Spotlight on Thomas Bagwell
Part of the Life of the Opera Pianist series
General Information
Education
Mannes College of Music (B.M. in piano performance)
Manhattan School of Music (M.M. in accompanying)
Current opera house affiliation
Royal Danish Opera (Copenhagen, Denmark)
Other affiliations
Metropolitan Opera, Washington National Opera, Seattle Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Opera Theater of St. Louis, Central City Opera, Baltimore Opera, New York City Opera, Amato Opera
Contact info
thomasbagwellpianist@gmail.com
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?
Explaining what an opera conductor does isn't too difficult since anyone who has seen an opera live or on the tv has seen the one person leading the performance. They may not know what a prompter does or that some houses even use them. I describe prompting as being a "musical traffic cop" or "secondary conductor" even if it doesn't involve much actual conducting. Explaining what a coach or rehearsal pianist does is where the confusion comes in. I often say the rehearsal pianist is the orchestra for staging rehearsals until the full band is ready to be called in, which can take weeks. Coaching is getting the singers ready for rehearsals as well as refining and polishing their performance from a musical, language, or interpretive angle. Giving notes after rehearsals, listening to balance from the auditorium, etc. also play a big part in coaching as well.
What do you find to be one of the most challenging aspects of your job?
I don't think many of us actually enjoy singing and playing at the same time but it's a very necessary part of coaching. You have to do it in rehearsal as well and many people in the room definitely need you to do it. I often find myself singing the lines for a missing role then forgetting about it two pages later when that character hasn't sung for a while. Never fails to mess up a singer or someone cueing a singer to go on. So embarrassing. I even had to sing the role of Isolde with orchestra in a rehearsal once. I fell behind the beat a lot! I realized in a new way how little the singers can hear when they're singing and what sort of texture the sound that comes at them is like. It's not what you might think. They made us sing in the chorus when I was a student at the Music Academy of the West and it was a humbling experience.
Learning how and when to give notes to singers took several seasons. I made a few mistakes along the way in that department, and in my first couple of years in the business certain singers didn't want to listen to someone so new to opera (regardless of what I had to say). Dealing with divo/a conductors and singers is a constant challenge. They are the exception rather than the rule, but we tend to remember our interactions with them long after they happen. We've all got stories. I rarely give up when someone is truly making mistakes, but you do have to occasionally pick your battles and move on. Working with people who have just met you and don't know your strengths, background, and expertise can be a challenge. I always have to remember that singers travel a lot, meet new coaches and conductors all the time, and must decide who to listen to. I just want to be one of the people they decide to trust. I can't always win that battle but I don't want that loss to be due to something wrong, stupid, or unhelpful that I said.
Do you have a favorite part of the preparation (rehearsal or learning an opera) process? If so, what is it and why?
So many! I love preparation. I love finding out how a composer brings out the drama in a story, how they use harmony and musical structure to tell their stories. I love figuring out what a piece is about, how each character contributes to the whole experience you get when you see the thing put together. I enjoy opening a new score with a pencil in hand. I love studying the orchestration, finding ways to make my playing of an opera on the piano sound as close to the orchestra as possible (which doesn't necessarily mean playing more notes than the pv). I love listening to live recordings of operas to hear how different singers did their roles, how a piece was conducted in several different ways. I enjoy finding out the problem areas and finding the "traps" in the piece, either interpretively or musically. What will be the challenges facing the orchestra, the singers, the conductor, the director?
I don't have a favorite part of rehearsal. My least favorite part is trying to stay engaged enough to immediately be ready to jump to wherever they need you to after a long discussion. You can't exactly check out, but it's incredibly tiring to just wait for your cue without doing something like studying another score or something else to pass the time. When they say start at "Zauberfest," you have to know where that is in the score and turn to it right away.
What is your favorite opera?
Turandot. It was the first opera I saw on television as a kid, and it was the first LP set I got. I don't care that the story doesn't make a whole lot of sense, the music is thrilling. That's enough for me!
What is your favorite opera score to play and why?
Anything by Wagner, Strauss, Mozart, Puccini or Verdi. There are other composers whose works I adore playing, but it's hard to go wrong with those five.
What are some adjectives that describe the skills one needs to be a good répétiteur?
Patient, perceptive, knowledgeable, alert, wise, open, caring. "Skillful with words" isn't an adjective but it's a very important part of this job. We may have twenty seconds to help a singer unlock a problem and you have to bring your A-game when it comes to explaining things.
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?
Excitement is easy, stress is harder. Taking deep breaths, making sure you're warmed up and have been practicing your scales at home so you can play well, staying present, realizing that we play an important part of putting together a performance. These help me deal with the stress of a difficult week balancing several scores. Outside of work though, exercise and gym time is important to me. I couldn't get through the week without doing my Pilates mat exercises at least once. I also like to remember that EVERY job has stress and difficult things to deal with. I just happen to work in opera.
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 simply love to play the piano. That will always be my favorite part of the job. I did branch out into prompting and conducting though. Those involve very different mindsets and skillsets than playing piano. I even directed some scenes when I taught at Mannes. To tell you the truth, directing even a few scenes (and eventually co-directing a 90 minute opera) started me on a different path in my thinking and working on opera. I finally felt I'd begun to gain real insight into what an opera is and how to work on a piece either by myself or with others. I recommend directing scenes to all opera pianists if you get the opportunity. Not only will you learn a lot about what the singer needs to work on at home and in rehearsal regarding the creation of character and believable behavior for the scene in question, but it can be really fun. A word of advice.....have a director friend or experienced singer watch your rehearsals before you've baked in problems with your genius staging. That friend will see things you can't see.
What was your first experience as a répétiteur? And your most recent experience as a répétiteur?
My first job as a rep was at the Metropolitan Opera in 1997. I had had a lot of experience in chamber music, song and solo playing, but only two years in the pit at the Amato Opera before I joined the staff of the Met. The Amato was one of the very best learning experiences in music I've ever had and I could write a whole article on Tony Amato's one of a kind genius. I've been blessed to work with many extremely talented and experienced people in my career but Tony was something on an entirely different level. As far as the 25-30 most standard operas in the repertory, nobody understood them better. There are people who can teach and direct, conduct and sing, sing and teach, but he did all of those things with great insight and so much more. Don't get me started on how brilliant I thought that man was. My most recent experience as a rep was Walkuere right before I got covid a few days ago and had to stay home.
How do you manage playing an opera (or opera aria) for the nth time?
The only way to get good at playing an opera is to do it a million times. I look forward to repeating scores not only so that I can delve deeper into them, help the singers gain insight into their roles, but also so I can hopefully play them better in rehearsal. I feel like I did a good job on my first Bohème production, but I guarantee my fifth was better. Very few standard operas are boring to play. Long rehearsals can be boring at times, but it's rarely because of the piece itself.
Do you have any advice for pianists interested in a career at an opera house?
Watch people who have done this job a long time and think about how they're doing what they do. Listen to how they play, watch how they talk to singers and conductors. Begin thinking about what it means to play "orchestrally". I'll never forget the day I was walking through the hallway at the Met and heard Steven Eldredge playing Manon over the intercom coming from the stage. It literally sounded like the best orchestra in the world playing on opening night. How did he do that? I heard the amazing Robert Morrison play a Wagner rehearsal once that taught me in a new way the importance of guiding the singer through the harmonies of a scene. I experienced the late Marshall Williamson playing Fledermaus in ensemble rehearsals playing about a fourth of the notes on the page and making it sound like the Vienna Philharmonic. How did he do that? Learn the repertoire. Learn how to follow a conductor. Learn your languages. Get as good as you can with your piano skills. Play some solo music! Listen to live recordings. Learn voices, learn fachs, learn what the difference between a full lyric and a spinto is. How did Milanov sing Verdi differently than Price. How did Tebaldi sing Tosca differently than Kirsten. How did Knappertsbusch conduct Fidelio differently from Bruno Walter. Learn how to say important and possibly complex things in five simple words or less. Show up on time and be prepared! Know that the first day may be the most stressful of the whole rehearsal experience. I used to get a cold a few days before every new show because I was so stressed out about the first day of a new score. I still had to play too!
Any additional memories, thoughts or comments?
One of the best pieces of advice I ever heard was on the first day of a Barbiere cover staging at the Met early in my career. The assistant was leading the rehearsal and I had not yet seen how the principal conductor did certain things. In bel canto, there are a lot of "certain things". He told me what to do at a few corners, things that are not in the score, things that can be done several different ways. When we repeated the scene, there was at least one place I didn't do it the way he'd asked. His kind and very helpful advice, which had been passed down to him from an assistant early in his career, was "never let a conductor have to tell you something twice." That can be difficult in practice, but if you think about it, they've taken the time to tell you something important and they have a lot to think about. Spend extra time thinking about what they ask for. Yes, everyone is human and we all forget things, but don't let them have to tell you something over and over. Make a list, put a star on your score, do what you have to.
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