Metropolitan Opera Assistant Conductor Bryan Wagorn shares about a shift in perspective and much more.
There is a thrilling element about something onstage that heightens the realism of a production. I once heard an opera management professor—the late, legendary presenter Christopher Hunt—advise in a posh British accent, “If, when the curtain opens, there is a staircase or a chandelier, the audience will applaud.”
And, recently, in the case of two Metropolitan Opera productions, that thrill came in the form of someone—Met Assistant Conductor Dr. Bryan Wagorn. Like all Met assistant conductors, Wagorn wears many musical hats, and last season he wore a wig—a truly fabulous wig—onstage while dispatching the nonsinging role of Lazinski in the Met’s new production of Giordano’s melody—and drama—rich tearjerker Fedora. An onstage pianist, Lazinksi’s existence functions as a plot point ultimately leading Princess Fedora to swallow the poison she keeps at the ready. But that’s Act 3. In Act 2—which features Fedora’s famed intermezzo and the tenor favorite “Amor ti vieta”—Lazinski, hailed as the nephew and successor to Chopin, plays an onstage recital, which musically also serves as accompaniment to the opera’s two leads. Later in the season, Wagorn traded the period Steinway grand for a glockenspiel—once again onstage (wigless, this time)—in the Met’s premiere of Simon McBurney’s production of Die Zauberflöte.
I asked him to share about Fedora, the production, and what he learned about stage comportment from his colleagues. For context, Wagorn noted that his first onstage work was as the onstage pianist in 2017 in the Glyndebourne production of Ariadne auf Naxos. “That was an amazing cast. I even had costume changes! I got to hang out with them, do my thing, and learn to act. I had no acting experience, and my first few go-arounds were very awkward. The first time I did all the staging, the assistant director said, ‘It looks like you’re just checking boxes and you’re like, “I have to sit down and now I have to do this.”’ And I said, ‘That’s what I am doing—I’m just trying to remember all of this.’
“It’s such a different part of the brain. I’m not used to training that part of the brain at all, and it gave me such an appreciation of what singers have to do—to use all these parts of your brain at once. So, I had to practice it quite a lot…enough that it would become organic. And then after that it was so much fun.”
Wagorn’s high-profile crash course in stage comportment in Ariadne proved fruitful preparation for Sir David McVicar’s Met production premiere of Fedora last season: “The great thing about this is that David McVicar was directing it, and he loves it when everyone on stage has a lot to do—really getting into the character. In productions of Fedora that I’ve seen, it’s very common that the pianist kind of just walks on, he bows, and he plays, but it’s not very involved. David had me with a whole backstory—he had me interacting with the other singers. He had this crazy wig that I was wearing—it [the wig] was epic.
“So it was the time of my life. Again, it was a learning curve. It’s so intimidating working there as a singer, let alone as a pianist who doesn’t belong onstage to begin with. They had this incredible 19th century Steinway, gorgeous instrument. The cast was so supportive. I learned all these tricks.” Wagorn notes that he had to play from memory onstage, but there was a more outward-facing concern: “I remember the big thing was not stepping on Rosa Feola’s [Countess Olga’s] dress.”
He adds, “The fun thing for me was that in the actual libretto, in Act 3, we find out that I’m a spy. David McVicar—reading through the lines—felt that I [Lazinski] was probably closeted; I was gay. Olga takes me to the party—his concept is that everyone knows I’m gay except her, and she’s parading me around. He wanted me to sort of bring that out. It was very meaningful for me to get to play a gay character onstage.
Living in New York, it’s all open; but even at our young age, those sorts of things take time to come to terms with—for me it did. And now, of course, I have great friends and family and support and it’s all out there. But to get to play a gay character—that was really meaningful to do that on the stage at the Met, to be so open and to have this whole team behind it.”
Our conversation turned naturally to advice given by singers who, in this case, were Wagorn’s onstage colleagues rather than singers preparing in the coaching studio or rehearsal hall: “You get a lot of opinions from the music team and the directing team, and it’s hard to filter everything. And even if you have six weeks, for any given scene you don’t have that many repetitions. We would do it a few times and then we’d move to the next thing, and then you don’t do it for two weeks—so I had to be really on it.
Sonya Yoncheva, who was singing Fedora, gave me a good piece of advice: ‘All of the feedback you get—don’t take it as criticisms. Take it as they’re all trying to help you. They’re trying to help you so that you don’t have to worry about what it sounds like or looks like out there. They’re telling you. And it takes a lot of the pressure off of you. You can just kind of let them carry you through it.’ That was really good advice.
I think naturally as human beings, when we get feedback, there’s this little part of us that’s like a little bit hurt or a little bit crushed or this or that. I mean, we are used to getting feedback, but it’s nice to always remember that feedback—if it’s from people you trust—is a positive thing. It’s only going to help you and it’s only going to make you grow. Everything you do has to have some amount of intention, even if you’re not the person singing or playing at that moment—you have to remember that everything you do is visible and should have some amount of projection or intention or presence.”
Wagorn shared about new insights and empathy for the student singers he works with as a result of his time onstage: “For my students, I always try to tell them that the more prepared you are in advance of rehearsals, the more you’ll enjoy it and the more you can experiment and be free in the rehearsal period. And, overall, it just gives me so much admiration and empathy for what the singers are doing because it’s so exposed. There’s so much to think about. And then that’s even just in the ideal circumstance—things can go wrong as well, and then you have to think really quickly. You have to be really on top of it and there’s a lot being thrown at you at once.”
I also asked him to elaborate a bit on the needs and preparation activities of the singers at the Metropolitan Opera, performing at the top of their field: “The fun thing about the Met is that it’s very different depending on the circumstance. It could be a singer has done this role 50 times—100 times—they just want to go through it to refresh their memory, or they just want feedback on a certain thing. Or it could be a brand new role, a brand new opera, and the singer wants to work every day for an hour. So it really depends on the context.
“But certain things like intonation—that’s something singers always want a lot of feedback about—phrasing, intention, expression, all those sorts of things. And in the new operas, usually there’s a lot of coaching going on all the time because the singers really want to coach it, to run it and to drill it so they’re super solid.
“Also, we have cover singers at the Met, and it happens very often—especially during Covid—that singers go on, even for big roles. So imagine a new opera, you’re a cover, you’ve only been singing it in piano rehearsals, and then suddenly you have to sing it in the evening with the orchestra, in your costume, onstage at the Met. So, it’s amazing…and I’m always so impressed that the singers can do that!
“As the music team, that’s part of our job—making sure everyone’s comfortable and tailoring it to each singer so they can tell us what they need and what they don’t need. It’s a lot of fun and it’s always dynamic.”
Bryan Wagorn regularly performs throughout North America, Europe, and Asia as soloist, chamber musician, and recital accompanist to the world’s leading singers and instrumentalists.
