Meet Seattle Opera’s Subsequent Common and Creative Director

Seattle Opera: What excites you about being Seattle Opera’s subsequent Common Director?

James Robinson: I’m excited as a result of Seattle is an “Opera City!” That’s not true for each American metropolis. It’s within the metropolis’s DNA, and I’m honored to have the ability to construct on that wealthy custom. I can’t wait to get to work creating artwork with and for the passionate audiences which have made Seattle Opera into the corporate it’s right now. 

And Seattle is a spectacularly lovely metropolis. It’s a dynamic metropolis—a rising and youthful metropolis. I can’t wait to be a full-time member of the neighborhood.

Seattle Opera: How would you define your method to creative excellence?

James Robinson: Creative excellence begins with getting the perfect folks in place for his or her respective roles. Happily, in my thirty-plus years on this enterprise, I’ve labored on the finest opera firms with most of the finest conductors, designers, singers, and others. My primary aim is to take care of the excessive creative requirements Seattle Opera already has and add my experiences to that.

Seattle Opera: You’ve constructed your profession, partially, on creating new works and taking up newer works. Inform us about your philosophy on commissioning new work.

James Robinson: Once I began at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, I used to be obsessed with elevating the profile of the corporate. We started by adventurous programming: creating new operas and doing productions of newer works which will have been uncared for. We began the New Works, Daring Voices initiative to supply fully new works likes Terence Blanchard’s Hearth Shut Up in My Bones and to take one other have a look at modern works that have been prepared for a re-examination. Tobias Picker’s Emmeline was a type of items, as have been a revised and expanded model of Huang Ruo’s An American Soldier and a brand new model of Ricky Ian Gordon’s The Grapes of Wrath, amongst many others.

We developed the New Works, Daring Voices program in such a option to assist creators who might embark on their first operas and to offer them the leeway to write down the tales they wished to write down. It was necessary to put the groundwork with our native communities because the operas have been being developed so simply so that they had some insights into the method, but additionally to generate enthusiasm. Recently, now we have been working with neighborhood members to determine tales that they wished to see on stage. That was an offshoot of New Works, Daring Voices known as the New Works Collective. As I all the time say: Like politics, all arts are native.  So, it’s very important to incorporate the neighborhood through the growth course of on many ranges.

Seattle Opera: Why is it necessary to create new operas?

James Robinson: All operas have been new at one level! I’d prefer to suppose that we’re not simply in enterprise of historic preservation. New works are very important to the artwork kind generally and extremely necessary to the event of audiences. 

Seattle Opera: Then how do you stability the previous with the brand new?

James Robinson: Familiarity breeds familiarity. Which means audiences love the classics and so they come again to what they know and admire, and there’s nothing improper with that. I really like them too. However I don’t suppose you’ll be able to construct a whole season with the normal repertoire. You’d exhaust that rep actually quick! Nonetheless, for many individuals these items are the entry factors to opera. But it surely’s additionally a indisputable fact that new works herald new folks. You possibly can’t ignore that new items can promote extremely properly. I’ve seen them outpace normal rep on many events on the field office. Balancing the normal with the brand new should be approached strategically. And we should notice that one measurement doesn’t fit most. We’ve to supply many kinds of experiences.

Seattle Opera: Among the many conventional repertoire, what are a few of your favorites? 

James Robinson: The place to start out? I’m an enormous Handel fan and contemplate Julius Caesar one of many biggest operas ever written. Madama Butterfly and La bohème nonetheless go proper to my coronary heart. Tristan is a private favourite, particularly act three.  I feel The Marriage of Figaro is an opera I can’t dwell with out.

Seattle Opera: What would you say are opera’s greatest challenges?

James Robinson: I say this jokingly: Opera was invented in 1607; in 1608, opera was in disaster. Opera has all the time confronted challenges, however it has soldiered on. Greater than that, it has continued to rework itself over the centuries and has all the time discovered new voices. Popping out of the pandemic, our largest process is simply getting folks to return again to the opera home. Opera isn’t an expertise you may get on Netflix. It’s our job to remind folks of the good time they’ll expertise within the opera home. We should create buzz about each single venture that’s performed. However look, opera isn’t the one business dealing with this dilemma. Symphony orchestras and theatre firms are struggling a bit, too. The film business and different types of leisure are going by means of the identical factor.

Seattle Opera: On the alternative aspect of that coin, what excites you about opera’s future?

James Robinson: My goodness, dwell opera is likely one of the most spectacular experiences anybody can have! The good singing, the good music, the good tales all working collectively to make nice LIVE performances. There’s nothing prefer it.

Seattle Opera: What do you love to do whenever you’re not serious about opera?

James Robinson: I’m an avid out of doors particular person. To remain sane, I work out at Orange Principle and I’m glad to see there’s an Orange Principle studio close to the Opera Middle! I’m additionally a runner. I’m massive into cooking. My husband I are each cooks, and my signature dish is veal osso buco. I additionally make a imply Moroccan tagine.  

I’m additionally a basic film buff. Two of my favorites are A Place within the Solar and All About Eve. However now that I’m serious about it, there are twelve different films that I might add to that listing. Each Hitchcock film! And I like several types of music—the whole lot from Wagner to Sarah Vaughan to Nirvana. My new obsession is the singer Samara Pleasure.  

Seattle Opera: What’s the final piece of music you added to your play listing?

James Robinson: Philip Glass’s Piano Etudes, carried out by the composer. I learn in The New York Instances that Glass wrote the etudes to enhance his personal piano expertise. On the identical time, I used to be at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis directing Glass’s Galileo Galilei. Philip Glass filled my head, and I performed the recording of the etudes again and again.

Seattle Opera: It is a powerful query. What would you say is your favourite opera?

James Robinson: I hope this is not going to scare of us, however I simply love Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress. I feel it’s one of the crucial lovely scores ever written and the ethical fable it’s primarily based on is so touching. It’s humorous, poignant, and harrowing. It additionally has an ideal libretto. I feel folks consider Stravinsky nonetheless as a thorny modernist, however this opera has such coronary heart and emotion.