Maestro Joseph Mechavich raises his baton and looks at the orchestra. “Can we all turn in our hymnals to measure 43? First violins, I want you to enjoy more of a pianissimo there. Chorus! I need your eyes there so we can come in together. Ja?” From the stage, the chorus cheerfully responds “Ja!” and the rehearsal resumes.
Cheerful, casual leadership and accessibility is Mechavich’s style, and he has had great success with it in his various guest engagements and positions. Mechavich (Mo Joe or Joey, to his colleagues and friends) has presided over productions for Deutsche Oper Berlin, Washington National Opera, New York City Opera, San Diego Opera, Florida Grand Opera, and many others. Recently, he made his conducting debut at Florida Grand Opera, receiving rave reviews for his sensitive reading of Roméo et Juliette. In April 2010, Maestro Mechavich was named principal conductor for Kentucky Opera (this season he conducts Tosca and Don Giovanni), where he also has proven to be a great mentor for many of the young artists.
“Joe’s sense of humor put me at ease immediately, but he never messed around when it came time to make music,” says Sheldon Miller, Kentucky Opera’s Young Artist pianist in the 2011-12 season. “If I made a mistake, he never made me feel small or stupid and always gave helpful and insightful commentary regarding a score that would be obvious only to someone like him. He helped me to get my job as music staff at Santa Fe Opera, and now I am at Minnesota Opera. I don’t think it would have been possible without his guidance and his confidence in me. He helped me to grow from a student to a professional, and I didn’t even realize it until after I left.”
Maestro Mechavich is known for his mentorship of young artists, perhaps because in his own journey to establish a successful career, he received many a helping hand from more experienced colleagues. But he was also hungry for experience and feasted on all that was offered him.
“So many people provided me with opportunities that I will never ever forget, and I know and see in so many emerging artists, in their eyes and hearts, the same hunger I had and still have. It’s a privilege for me to feed their hunger,” says Mechavich.
Mechavich built his career carefully, step by step, and wants young artists to be aware of the process. “You want to be pragmatic and thoughtful in each step that you take. The goal is longevity of career. Networking, preparing scores well in advance, experiencing different company levels, never skipping a step—that’s how I have evolved a career.”
Mechavich was fed richly from the early years of his musical career. He began piano studies in the first grade in his hometown of Long Lake, Minn. “My second piano teacher, Donald Standen, was very influential and shared his record collection, which included tons of opera, mostly 20th century and every Wagner opera under the sun.” Mechavich’s first live opera experience came when he was in high school, when a Houston Grand Opera tour of Porgy and Bess came to town. “I remember being blown away by the sheer size and the drama. It was amazing. I knew this art form was something awe inspiring.”
Mechavich won piano competitions in high school, and as a result of one of them, played the Ravel Piano Concerto G Minor with the Minnesota Orchestra. He played trombone in the marching band. Summers, he worked in the box office and as an usher at the Minnesota Orchestra so he could attend the concerts as often as possible. He attended Tanglewood and Madeline Island Music Camp.
He earned his BM at Oberlin where, as part of his scholarship, he accompanied voice majors in their lessons. “It was exciting to be isolated at Oberlin with so much music—getting up at 7:00, being in the practice room by 7:30 until you were kicked out—and I loved it. I had never worked with a singer before. It revealed to me that the concept of breathing applies to every musician, and if I breathed with the music just like a singer does, the architecture of the phrase improves. I was playing in Carol Webber’s studio for hours and hours and didn’t realize at the time what I was gaining from this amazing pedagogue, the important lessons in how to combine word and music.” Mechavich also spent hours accompanying in Richard Miller’s studio. “Richard Miller,” he says, “was the consummate technician and held such a vast knowledge of the vocal apparatus. The best of both worlds.”
Many of the lessons Mechavich learned at Oberlin occurred outside the studio. “Robert Spano [now conductor of the Atlanta Symphony] was conducting the opera, contemporary music ensemble, playing music with students, socializing in the conservatory lounge. It was a complete joy to have him around, and his energy and personality infected everybody in the conservatory. My piano teacher, Joseph Schwartz, was so supportive of being involved in so many other forms of music making, and I found myself working constantly with singers, violinists, cellists, [and] flutists.”
At Oberlin, Mechavich took his first basic classes in conducting. “I fell in love with working with singers,” he says. “I fell in love with helping singers with the challenges they face, the mechanics of singing, the sympathy for having to memorize everything, the sheer beauty of words and sharing that. It was always very important to me from my freshman year on.”
The idea of becoming a conductor was planted inside him, but Mechavich was in no hurry. He continued his studies at Yale, where he took voice lessons with Cynthia Zielski. “It was just mechanics, half-hour little lessons, learning how to breathe correctly,” he remembers. “I remember auditioning for Doris Cross. My jury was the Brahms’ ‘Sonntag.’” He sings a few lines, laughing. At Yale, he also played a lot of chamber music, which led to a greater understanding of instruments.
“I always knew that being a conductor was an enormous job and there was a lot of information you needed to succeed. Not just technical aspects, but there’s a path of music making and stepwise growth in order to feel comfortable on the podium,” Mechavich says. “It was important to have my feet planted in so many different aspects of the performing arts. Things I learned in Carol Webber, Doris Cross, and Richard Miller’s studios come back every day.”
But when he left school, Mechavich still didn’t feel prepared to conduct. He returned home and sent out hundreds of résumés to colleges, high schools, and community music schools, hoping to find work as a piano teacher. He didn’t get a single response. One day, he happened to see that Minnesota Opera was in town. “I had done some work with the opera at Yale and Oberlin, so out of the blue I called and said, ‘I’m Joe M., I play the piano.’ I talked to a woman named Roxy who invited me to come audition for a national tour of Don Giovanni. So I went in and played ‘Mi tradì’ for [Artistic Director] Dale Johnson, [then Artistic Administrator] Floyd Anderson, and “Foxy Roxy” [who turned out to be Artistic Administrator Roxanne Stouffer-Cruz]. I also conducted with Dale at the piano. They hired me on the spot, and that was my very first gig. Fall of ’93, national tour of Don Giovanni.”
Mechavich’s duties included serving as répétiteur and assistant conductor for the show. At that point, his conducting experience was limited to small vocal and string ensembles, and he had no orchestral experience. “Once I started in the professional world I knew I wanted specifically to be a conductor of opera, and Dale told me the best way to do that was on the bench, to learn the repertoire and everything about it.” Mechavich stayed at Minnesota Opera until 1998, learning all he could. “Dale was probably my chief mentor in the business. He threw things right at me.”
Among the duties Johnson “threw” at Mechavich were pre-opera lectures. “I love him for doing that. You must be able to speak about your craft.” He also learned much from then CEO Kevin Smith, who seemed to be at every rehearsal with a board member or patron in tow. This helped mold Mechavich’s views toward the nature of a healthy opera company. “At many functions and dinners, I would be involved in talking to the patrons—knowing who sits in the seats, the board members and patrons who make the ship run, bringing them into the process so they understand the nuts and bolts. And [then] create relationships with the artists. It’s called an opera house for a reason. It’s a home. The home is open to all. Having that accessibility, that intimate connection to the artists and process is a part it. They take ownership.”
Mechavich’s artistry also blossomed at Minnesota Opera. “George Manahan was the music director at the time. He would occasionally leave to conduct the Richmond Symphony, so Dale would say, ‘Joe, you’re conducting! 1-2-3 go!’ I conducted rehearsals—Turandot, Tales of Hoffmann, the American premiere of Transatlantic by George Antheil. Because of my association with Minnesota Opera, I did side work as music staff at Utah Opera, Tulsa, Opera in the Ozarks, and Lake George. But I still had never conducted an orchestra.”
At Lake George Opera, where he spent six summers, Mechavich finally got a chance to conduct an orchestra in performance, presiding over the Fidelio quartet and “Ah! lève-toi, soleil” from Roméo et Juliette in a gala concert. “It was humbling and thrilling,” he remembers. And Lake George provided him with other career-boosting opportunities as well.
In 1998, Jerry Shannon (then associate artistic director and associate conductor of Virginia Opera) was passing through Lake George. Mechavich made a connection with him and was invited by Virginia to join the company as associate conductor and chorus master. His duties that season were to conduct two performances of Così fan tutte and to conduct from the piano for a performance of The Pirates of Penzance. “Così” would have been his first performances with a professional orchestra, but fate had a more dramatic debut in mind. “I was associate conductor and chorus master for Merry Widow,” Mechavich remembers. “They fired the conductor at intermission of the final dress and put me on at the second half. Then I did the run. At the opening, the orchestra threw flowers at me.”
Mechavich’s first major professional break came when he was invited to join the music staff at Santa Fe Opera, where he served for four seasons. “I had auditioned for John Crosby in 1998, when I was much too young, and was passed over. But in 2003, they had lost someone on the music staff and, because of my connections with people like Dale Johnson, my name came up and they hired me.”
It was a big deal for Mechavich, who had yet to be vetted. But it was also a summer of revelations. “My duty that summer was to play Simon Boccanegra and to cover conduct La sonnambula with Natalie Dessay. Those were transformative years for me because I fell in love with someone very dear to me, Maestro Kenneth Montgomery, who has conducted for many years at Santa Fe. I happened to drop in on one of his orchestra rehearsals and heard the most important phrase I now love to hear, and constantly utter myself: ‘I don’t know.’
“A horn player asked him a question and Kenneth said, ‘I don’t know.’ I saw the orchestra not flinch but actually sit taller in their chairs, and I said to myself, ‘I don’t have to know everything. I don’t have to pretend to know everything.’”
Mechavich covered Montgomery for the next three seasons, and soaked in the wisdom. “He was very supportive, loving, and mentoring. He would just put me on the [conductor’s] chair in the rehearsal shed. He’d sit next to me and gave me confidence just by using simple gestures. He gave me so much. Kenneth Montgomery, the amazing music staff, world-class singers, and fantastic orchestra—it was awe inspiring to be in their masterful presence.”
The job of a leader, Mechavich says, is not only to know how to lead and share information, but to possess the tools to communicate what you want. That, he says, takes time, a gestation period. “Santa Fe was my gestation period.”
During his gestation period, Mechavich continued to gain experience with a conductor, always through connections he’d made at previous gigs. These included successful cover contracts at Washington National Opera and New York City Opera, which led to conducting engagements for Barber of Seville and Madama Butterfly, respectively. He kept in touch with everyone with whom he’d worked.
“Even when I was much younger, I would send out notifications and updates to opera companies,” he says. “‘Here’s when I’m available, here’s what I’m doing.’ Did I get many gigs? I don’t know, but I think it paid off later. Most of my gigs were gotten through people I knew.” He got a job with Orlando Opera by contacting now former General Director Robert Swedberg. While there, he worked with conductor Willie Waters, who later facilitated his hiring to share conducting duties of Porgy and Bess, which was a joint production with Cape Town Opera and Deutsche Oper Berlin—another big step.
John Jones, who had been development associate at Virginia Opera, hired Mechavich to be principal conductor at Opera Birmingham, his first such position. Holding that title gave him a certain legitimacy, as well as the experience he needed to move to a larger house without being overwhelmed, as Mechavich says, with “shock and awe.” A cover contract with New York City Opera led to his being hired back to conduct the second cast of Madama Butterfly. Link by link, Mechavich was building his career.
The next big advance came in 2010, when he was hired as principal conductor at Kentucky Opera, through a connection with now General Director David Roth, whom he had known as an assistant stage manager in Minnesota. The networking is clearly successful for Mechavich, whose star continues to rise, and he is often hired back. A foot in the door with one company frequently leads to a chain of gigs. In 2011, thanks to a good word from producer and stage director Michael Cavanaugh, with whom he’d worked on Of Mice and Men, he was invited by Calgary Opera to conduct his first Aida, and then the enormously successful production of Moby-Dick in 2012. There Mechavich made a good impression on critics and creative team alike.
“When I first encountered his work in Calgary, he was already well inside my creative psyche via the score of Moby-Dick,” recalls its composer, Jake Heggie. “We spent a little time together, and the next rehearsal it was like he was reading my mind. He got it instantly. It was a fabulous performance and production, which he followed up with another fabulous performance and production in San Diego.”
Mechavich’s networking is unforced, an extension of his personality, and extends to everyone with whom he works. “I met Joe in April of 2011 when he conducted Aida. It was an incredible experience to work with him,” says Adriana Lebedovich, a violinist in the Calgary Philharmonic, and also the orchestra for Calgary Opera performances. “He demanded excellence all the time, and the final product was always outstanding. The orchestra sees so many conductors come through. Joe stands out in my mind because he always gives it 110 percent, and every time we had a performance, he took us on that journey again. I got to know him better during our recent production of Moby-Dick and, to this day, I am still singing tunes from it. It was such an incredible experience, and Joe was there every step of the way.”
Mere weeks after the critically acclaimed Calgary Moby-Dick, Mechavich was called to step in days before the opening of the same opera at San Diego Opera, when principal conductor Karen Keltner fell ill. David Gregson in Opera News said Mechavich “saved the day . . . brilliantly—leading the San Diego Symphony in a persuasive performance.” He’ll be back in San Diego in 2015 for Nixon in China.
Clearly, Mechavich is a maestro at establishing and nurturing relationships. “Once I establish those relationships, I keep them informed of everything I do,” he says. “I sent snail mail for a very long time.” His eyes twinkle. “I’m very new to technology,” he jokes. But he finally made the transition to e-mail and now he is careful to send personal e-mails, never bulk newsletters. “I send handwritten thank you notes, personal. ‘This is what I’m doing, hope you’re having a good season, love you, Joe.’ To this day I still spend an hour or two a day strategizing and working on establishing and continuing these connections. You’ve got to work at it, even as you work at your music—not just establishing but allowing them to flourish, and that takes time. I always said to singers, ‘When you send your stuff out you don’t necessarily want to get the gig. You just want to get in the right pile [of résumés], because sooner or later someone’s going to back out of something, and then they’re going to go back to that pile and hopefully pick you out of it. To be considered—that’s winning, as far as I’m concerned.’”
Mechavich’s experience in building his own career has provided him with plenty of advice for young artists, with whom he loves working. “I don’t think anyone ever told me how to network,” he says. “Dale pushed me a little bit and gave me permission to establish contacts. I kept it businesslike, but also kept my personality in it. These people I’ve met, we’ve made music together. That’s an intimate experience. I respected that.”
Mechavich acknowledges there’s a trick to keeping in touch, especially when you’re starting out. “I was very brief. If it was someone I didn’t know, I’d do it once a year or every other year. I would not ask for anything really. I would include my personality in the text. I would never say ‘please hire me.’ Know, with all due respect, your place. You can reach for the stars but if you do and you get it, are you ready? Apply appropriately.”
Many young artists are afraid that they’ll be annoying their contacts by keeping in touch. Mechavich disagrees. “I understood that many of my correspondences would be thrown out. But many of the people in the business are professional enough to understand that aspiring artists are seeking work, and that’s not a pester. It’s called a job.” He recalls that his first efforts, sending out hundreds of résumés, reaped no response. “You have to keep doing it,” he shrugs.
Obviously, being good at networking isn’t enough to develop a career like Mechavich’s. “The most important thing you want is to get rehired. You have to be so overly prepared for every gig, so when you’re in the rehearsal room your personality shines through. You’re relaxed. Anything that is thrown at you, you can fix it. Being overly prepared gives you the confidence you need, and your colleagues will see that this person gives 205 percent.
“To see young singers as I travel the world making some of the mistakes of the young—entitlement, lack of preparation, these infectious diseases I see—I want everyone to succeed. I challenge the young professionals to look at themselves, understand that phrase ‘I don’t know,’ and embrace a hunger for excellence. If you’re a slow musician, love that about yourself and start studying sooner. People want to work with good artists. It’s not just about putting on a show and getting a check. We have a duty to put out an amazing product, to solicit new patrons, to reinforce the importance of words and music, and to maintain the success of this awesome art form. Every time we’re on stage we should bring the best thing possible. It should not be sloppy or taken for granted. Be humble and always be the consummate student.”
Clearly, being the consummate student has worked for Mechavich. “I love the path that I’ve taken, the way my career has developed,” he says. That love for his work shows. “Joey is the very best kind of opera conductor,” enthuses Heggie. “A real theater man who understands that dramatic pacing is absolutely everything. He’s a wonderful storyteller with baton in hand. As an American opera composer, I’m always on the lookout for conductors who have passion for music theater in all its forms (from opera to musicals). Joey loves singers, loves words, loves the stage, loves the orchestra, and successfully manages all those forces collectively to tell compelling stories. I hope I’ll be able to work with him again and again.”
