You studied voice and sang as a baritone.
I studied voice and sang as a baritone without a top!
When did you decide you didn’t want to be a singer anymore?
It was about 1969. My singing teacher at that time was Margaret Harshaw. She said: “David, I think you need a break! A long break!”
Were you working too hard?
Yeah! I was trying to earn a living, so I was teaching and talking all day, while studying voice and coaching, and taking acting lessons. I lived in New York, and in the summers, I was fortunate enough to go to Santa Fe Opera, where I was an apprentice for three years. But I never jumped from apprentice to anything more, so I said: “I better get the hell out!”
What do you think it was that held you back from making progress as a singer?
I was too analytical and tried to understand each technical detail intellectually. And I could never get the whole idea of support. I just worked too hard at it!
What oriented you towards getting a business degree at Columbia?
I wanted to get a job to support myself, and then I decided to work in the arts.
Once you got your degree, you came directly to Houston.
About 34 years ago, I rented a U-Haul truck, put all my belongings in it, and drove from Manhattan to Houston.
Why Houston?
It was fate! Well, fate in the form of a job! It was the No. 2 job here in what was then a very small opera company, and I thought: “Well, maybe there’s upward mobility.” It also seemed like the people here were very nice and supportive. I liked it from the very beginning. Of course, the thing I liked most was that I had a paycheck.
Only two years after your arrival, you took over as general director in 1972, and you began a trend that would in time establish Houston Grand Opera as a groundbreaking company. You presented a world premiere: The Seagull by Thomas Pasatieri. Was the introduction of new works, and especially new American composers, a high priority for you from the start?
Yes. It was a high priority to do works by Americans. Actually, the first opera I did after I became general director was Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah, at the Miller Outdoor Theater. Trying to bring new opera to a wider audience is one of my passions.
Was the Houston audience always a fertile ground for planting new “seeds” in the form of new works?
It was always a less traditional audience.
Why?
Well, they did not have traditional opera for generation after generation, and there weren’t very strong European communities here—like there were in Chicago or San Francisco, which would encourage mostly Old World repertoire and values—so they were very open to everything here.
Do you approach composers with your own ideas for a work, or do they approach you?
Most of the time, the composer comes to me with an idea. But there have been situations where I liked a certain idea and found the composer to do it. Sometimes I put a composer together with a libretto. Other times they have someone they want to work with. So they submit the idea to me—what I call a “prose scenario,” which breaks it all down into acts and scenes, and talks about the role the music will play. On that basis, we decide whether we’re going to go on with the commission.
Some directors don’t understand the physicality of a singer’s vocal production. With your previous singer’s experience, do you watch out for these things when you take on a new production?
Oh, yes! In terms of stage directors, we’ve had Bob Wilson here, David Alden, Christopher Alden—they’re all Americans, and probably the extreme to which we’ve gone in terms of stage direction. But that is nothing compared to the way direction is done in Stuttgart, or sometimes Munich and Hamburg—the so-called “Regietheater.” The Regietheater is not to my taste and I do not support that. I support the music being very important, and that means the singers, while the staging and concept should come out of the music, and not be overlaid upon it.
How do you govern this institution?
Management by consensus. I talk to all my people, to get their thoughts and ideas. Obviously, I’ve got to make the final decision, but that is not in any way authoritarian. I try to get good people in the various departments. We all meet together, and I also meet with them individually to set goals. Then I pretty much leave them to make the goals. If they have major changes or need feedback along the way, they can come back and seek it.
You know, I’m a very boring general director. I’m not a demagogical dictator or anything like that.
How do you handle behind-the-scenes politics or power struggles, if there are any?
There have been very few. If I figure somebody is really not making their goals—not necessarily over one year, but over two or three years—or if they’re being a negative influence to the unity of the operation, then I will get rid of them.
How do you deal with divas and divos?
That hasn’t been much of a problem over the years. We had some challenging moments with Renata Scotto at times. If a diva is really important artistically, if she sells tickets and creates great excitement in the community, then it’s worth taking care of that person and understanding their needs. If the diva has a production or a tenor that she feels comfortable with, I will cooperate. I will not try to get somebody like Renée Fleming here for La traviata and throw her in a new, progressive production. We talk about it, and we understand each other. So, if the diva is really worth it, we try to cooperate—but not to the extent that the work we do is all about her or him. The divas or divos have to fit into the direction and the rest of the cast, and be good colleagues.
What is the key in attracting donors and maintaining such lasting ties with them? What is your secret?
Since I’ve been here so long, I found that donors kind of come in, have their time, and then go out. I’ve had very few who have been supporting us my whole time here.
My secret is that I am enthusiastic about what we are doing. Either they give to us because I can enthuse them about a particular project or about the organization as a whole, or because I can convince them that a good opera company is good for the whole city. A city has a baseball team; it should have a good medical center, great universities, and great cultural centers. Houston is a major city—it’s the fourth largest city, population-wise, in the country. It should have a great opera house!
In the HGO magazine, Opera Cues, you write “The Gockley Chronicles,” a day-by-day account of your latest trips. Tell me about that.
I only write this when I have a 10-15 day trip. I think it gives opera fans a chance to understand what their opera director is doing, how he’s spending his time, who he’s meeting with, what singers he’s planning on bringing here in the future, and his thoughts on particular productions. It keeps people informed.
I imagine you have to be constantly on top of what is going on in opera houses around the world as well as at home.
I like to be constantly aware of that, whether it’s going there in person or not. There’s a lot of traffic in videotapes these days for the purpose of viewing an artist’s work or a production. My job is also about keeping up with certain artists that we like to have relationships with: taking them to dinner, seeing them backstage, deciding on their next two or three productions in Houston.
Do you miss singing?
No. I struggled with it at the end so badly that …
You don’t even sing for yourself anymore?
Maybe after the fifth mojito. [A cocktail of light rum, mint sprigs, soda water and lime juice.]
If a singer keeps struggling as you did, would you tell them to give it up?
I would. It’s hard—it’s so courageous to try it, but I go back to what Margaret Harshaw said. In a fairly nice way, she told me: “Listen, you’re trying too hard and getting less good.” So, if I thought that were true of somebody, I would tell them. I’d do it in a very nice way. I would say, just as she told me: “Take some time off, do some other things, and then if you do come back to it, you’ll come back fresher and with a new perspective.”
What do you look for when a singer auditions for you?
A gorgeous voice that is technically healthy and shows personality.
What about experience, acting ability, looks, all of that?
All of it.
Does age matter?
I find that younger singers are more capable of growing and changing, and for our studio, it would be very unusual for us to take someone over 30, because the older someone gets the more resistant they are to somebody telling them how to improve, and their bad habits are more ingrained.
How much does European experience count when someone auditions?
Not that much.
What makes a bad impression on you?
Not having a beautiful voice, not having high or low notes, being boring, not being musical, not knowing how to use the voice in an expressive way—you know, all of that.
If someone has a bad audition, would you ever hear that singer again?
Yeah, if there was enough to give me the idea that they were having a bad day, or if they had a beautiful voice but their top was not yet worked out.
Where else do you discover talent, besides going around the country?
I discover talent in Europe—I try to hear singers in the major cities I go to, like Vienna or Munich.
Do chorus members ever become soloists?
Yeah. I would say that during my time here, maybe 10 singers who were in the chorus as younger singers went on to have solo careers. They can use our chorus for as long as they want, to get experience [and] earn money while they’re studying—but then it’s their choice.
How many new singers do you hear a year?
Me personally, maybe 150, but the company as a whole probably hears a thousand. I don’t hear them all.
Through the Opera to Go initiative, you introduce children to opera by having children’s stories and fairy tales set to music and performed?
Yeah, like The Princess and the Pea and Velveteen Rabbit. Our idea is: Before kids get into their difficult adolescent years—when they don’t like things that their parents like—to give them three good experiences with something called opera. We also appeal to teenagers, it seems. Last night we had a high school night. It was amazing! A fabulous performance—and there was not a sound during the performance. The high school students received it at the end like an audience at [La] Scala. And they were dressed up!
HGO has won awards for marketing and advertising. You are constantly looking for new and innovative ways to advertise in order to sell your “products.” How would that apply to a singer’s career? What would you advise singers in regards to the marketing aspect of their careers?
I think [marketing is] very important in creating stars that have some sense of recognition in the world beyond the tiny world of opera. Over the last six or seven years, singers have tried harder and harder to get publicity—there are the Rolex ads, and for a while, opera singers had a mink ad. They try to get an article in Vanity Fair or some wider publication, or guest on 60 Minutes. I know that Renée Fleming, for example, has a Hollywood publicist to break into the world of popular culture. She may be our most famous singer these days, and her Hollywood publicist can’t get her booked on The Tonight Show.
Why not?
They’re not interested; they think their public will just not care for an opera singer, or opera singing in general. Twenty-five years ago, Beverly Sills hosted The Tonight Show when Johnny Carson went on vacation. Pavarotti and Domingo have also been guests. Then, of course, there was The Bell Telephone Hour and every Sunday night you heard famous opera singers on network television. Now even PBS doesn’t have that anymore. Pop culture is crowding us out.
What was the Texas Opera Theater?
It was a touring company that went around Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and New Mexico. It presented small productions, just like San Francisco’s Western Opera Theater. It started in 1974—but when the economy got terrible here in the mid ‘80s, we lost our support from the Texas state government, and just like in San Francisco, the main company had to subsidize it… So I said: “Well, if the communities don’t value it enough to support it themselves, then it has to go out of business.”
How does a 10-company production work?
We create a budget to build the show: sets, costumes, props, rehearsal, etc. Let’s say it costs $1 million; each of us puts in $100,000. We administer it, and it goes from one city to the next, almost like a tour. This season’s first world premiere, Salsipuedes, was a co-production between three companies—Arizona, Opera Pacific and Houston—but that was different than our 10-production Porgy and Bess, which was a tour. In the case of Salsipuedes, Opera Pacific does it in two years, and Arizona in two or three years, so they just take the sets, costumes, and direction, and they can cast it differently. We hire the director or his assistant to re-create the production, but usually with a new cast.
How do you see the future of opera in general?
If the trends continue this way—with the triumph of pop culture, the high ticket prices, difficulty with funding, especially from corporations—I would think that the opera companies would get smaller and smaller; it’s like a circle of decline.
So you think it’s headed towards extinction?
Well, I think we have to do things that combat that tendency: much better education programs, and lots of outreach programs that reach new people, including non-traditional kinds of people. I think we have to do more over the electronic media. We have to learn to market much better, and use the Internet as a way of communicating with people … making arias available on the Internet, and getting people to come to our website; create traffic.
You’ve been heading HGO for 33 years; you’re a perfect example of devotion and constancy. How does one stay constant to an institution for so long?
By continuing to think of new ways to do things, implementing new ideas and new operas, and bringing in new artists. There are interesting things happening all the time that continue to fire the imagination and the interest.
In 1975, the company’s budget was almost $2 million. Thirty years later, it’s $21.5 million! What do you say to yourself when you look at these figures?
That’s a lot of growth! And most of it has gone into quality.
How do people in Houston regard the opera?
I think we’re much better known to the general public than we used to be, but I continue to be dismayed that more people don’t know about it, and that they are preoccupied with other things: sports, and their work, and other activities. I mean, this is not an environment that has had generation after generation of culture—they didn’t have it in this city—and many people who live here come from surrounding states that are more rural than urban.
You have just been announced as the new general director of the San Francisco Opera, and your tenure begins in January 2006. Did this come as a surprise to you?
It came as a surprise to me when I realized that the position was open, because positions like that are open very seldom, and there it was!
Was I surprised to be chosen? Gosh—I don’t know that I was surprised. I was delighted and flattered to be chosen. After so many years in Houston, one could ask the question: “Why do you start out and do something brand new at this stage of your career?” This is a challenge for me; it’s a really stimulating step to take at this stage.
Do you have any general plans for San Francisco right now, or is it too early to tell?
Well, right now it’s about just trying to figure out how soon my own planning can be feathered into their operation. It seems that the 2007-2008 season is mostly un-programmed, so we are hurriedly checking out the availability of artists and thinking of overall repertoire. Am I going to continue to program new operas? Yes. Am I going to try to get the world’s great singers to San Francisco? Yes. Am I am going to pursue a policy of diverse production style and diverse repertory? Yes!
So you would basically follow the same ideals you had for Houston?
Yeah. Of course, there are more productions in San Francisco and more opportunities to do some of the things that have not been possible here, including a Ring cycle, which Donald Runnicles, the music director, and I have discussed. We want to do this as soon as practicable.
Any last words of advice for singers?
The most important thing is to sing well, and to think in terms of having a technique that allows you to sing for 30-35 years and be healthy. I think looks, acting ability, and intensity and interpretation mean more today than they did 30 years ago, and that people should think in terms of the entire package that they need to develop to be a total performer.
