Spotlight on Alan Hamilton
Part of the Life of the Opera Pianist series
Photo by Ronan Collett
General Information
Education:
University of Houston (Bachelor of Music)
University of Michigan (Master of Music)
The Juilliard School (Graduate Diploma)
Current opera house and position(s):
Staatsoper Stuttgart, Studienleiter
Other or former affiliations:
Opera in the Heights (Houston), Tanglewood Festival Fellow, Merola at San Francisco Opera, The Juilliard School, International Vocal Arts Institute, Sherrill Milnes' VOICExperience, Spoleto Festival USA, Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst Stuttgart, Mozarteum Sommerakademie, Theater Aachen, La Monnaie / De Munt, Baden-Baden
Contact or Connect:
Email: ahhamilton@gmail.com
alan_h_hamilton on Instagram
11 Questions
Many people do not know the many roles and responsibilities a répétiteur has in the opera house. How do you explain your job to non-musicians, or even other musicians?
I always like to overwhelm them with a list: pianist, language coach, style expert and friendly technical ear for the singers, consultant on traditions and performance practice both vocal and orchestral, assistant to the conductor, rehearsal conductor, backstage conductor, liaison between the music and the Regie sides of the production, liaison between the singers and the conductor, liaison between the singers and the casting director, rehearsal planner, and more... Usually people are not surprised by the first answer (although, as mentioned by others, they do not always realize that the orchestra isn't always there for the rehearsals...), but they have no conception of everything that follows. This is a position in which simply playing the piano is merely the foundation upon which you construct your musical and experiential structure. The actual playing may be your first contact with the repertoire, and can remain long throughout your career the medium through which your musical abilities are judged, but if you fail to add to that foundation your usefulness in an opera house will be severely limited and the paths open to you will dry up.
What do you find to be one of the most challenging aspects of your job?
I find the vast repertoire to be the main issue. That, and dealing with a feeling of inadequacy in the face of hundreds of years of accumulated knowledge that I feel responsible for acquiring, mastering, and fluently communicating. The amount of information and skills to be learned are more than most (or all?..) can accomplish in a lifetime, and one often has the feeling that you have to have them NOW. At the same time, this is one of the greatest joys of the job: endless room for constant exploration and growth, which provides a high level of personal satisfaction and fulfillment (very important for this particular job, since validation and affirmation rarely come from external sources). As Martin Katz told me during my student days in response to my query, "How do I learn all these operas? all this music?" - "One at a time." It is the best way to get through any difficult passage or any jam-packed season. Remembering that, together with a healthy dose of "I can only offer that which I have now, and nothing more", I get through the challenges as best I can.
Do you have a favorite part of the preparation (rehearsal or learning an opera) process? If so, what is it and why?
I find enjoyment all along the way. I particularly love the initial score marking and translation phase. Those first stages of learning, unmuddied by the frustrations of mechanics, can be enlightening: as if you are slowly discovering the work as the composer conceived it in their mind. If it is an opera that I already know by ear, this is where I find so many Feinheiten (intricacies) that went unnoticed before, and it usually gives me a psychological push to move into the reproductive phase of the work.
What is your favorite opera?
This is a hard one for me since my favorite depends on whether or not I am producing or consuming. For example: when I see Madama Butterfly live, I can be bored to death; when I play it in rehearsals, I am holding back tears. On the other hand, playing Edison Denisov's L'Écume des jours was almost never a pleasant experience, but at every performance I attended I was a wonderful, emotional wreck.
What is your favorite opera score to play and why?
If I had to be honest, I would say that my favorite opera to play is the one that I am not playing for the first time! There is something great about coming back to an opera (that you have learned well...) for a Wiederaufnahme (revival) and finding it is a much more comfortable and enjoyable experience. Some passages may never be easy, but there is a level of mental stress that disappears as you constantly reëngage with the repertoire, and the act of playing rehearsals becomes a time of performance and exploration. That being said, I enjoy playing repertoire across all spectrums: I just finished a premiere of Rheingold (which was a blast to play) and am now jumping between Fledermaus, Hänsel und Gretel, and Juditha Triumphans (Vivaldi) - in addition to coaching other repertoire for the season - and I am loving them all!
What are some adjectives that describe the skills one needs to be a good répétiteur?
Patient, insistent, inquisitive, open, opinionated, agreeable, skilled, well-read, organized...and world's best faker.
As a répétiteur, we are expected to prepare music quickly (sometimes having to sightread or transpose or play music from the orchestra full score), manage multiple opera productions at the same time, play rehearsals for last minute cast changes, conduct last minute rehearsals or performances and sometimes even sing roles in these rehearsals or performances. Do you have any advice on how to deal with the excitement of the job?
As I hinted at above, accepting the fact that we are all imposters of a sort is what makes possible dealing with what I see as the biggest challenges. My wife is a therapist, and an axiom of one type of therapy could be paraphrased as, "You are doing the best you can...and you can do better." This dialectic has turned into a sort of polestar that gives me reassurance. One needs to work as fast as one can to acquire the skills necessary to confidently put on this hat or the other, but it is also ok to realize that each hat is a work in progress, and will probably always remain so. If you focus on doing the best job you can with the time allotted to each task (which time you as the manager of your own career have to assign!), then eventually you begin to build a trust in yourself and your abilities that comes naturally with an accretion of experience.
We also wear many hats as a répétiteur. We are often asked to assist conductors by taking notes, provide backstage conducting for performances, prompt the singers, conduct staging rehearsals, accompany chorus rehearsals, manage sound effects or major musical cues for performances, perform a keyboard instrument (or two) in the orchestra pit and give notes to singers about language and diction. Do you have a favorite aspect of the career? Have you branched out in other directions related to our field?
I don't know that I have a favorite aspect in particular, but I do know that it helps to be willing to try on any hat that comes your way. During one world premiere production I was given the assignment of being the Taktzähler, and I had the honor of watching a video monitor of just the conductor and pressing a button on the downbeat of every bar. The piece was very complicated, with constant mixed meters (for example, a series of bars could be: 3/8, 5/8, 3/16, 4/8, 3/32, 3/8, etc.). Additionally, much of the music was so soft that it bordered on the inaudible (so there was no clear sound to follow and recognize where you were), large screen TVs were installed in the pit and additional screens were built into the set with scores on them for the singers, and for some scenes there were 2 additional conductors in the wings giving cues. The button I pushed changed a number displayed on all the screens which corresponded to the measure of the opera we were on. Just a few minutes into my first rehearsal as Taktzähler, wondering why I needed to be there, somewhere in the first hundred or so measures of the first scene someone started yelling, "Stop! Stop! The measure number is wrong!" To my embarrassment I realized that I had made a mistake and had not realized it...but the sound department, the video department, the stage managers, the extra conductors, the orchestra members, and the singers (of course!) all used this measure number to know where they were! They truly needed it; the correct measure numbers were essential. After that, every rehearsal and performance of this nearly two hour long opera (without an interval to relax) became an extremely stressful affair! Not fun, but a great experience.
What was your first experience as a répétiteur? And your most recent experience as a répétiteur?
I would probably need to look back to my high school days for my first experience as a répétiteur. I went to the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston, Texas: an amazing place full of talented individuals across all artistic mediums. I started out as a singer, having previously sung in a Boychoir for many years, and only playing a bit of piano on the side. In my freshman year I, though, enrolled in a course entitled Vocal Production, I couldn't take the constant (internal) shame of cracking on the opening Eb of Caro mio ben in front of all of my peers, and I effectively switched to the piano department my sophomore year. I was lucky enough to continue in most all of the vocal classes, but then from behind the piano where I felt much safer! Now I was accompanying Beyoncé as she had her first cracks at Caro mio ben. This continued throughout my time at HSPVA, and in my senior year, still technically enrolled as a singer, I was in a class called Senior Lab where the focus was on preparing to sing your final Senior Recital. Since I had already made clear that, beyond singing in a choir, vocal solos were not in my future, I had to be given something to do for that year. The faculty did what was for me the best thing possible: they put me in a practice room for every Senior Lab class period and sent the singers all year long, one-by-one, to my little space where I read through all the repertoire they were considering for their recitals, As the repertoire was chosen, they then came to me to sing though it and train it until it came time for the actual recital, at which point a faculty member would take over the playing. The impression these experiences had upon me was immeasurable.
My first professional opera experience (as a pianist, and not a boy soprano) came at Opera in the Heights. Hired as an apprentice pianist, and not having a clue as to the necessary preparations for a répétiteur, I had the joy of showing up to a rehearsal of Barbiere di Siviglia and being totally flummoxed as the conductor seemed to be constantly changing the tempo even though nothing was marked in the score...(Why did it suddenly get twice as slow?!). The conductor finally dropped his baton onto the music stand and exclaimed in frustration, "What is this: Opera 101?!" In fact, it was! Ultimately, understanding that I was an apprentice and was obviously in some need of more training and guidance, he and his assistant took me under their wing and brought me back for 3 further productions. Those rehearsals for Forza, Traviata, and Manon Lescaut, and the power of my emotional reaction to the music and the sheer physicality of the singing and what it can convey, convinced me that Opera could be a viable component to a fulfilling career.
My most recent experience? Well, as of late I have particularly enjoyed working through all of the role debuts that singers here in Stuttgart have planned for this and next season. I particularly love seeing singers deal with and work through music that is within their realm of capability, and that they will perform well! We have one mezzo here in Stuttgart, Ida Ränzlöv, who has a full season ahead of her (Corona willing...), and she is currently experiencing the wonders of a German repertoire house where she is in staging rehearsals for her role debut as Orlovsky (in a Wiederaufnahme, and so a shortened rehearsal period) while simultaneously singing Wellgunde in Rheingold (a role debuted just a few weeks earlier) and putting the finishing touches on yet another role debut in a new production of Hänsel und Gretel. Not all schedules are that crazy, but I love being part of the team that is working to help support and give her what she needs to climb the mountains that loom in front of her.
How do you manage playing an opera (or opera aria) for the nth time?
I don't find it a chore at all. Maybe I am not far enough along in my career, but I have not yet grown tired of "Oh! quante volte" and I don't know that I will! Maybe that is just me...if so, I am lucky.
Photo by Ronan Collett
Do you have any advice for pianists interested in a career at an opera house?
One possible piece of advice would be: decide early on if you want to be the one waving or the one following the baton. It seems to me to be a (more?) rare phenomenon to transition from playing to conducting. I think that the ego (not in a pejorative sense) of a répétiteur and a conductor are different, and, for most people, the simultaneous exercise of both egos is incompatible and results in a lot of dissonance that leads to unhappiness. This is a phase that, if experienced, is best endured when it is as short as possible.
Any additional memories, thoughts or comments?
I think that our field is small and specialized, and, in recognition of that, following the Golden Rule is always golden. What little I have had to come to me through someone else who decided to take a chance on me. No one earns success on their own merits: you can sing like Pavarotti all you want in the shower, or play like Argerich in your house, but it will never amount to anything without the intervention of others. Making a career is a process, then, of constantly being in someone's debt, graciously accepting their generosity and trust, and then simultaneously paying it forward to as many people as you can. There should be no room for elbow-sharpening!
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