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| Photo: Simon Pauly, SF Opera |
INTERVIEW: San Francisco Opera
War Memorial Opera House
ERICA MINER
Since his appointment as San Francisco Opera’s seventh General Director, Matthew Shilvock has become known throughout the opera world for his leadership and passion in guiding the company into a well-deserved media spotlight.
Originally a part of former General Director David Gockley’s transition team, Shilvock assisted Gockley closely in every facet of the company’s management. Now, as newly minted General Director, Shilvock is hands-on, continuing that role: overseeing repertoire, producing community events, administering the company’s Artists Program; and, according to the company’s mission statement, “poised to lead the Company into a bold new era.”
Two exciting projects are slated for the near future: a return of the company’s 2011 Ring of the Nibelungen (legendary Wagnerian soprano Kirsten Flagstad sang her first complete Ring with the company in 1935), and a co-production with Santa Fe Opera and Seattle Opera of local composer Mason Bates’s boldly creative new opera, The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs.
Erica Miner: You’ve been deeply committed to the cause of the performing arts during your entire career. What led you to the field of executive management in arts administration?
Matthew Shilvock: I’ve always been a musician. I began piano at age 4, then took on cello and organ. Playing and studying music were always part of my childhood, very much my drive. I began my opera journey at about age 12, seeing a production of what was then the Birmingham Touring Opera, I think, now just Birmingham Opera, Graham Vick’s company, which he established some decades ago as a way to engage the community. It was a really innovative, participatory exploration of the art form for me at that point. The first opera I saw was a contemporary Beauty and the Beast, done in television studios in Birmingham. The audience was part of the action. I loved that sense of participation, my first sense of how engaging opera can be. Then I went on to university in Oxford, reading music. I think that’s where I developed a passion for arts administration. It was both a drive from the perspective of repertoire; and also from the administrative side the complexity of opera really appealed to me, the jigsaw puzzle-like interlocking nature of all these different art forms coming together. So that’s where the real seeds came from, artistic and administrative.
EM: So that love of opera was first engendered when you were an adolescent, an impressionable time.
MS: Right. The Welsh National Opera played in a number of cities, including Birmingham - the closest to me - and Oxford. It was a great way to learn the repertoire. I saw a good amount of it through the years.
EM: Was there any particular repertoire that made the most impression on you when you were first starting out?
MS: Probably Mozart and Wagner. And Strauss as well.
EM: Strauss and Wagner go hand in hand.
MS: Indeed. I remember immersing myself in those Colin Davis Mozart recordings, and really getting to know the Ring and seeing it for the first time in a concert performance in Birmingham Symphony Hall when the Opera was on hiatus. I never got to Götterdämmerung because I came down with mono. So I didn’t make it to the
destruction of the world [Laughs].
EM: Eventually
you did.
MS: Yes!
EM: Since the
announcement of your appointment as General Director, you’ve overseen a
plethora of opera activities: simulcasts, commissioning new projects, the Diane
B. Wilsey Center for Opera, the professional Artists Training Program, not to
mention the company’s ambitious season. Plus you have an active young family. How
do you manage it all?
MS: [Laughs] When
we first had young children I realized sleep is a luxury in life, so I was well
prepared on that front. Having been here for almost 12 years, I knew what the
rhythm of the company was, what the demands of the company were, these many layers
of things we’re engaging in, so that wasn’t really a surprise. I don’t think my
hours have changed that much. David Gockley had been wonderful in letting me into
so many parts of the company. I was used to prioritizing things across
different departments. I think what is changed is the amount of public-facing
activity that one has; you really have to prioritize the limited amount of time
you have sitting at a desk actually getting work done, having to be really
thoughtful about that. So I’m learning my lesson.
EM: It’s only
been a year and a half.
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| Simon Pauly, SF Opera |
MS: [Laughs] But
I have to say I love that part of the job. Getting to know the audience, the
community, having that interaction with people who come into this building
because they just love it so passionately and deeply. It’s quite an infectious
energy to pick up on. We have hundreds of people who’ve been subscribing for
40, 50 years or more. There’s a great legacy of dedication to this company. I
knew about that but I really experience it now in an even greater way.
EM: People who
are passionate about opera to begin with, who are as devoted to opera as they
are in this city - it must be incredible for you to be so immersed into every
aspect of it day to day.
MS: You walk down
the corridors of the Wilsey Center - the top floor is publicly accessible -
there are two galleries showing the company’s history. It really gives you
something to think about in terms of the legacy, the important work that’s
happened on this stage. It’s incumbent upon us to create the next generation of
that legacy.
EM: It’s this
kind of work that you’re doing that’s so important in order for it to continue.
MS: Yes. The Rigoletto we just closed, for example,
even though individual singers may not have the name recognition they used to, the
compelling power of what they do on stage is still every bit as impactful. So
to hear Quinn Kelsey doing Rigoletto and this new tenor from our program, Pene
Pati, doing the Duke, you felt the energy in the house. When you get artistry
on the stage that is that powerful the audience knows and reacts to it
regardless of name recognition.
EM: As these
names become more familiar, people will identify them with Verdi, Mozart,
Puccini. That’s what lives forever. You’re carrying this legacy forward. If
anything deserves to live forever, it’s opera. I’m not biased of course.
MS: [Laughs.]
EM: One of your
missions with the company is to “connect audiences with opera’s emotional
core.” Could you comment on the connection between the season that just ended -
the three love-oriented operas La Bohème,
Don Giovanni and Rigoletto - and the legendary San Francisco “Summer of Love” of the
1960s?
MS: I think opera
over the last century has sometimes painted itself into too intellectual a corner.
It can be seen as this art form that requires too much knowledge to experience,
appreciate and understand. That’s so far from the truth. Opera is one of the
most emotional art forms. It renders so many people blubbering messes at the
end of La Bohème or Traviata because it speaks to that inner
core of who we are as human beings. You don’t need to understand the dramatic details
about what disease consumption was, or living conditions in Paris of the 19th
century. You need to understand how they relate to us as human beings now. Those
relationships in terms of how we experience tensions, love, tragedy in our own families.
That’s why we cry at the end of Bohème -
because we feel something personal. It’s the most powerful, visceral thing
imaginable. You don’t need a PhD in musicology to understand what’s on the
stage. Even if you didn’t have the titles above the stage you’d probably still
understand the tragedy at the end of Bohème.
For me it’s encouraging the audience, trying to break down that barrier and
return opera to its real emotional core. That’s where it’s most successful,
what’s kept people coming back time and time again. Opera has sustained itself
on a relatively small repertoire for 400 years, what has survived as a canon
and regularly played today. Our ability to go back to some of these great
pieces is because of their universality, timelessness and emotional core.
That’s what we should be playing off as a company.
EM: Timeless is a
key phrase. It goes back to the catharsis of the Greeks, then the Florentine
Camerata.
MS: It’s so hard
to find now, that ability to go into a place and experience something emotionally
deep like that. To give oneself the freedom to do that for a few hours is a
very special thing.
EM: Which brings
us to the Ring. Everyone I know in
the opera world is hugely excited over the return of your 2011 production of
Wagner’s Ring (https://sfopera.com/ring/) next summer. Would
you say this overall excitement is matched within the company?
MS: I do think
there’s a huge excitement for the Ring.
I think people see it as the epitome of what a company can do. There’s a
relatively small number of companies that do it, and with the kind of dramatic
sweep that we had here in 2011 - to bring that back with a different cast but
with the same foundational guidance of Donald Runnicles and Francesca Zambello,
I think we’re in for something very special. The audience is responding very
well. Ticket sales are above this time last spring. People seem passionately
connected to this interpretation. It’s strong storytelling that resonates with
an American aesthetic without being a difficult overlay of narrative on top of
Wagner. It really exists to unlock Wagner’s narrative. The little things like
the Citizen Kane-inspired Valhalla,
or Brünnhilde’s rock being modeled on the Marin headlands - you don’t need to
know those things, the opera exists successfully without knowing those things,
but they’re little glimpses of comfort and connection. I think this particular
conception of the Ring is one of the
most successful pieces of dramatic storytelling, where you really feel at the
end of 16 hours like you’ve gone on a deep and profound journey. I think the
company, the audience, are really excited for it.
EM: Everybody’s
rallying around. You say the word and it’s like a magical key to opening a door.
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| Photo: Simon Pauly, SF Opera |
MS: [Laughs.]
EM: How would you
describe Zambello’s “visionary” concept in this production?
MS: There’s two
particular things I really admire in what she’s doing and has talked about in
terms of framing this. One, is that it’s a family drama. Though it’s a story of
gods, monsters, heroes, creatures, it ultimately comes down to a family story
of about 20 people. That sustains itself through the course of the Ring. Again it comes back to that
emotion of universality and connection to us as individuals. I think Francesca
really makes those characters approachable on a more human scale. Wotan’s angst
around his disappearing power is very much identified with one generation
passing knowledge and leadership to the next generation. There’s anguish,
tension of both letting go and also being proud of their taking the world
forward. There’s a great immediacy in how she portrays these characters, even
the lofty gods. The second is the critical role she gives Brünnhilde. Francesca’s
conception that’s fundamental in Wagner’s conception is that Brünnhilde is the
hero of the Ring. Wotan spends the
first couple of operas looking for the hero that’s going to save the gods
without realizing the hero is his own daughter. The way Brünnhilde emerges at
the end is a very redemptive role. Francesca has said that she’s tried a number
of different endings. Probably she’ll still keep refining the ending as we go
into this cycle, to make sure it’s as powerfully stated as possible.
EM: To make
something even more powerful than it is, that’s something not to be missed. And
that continuity - you become invested in the characters at the beginning, then
develop your own relationship with them.
MS: Exactly. To
find those elements of the Ring that
draw out your own life experiences. We have a young daughter now, so I think I
will see the end of Walküre very
differently than I did in 2011. That’s something I love about the Ring, it’s so multidimensional. Whatever
stage of life you’re at you’re going to find a different point of reference.
EM: That’s one of
the reasons people follow the Ring
all over the world. It’s the same for me, playing it. I found something new and
different every time that I didn’t realize was there.
MS: Motifs you
didn’t notice before.
EM: Or connecting
one motif to another. So as a performer you develop a relationship with it.
MS: It’s a great
adventure, a great journey. Our hope is that people will make the journey in an
engaging space, coming out of it feeling a great sense of having accomplished
something as a listener.
Next, Part 2: Leadership, Creating a New Canon and Collective
Sustainability
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Photo credits: SF Opera
Erica Miner can be reached at: [email protected]
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