldn't have an—any contrast. So, you know, which brings us to another point, is the whole concept of contrast. Contrast in the 18th century, chiaroscuro, so, light and shade. Heavy li— heavy light, I know it sounds like a—it's not—we don't even use that term in English, heavy light. Heavy light, uh, schwer leicht, one talks about in German. Basically, it's down-bow, up-bow. Down-bow is heavy, up-bow is light. So, heavy light. Now, in 18th century, the concept of, um, two down—of two bows—this was not two bows, bam, bam, this was not two bows. Bam, bam, is one bow stroke. So, the up-bow is actually related to the down-bow. A down-bow is—is a forceful sound and the up-bow is the—is the natural extension of the first note. Which means that when we have— [Hums melody] —so, it's not because we're trying to be Baroque that you articulate that way. No, it's because that's—this—the DNA of the 18th century is light and dark, heavy and light, it's contrasts. If you find any great aria, and they're almost all are, all, of—of Handel's, there are, in every passage, two words that—that contradict, that conflict with each other, that set up a— a— a confrontation. It can be love and war, it can be, um, uh, um, thought and and and motion, I mean, there's a thing, you know, he sets up contrasts. And that's what drives the—the theme. That's where you know whether the—the theme goes to this measure or away, or if it's forte or if it's piano, because of contrast, because of articulation. And that's the same thing for any music, for 21st century as well. Without the contrast, without the articulation, then we're dead. Then we're just making sounds, and then you can do whatever you want, but it's not music.

Absolutely.

Okay. Um, wow, this is a very good question. So, um, uh, pacing in—in—you have to keep certain things in mind and you have to be a bit of a—a—a historian in the sense that Handel's music was meant to fill the entire—the entire evening. People didn't have television, they didn't have iPads, there weren't movies to go to. So, you needed to start at 6:00 and finish at 11:00. It was not considered anything unless you did. And in the 18th century, they played intermezzos, which were short operas during the intermissions. So, the whole concept of the length and and the and—and of the—of the arc of the piece is—of on—based on the very much larger scale. Puccini operas are not long. They're—they're—they're never—they never feel long. Um, and the—the—the, um, the the, um, the the the the intensity of the drama is such that it—it never gives up. Baroque opera has to give up, and that's kind of the point. There are moments which are lighter so that people can just breathe, because it's—they're they're there for the long haul. They can also leave, they can also bring food, I mean, it was much of the—the—the opera-attending experience was much more alive than it is in the—in in the 20th—20th century in modern times, where we have to sit with—

They had a room in the back, yes. They had a room in the back. No, absolutely, there was tons of stuff going on, and that wasn't certainly in Paris in the opera, there was tons of stuff going on in the anterooms. Um, uh, so, um, composers knew that. So, they wrote—y—you can tell when a composer says, "Okay, well, for the next few arias, we're going to take it easy." Right. Whereas, um, by the time you get to verismo, the idea is to get rid of that as much as possible, and then there's that direction, there's that constant direction. Which brings it to a very important question, and that's often—what I'm asked by composers or librettists, what is a good modern opera? What is a good story for a modern opera?

Okay. So, um, the minimal number of of, uh, singers. Not because you're trying to save money, but because you want always to be able to say, "Oh, I know what's going on in the story." Take a story that can be discussed in one sentence. So, Wozzeck, which is obviously one of the great masterpieces of the world.

Wozzeck has tons of characters, it's very complicated to put together. What's— what's Wozzeck about? A man who goes mad.

Period. You can explain it in one sentence. And then, from that energy, you can go— divert and talk about this character and that character and what happens in this scene. But where Wozzeck wins out over Lulu is that there's this constant direction, where Lulu loses itself a little bit. I love the third—

But it's all over the place. And, um, and so, Salome, Salome has this direct line that goes from the beginning of it to the very end, and it—it's a noose around the neck, it never—it never lets go. It's incredibly tight-fitted, and that's brilliant. Um, and then, uh, uh, I—I would say Turn of the Screw, I mean, I love Grimes, but, you know, Turn of the Screw also, you know, just when—when Britten knows how just to find the right pieces. So, the the characters have to be some— because you—you want to be able to— you want to be able to concentrate your musical writing so that there's as little fat as possible.

So, you can say the more modern you get, the more it's obvious because— and then, after you've studied all your Handel, you look at Purcell, and you go to Dido.

Which lasts 50-some-odd minutes, and is an entire opera. And you go just to the recitative before, um, When I am laid, for the— Dido's lament. And what does she say? She says, "Thy hand, Belinda."

That's it. That's it! That's all! After— that is all that he needs to instill—to—to— to— to make crystal clear the intensity of the moment.

Oh, wait, so then we go, "Thy hand, Belinda." Because that's where the— so, if you sing it, "Thy hand, Belinda," you're not doing anything. So, you have to go into the— the— the, um, the the natural rhythm of the language. "Thy hand, Belinda." Everything is there. And then, you've—you're not being Baroque, you're just doing the text. And you're allowing the text to goes on. And—and that's why—that's why music is great, because it distills, um, the strongest, deepest emotion in all of us. And, uh, whether we like it or not. Um, it's...

I would like music to mean so much more. I would like to every music—mu— person who listens to a concert for the first time after this pandemic, um, tastes that moment and never loses what that moment means to them.

It—it was a pleasure to talk to you. This won't be the last time that we—