I attempted to clarify, as much for the maestro as for myself, the exact definition of my life’s passion—but somewhere between writing, singing, acting and languages, the idea of a single-focus passion disintegrated. I told Mr. Conlon that I simply love everything and that this equal distribution of passion in several fields is precisely my problem.
“That’s not a problem,” said the celebrated conductor. “That’s your gift. The greatest gift you can have is passion.”
“But don’t you believe in the idea that you have to do one thing in order to be excellent at it?”
“I don’t believe in that idea. But our times do,” replied the maestro without hesitation. “And all creative human beings who are thinking in terms of profession have to be clear about that. There is no question that we live in a world of specialists, and people need to have a well-defined job. That applies to every domain.”
Singing included. What better illustration of the need to specialize than the well-contoured Fach system? Struggling, unknown singers hardly dare to cross Fach boundaries. They mold themselves into specific categories, weeding out of their repertoire all the Fach-defying roles, even if those roles might fit their voices better than some parts that lie strictly in their particular Fach.
On the way up the slippery staircase of auditions, most singers learn to play by the rules. They avoid crossing into “illegal” vocal territory, at least officially, in the hope that once established, they will be able to cross all boundaries as it suits them best, not guided solely by the dictates of a Fach guide.
Specialization of the singing voice may make things more practical for agents and opera companies. James Conlon, however, sees this phenomenon as both the effect and the cause of today’s lack of the Renaissance ideal, as professionals are forced to be single-minded. The phrase “Renaissance man” or “Renaissance woman” refers to a well-rounded creative thinker with many talents and skills as well as a thirst for knowledge in various fields. Today such an individual may be called “a jack of all trades,” a term which in a world of professional specialization bears a nuance of insult rather than admiration.
Conlon admits that the Renaissance ideal would be impossible to realize today, because there is simply too much data. At the time of the Renaissance, you could master almost everything there was to be known. Take Leonardo da Vinci, considered the ideal Renaissance man. Leonardo was a painter, sculptor, architect, engineer and scientist. He studied anatomy, and even had knowledge of singing as well as an attractive voice. Throughout his life, Leonardo nurtured his immense love of knowledge.
It is true that no one can master everything today, as Conlon says. It is this love of knowledge that can carry the torch of the “Renaissance ideal” into our modern times.
“Even if you cannot be a Renaissance man or woman today, you can still be attracted to the Renaissance ideal,” says Conlon. “And if you are attracted to that, I assure you that your entire life, you’ll never lose the gift of passion. I say this to all singers, to all musicians: Your passion doesn’t have to be just your voice or your music. You can be passionate and want to know many things in life, and that will only make you more fulfilled. Where is it going to lead you? You don’t know that—but that’s the exciting part. You just have to be true to your gift of passion and follow its direction.”
What if you don’t know what direction to follow? What if you enjoy singing, teaching, writing and dealing with the business side of art equally? What if you love organizing concerts, running your own opera company, advising and guiding singers on their path? What if you like experimenting with different styles of music, and even write your own songs?
The maestro’s reply is enthusiastic. “Do it! Do it all! If there is one specific thing that you are meant to do, it will develop as life goes along. But do not cut off avenues that appeal to you deeply because you feel obligated to focus on one thing only. Every single thing you do feeds on the other and grows and pushes you further, especially if it’s something you truly love.”
James Conlon’s first love within the music realm was opera. He grew up in New York City, in a non-musical family, and attended his first opera at the age of 11. It quickly became his passion and he envisioned himself singing absolutely everything, from Boris Godounov to Rodolfo to… Carmen!
“Of course, I realized I was never going to grow up and be a mezzo,” confesses the maestro, “so I employed a type of logic that only children can understand. There’s only one way to do everything and be part of it all—the singing, the orchestra, the scenery—and that is to conduct!”
Once the 13 year-old Conlon made that decision, he threw himself into studying piano and violin, and devoured every book he could find on conducting and related topics. He was accepted into the High School of Music and Art (now La Guardia) as a singer with a baritone voice, but he rapidly emerged as a good pianist and became a regular accompanist in the Lieder classes. He continued his voice lessons, spent a lot of time watching singers coach, and developed a thorough understanding of singing and the vocal mechanism.
Conlon’s outstanding talent, musicianship and complete dedication, brought him to Juilliard where fate—bearing the name of Maria Callas—stepped in to speed things along. The legendary diva was giving master classes at Juilliard when the school’s president at the time, Peter Mennin, asked her to take a look at the young conductor and give her recommendation, as he was doubtful about allowing a student to conduct a Juilliard production. Callas watched Conlon on the podium for 15 minutes, went right back to Mennin, and gave her enthusiastic approval—which led to Conlon’s New York debut, conducting La bohème.
Conlon remembers Callas with gratitude and affection.
“We all thought of her—and rightfully so—as this great stage personality. We saw her as someone super passionate and all over the place dramatically. But you could see from the master classes that she had absolute precision of the musical material before anything else. Nothing was by chance. It all seemed like an outburst of drama and emotion, but the foundation was guided by the strictest, most meticulous knowledge of the music. I learned that from her.”
The Callas influence on Conlon’s development was only the beginning of a series of encounters with the surviving phenomena of a “golden” generation in the opera world. The maestro gets teary-eyed when he remembers the brothers-in-law: Tito Gobbi and Boris Christoff. Conlon’s first Don Carlo was Christoff’s last Phillip.
“Can you imagine starting your life like that? I was petrified by this image I had of [Christoff], but I discovered a man of warmth and genius with an unbelievable spirit. I had the fortune to spend entire days with him at his villa, immersed in discussions about music… I met Tito [Gobbi] at about the same time. He would talk to me about Tullio Serafin and that whole generation of singers and conductors who knew every meaning of every note in the scores. Tito knew Tosca inside-out, and it was inspiring to watch him when he directed it at the Met…
“It was unbelievable: just sitting with all these amazing artists and talking to them. I learned so much. These were people who knew opera and its culture. Despite all the stories that they were sometimes
terrible colleagues, they were completely serious about their art. Their devotion to it was 100 percent.”
Conlon’s nostalgic description of the walks and meals enjoyed in the company of Boris Christoff made me think back to the few days I was fortunate to spend with Virginia Zeani, diva of the Golden Age featured in the December 2003 issue of CS and a hit with singers in the recent CS convention master classes.
Zeani shared her wisdom with her students beyond the span of a lesson. The more you were around her, taking part in her daily activities—such as going to the post office or helping her prepare one of her fabulous lunches—the more you learned about her art. Knowledge poured out of her throughout the day, at the most unexpected moments, and those students who simply spent time with her learned more than they would have in a lesson. Zeani is one of the very few remaining teachers of the “old school” of teaching. Conlon calls them “the endangered species.”
What distinguishes the endangered species?
“A holistic approach to music-making—not just singing, but music-making in general,” says Conlon. “Italy had this tradition of teaching by spending time with the masters, by apprenticeship. This goes back to the painters. Botticelli and Michelangelo became apprentices when they were children. They didn’t do anything but bring the paints—and watch. So, the Italian tradition was based on observation and absorption of the masters’ skills—and that also became the basis of the singing and teaching tradition.
“Spending time around the great singers and teachers gave students this holistic approach to music. Their art became a way of life. They understood that it’s not just about the notes, or the correct use of technique. That’s only the beginning. It’s about culture. It’s about all the things between the notes which you can’t write down in a book on singing. It’s about emotional, physical, intellectual and spiritual commitment to music-making. But today it’s really difficult to teach that, once a week for one hour in a voice studio. And we live an increasingly technological lifestyle, so we tend to think that there’s a technique for everything.”
As Conlon believes, today we are faced with an endangered species of music-making in a technological, information-saturated, fast-paced world, in which the Renaissance ideal is impossible to attain, and singers try to squeeze their spirits into the tight reins of the Fach system. We do admire the singers of the Golden Age. But we cannot possibly lead their lives and follow their recipes of development, because we are a product of our times, in which ironically, life expectancy is longer, but time seems scarce under the pressure of doing everything faster and sooner.
“As a singer today, you have to be very smart to know how to navigate this modern system of life without harming yourself,” declares Conlon. “Don’t rush, no matter what anyone tells you. Believe me, you can maintain your own healthy pace of development in a high-speed world, but it takes a lot of discipline and saying ‘no’ to the many temptations out there, which sometimes look like opportunities. Wait, wait, wait… You’d be better off singing Mozart for 10 years. And one other very important factor to your development is culture.”
Conlon offers his own experience as an example.
“I was born and bred in the United States. I started traveling when I was 20. I had a choice: To become music director of an orchestra in America or in Europe. I chose Europe, because I knew that if I stayed in America, I was really not going to learn anything new in terms of culture. I’d learn more repertoire, gain more experience, but that’s it.
“It was the best decision I ever made.”
The decision brought Conlon several remarkable tenures: from 1989 to 2002 as general music director of the German City of Cologne and its opera, as music director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic between 1983 and 1991—and the longest tenure of any conductor since 1939, as principal conductor of the Paris Opera from 1995 to 2004.
“I spent over 20 years living in Europe. The minute you leave one country and go to another, automatically, you know twice as much as everybody at home. As soon as you have to learn a second language, and work with people in their country, on their terms, in their culture, you are already more advanced than anyone who stayed in one place.
“Of course, you can start a career in America. We have our own generations of musicians and there is an ‘American voice.’ But we’re talking about opera, a classical art form that has its roots in other centuries, other languages and other places. The more you are able to walk back in time and in the culture of opera spiritually, the better your music-making will be. I say this to every American singer: ‘You have to go to Europe, somehow!’ Of course, you won’t be going to the Germany of Beethoven or the Italy of Verdi, but those countries are still closer to the root of your art by direct link with the languages, the cultures, the expression of emotions…You can do it all here but you won’t be a complete artist if you don’t experience Europe.
“Go to Germany and get a job in a theater, because you will learn how to be a professional in a way you will find nowhere else in the world. However, don’t stay too long and don’t get yourself in a situation where you are required to accept repertoire that is not good for you. This is going back to specialization. You have a pick a Fach that’s safe for you and stick with it, at least until you get your experience. I personally don’t believe the human voice is made in categories, but in the beginning you have to navigate the system.”
How did James Conlon navigate the system of politics and power plays during his remarkable tenure at the Paris Opera?
“My attitude was to stay completely focused on my art.”
Conlon admits there is no such thing as immunity to politics, because when an artist and an administrator come into conflict, the administrator always wins—in the short run!
“In the short run, they will get what they want, they will change the policy, they will get rid of you, they will make your life miserable. You can’t fight a politician; you can’t fight an administration, not if you are a serious artist. If you’re not a serious artist, then you have the time to get involved in all those power games. Over the years, I learned not to participate, and to become a force of my own.”
Conlon believes that the only power artists have is the power to convince by devotion to their work, in their daily performance, not just while they’re in public or on the podium, or on the stage, but also behind the scenes. Then, work is always fundamental; it is an artist’s greatest weapon and no one can contest that. He often advises singers not to get into politics to gain attention, outlining the difference between celebrity and quality.
“What’s the first quality of a celebrity? People know about them. But the question is: What do people know about them? Criminals are known! Anybody can be famous. You want to make money, then make money; you want to be famous, then be famous, but don’t confuse these with being an artist. There are all those things around being an artist that can distract you from the art itself. You should keep your devotion to your art, as if it were a religious vocation. Everyday, keep your focus on the art and do what you need to do for your art, day after day after day.”
That focus includes self-analysis and the willingness to change personal traits that may be obstacles to the development of a career. During one of the orchestra and chorus rehearsals at this year’s Cincinnati May Festival, the maestro stopped during a tricky succession of phrases and addressed the chorus: “Chorus, very well. A-minus! Now let’s try it like this.” He followed with a series of praises for the different sections of chorus and orchestra alike. By taking care to compliment the positive aspects and only afterwards moving on to correcting the mistakes, Conlon held the Festival chorus and the Cincinnati Symphony spellbound and inspired them to work harder.
I was witness to what I believe is one of the keys to Conlon’s success: the personable touch and ability to connect to people, even sharing inside-jokes with the various sections of the orchestra. He wasn’t just a brilliant conductor at work, he was also a human being trying to communicate his ideas and create a harmonious environment around him. No wonder his tenures are long-lasting—he just celebrated his 25th year with the Cincinnati May Festival. I complimented the maestro on this positive and gentle approach to collaboration, only to find out to my surprise that this was not a natural trait.
“Sometimes the things you get to be the best at are the things you were the worst at when you were young. I learned to be like I am now—very slowly!” admits Conlon. “I was brought up a very critical nature: self-critical, critical of others, exigent and very impatient.”
He remembers being very inspired by Pope John the 23rd, who had declared that the biggest obstacle he’d had to overcome was arrogance. “That was amazing! People loved him because he was very simple and accessible, and he wasn’t caught up in the trappings of the Vatican. You would never ever imagine he could be arrogant. But he overcame that!
“You can gain the qualities which seem impossible to you at first. It took me years and years to surmount impatience and my critical nature, and to figure out how to put those traits to good use. So, you’re seeing the results of a long road. I truly believe that the things that are the most difficult for you are often your biggest gains when you surmount them.”
The 2004-2005 season will bring James Conlon back to the United States, where he will conduct most of his home country’s leading orchestras, also returning to the Met for Tosca and Un ballo in maschera. A longtime champion of composers whose lives were affected by the Holocaust, Conlon will continue to devote his time to performing their music throughout America and Europe. His busy schedule also includes teaching annually at the Tanglewood Music Center and the Aspen Music Festival, as well as a seven-year association with the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, both as conductor and master teacher. In the 2005 season, he is slated to become music director of the Ravinia Festival and plans to work with the Steans Institute for Young Artists [see ad p.49] focusing on expanding the Festival’s education goals.
This past June, Conlon returned to Juilliard to receive an honorary doctorate. Facing the sea of singers, musicians, actors and dancers, the maestro offered a rousing commencement address. His concluding words prevail as inspiring parting advice to CS readers as well.
“The only lasting values to be found in the life of a professional artist are those to be found in the drama, the dance and the music themselves, and in the constant love and giving which those art forms demand of us all. Competition is a reality in an artist’s survival in the real world, but when it comes to art, the real competition should be within yourself, with your potential: the struggle to draw the best from your spiritual, intellectual and emotional wealth. Ultimately, there is only one competition in life, and that is the race with time to realize your potential in only one lifetime.”
Leonardo da Vinci would agree.
