The Milliseconds Before the Now

Last month, St. Louisans faced a unique risk when comedian Jim Gaffigan and conductor James Gaffigan played two very different shows in the same city on the same night. Luckily, it seemed that ticketholders for each event got to the right theater without any confusion. “My show is with @jerryseinfeld,” Jim Gaffigan clarified on Instagram. “I assume @jamesgaffigan is with Lydia Tár.” 

The joke is old hat for both Gaffigans, who got to know each other in the early days of their careers—thanks to a mix-up with their Apple Store invoices—but have yet to meet in person. Perhaps, conductor James Gaffigan tells me over drinks at Schwarzes Café (a former David Bowie haunt in West Berlin), they will team up for a performance together. Jim Gaffigan, he says, would be perfect as a narrator for Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf.” 

In the meantime, however, James Gaffigan has a lot to focus on, preparing for his first performances with the Komische Oper as its new Music Director, beginning on Friday with a special “docu-symphonic” concert program focusing on music from 1923, and continuing with a revival of “Eugene Onegin” that opens on December 15. In between rehearsals, we discussed his first season here, his other gig as the Music Director of Valencia’s Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, and getting caught shoplifting at the Metropolitan Opera gift shop. We began by discussing one of the last major performance periods he had in Berlin, in December 2021, which included a production of “Don Carlo” at the Deutsche Oper. 

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James Gaffigan: In that period, I was also conducting the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, the Komische Oper, and the Staatskapelle. So I got a feel for Berlin, big time: the different levels, the different pluses and minuses of each institution… And that was fascinating. It couldn’t be more different from organization to organization: the money aspect, the artistic elements, the pride… It was very different.

VAN: Is that a high point of working here? 

Berlin is a cultural mecca. In music alone, there are so many great orchestras in the city, and they’re all so different. I think what turned me on to the Komische Oper is that we have the wackiest reputation. And it’s so important in a city like Berlin that our audience reflects the community. I can’t say that for any American orchestra. You look at the Atlanta Symphony: They have a 95 percent white audience, and the city is 60 percent Black.… [The Komische Oper] is one of the few places [where] I think everyone feels comfortable. I can’t say that for everywhere I’ve worked. 

When I first started following your work, you were doing a lot of orchestral work. What made you shift to opera?

I always wanted to do opera, but in America, they pigeonhole you into one category.… Nobody would give me that first opportunity until [Cleveland Orchestra Music Director] Franz Welser-Möst said, “I’m doing a new ‘Bohème.’” Marcello Viotti had passed away, and [Welster-Möst] said, “Do you want to share a ‘Bohème’ with me at the Zürich Opera?” 

I prefer opera for many reasons. The longer periods are important to me. You get to live with people and really work with them, instead of this wham-bam three-day thing. It’s also easy to be a hero as a guest conductor of a symphonic orchestra and then leave, whereas to build something over a month’s time or a five-year period… it’s a magical experience and you always go from where you left off. 

Was it a conscious decision to move almost exclusively into opera?  

I always said I wanted to do more opera. I never knew I would be doing this much now. Now, I have to say no to the Met and no to Paris Opera, and it breaks my heart, because I’d love to go back to those places. But I have two opera houses. I have Valencia and Komische Oper.… In a way, that’s better for my life [the way it is now]: having kids, having them visit me, having a stable routine. Routine is something I never had in my 20s and early 30s. And now I crave it. I crave sleeping in one bed. I think at some point, a perfect balance would be 50/50. I had that at one point, but then I took two opera houses, which is very weird. I don’t know anyone who has two opera houses. I know people with two or three orchestras, or an opera house and an orchestra. But Barrie Kosky said, “Just treat yourself as a very lucky person, that you get to do the grand ‘Wozzeck’/‘Tristan’ stuff in Valencia, and then the wackier productions here in Berlin.” The audience is very conservative in Valencia. 

Does that influence how you approach the music?

No, not at all. I love to trim the fat; my favorite thing about conducting the great works [of opera] is trimming the fat. I think younger conductors—younger meaning below 50—have a foot in with the great institutions if they are well-researched and prepared to trim the fat. So many orchestras around the world continue doing these traditions which have nothing to do with the music. It has to do with laziness, or it has to do with the difficulty of a certain passage. 

The last thing you conducted in Valencia was Tchaikovsky’s “Pique Dame.” The first opera you’re conducting this season with the Komische Oper is Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin.” Has conducting the same composer with both companies highlighted any differences between the orchestras?

A lot of the time, we’re doing a standard piece of repertoire for the first time in Valencia. It’s only, I think, two decades old as an institution. [Valencia’s first operatic staging was Beethoven’s “Fidelio,” presented in 2006.—Ed] They’re a Ferrari of an orchestra; they can do anything, and they’re so versatile. But they start from zero: zero tradition, zero way of playing. [At another house], even the Metropolitan Opera, they come from it [with the attitude], “Oh, this is the way we do it.” And that’s not always fun. You have to fight that for the first week, or deal with it in a constructive way. So coming from Valencia to here, it’s completely different. I did one little reading [of “Onegin”] with the Komische Opera orchestra, just for an acoustic check in the house. And what they get naturally and what comes to them naturally is so different than what we have in Valencia. It’s hard to explain. 

Something you said in the past that’s stuck with me is that conducting is an anticipatory art. Can you say more about that?

The upbeat, the gesture you give before the music happens, informs the player of something. Bow speed, dynamic sound, articulation. And when you’re with them in that sound, you can inspire them to do things, but it happens not in the moment. It happens before. We live in the now, but we’re informed by the milliseconds before the now of how to deal.

When there’s trust between an orchestra and a conductor, there’s no fear. There will be mistakes—we’re all human—but when you ride a wave, when you ride a horse, if you don’t trust, it’s going to be a disaster. So for me, this anticipatory thing is fascinating. It’s a lot of psychology and that’s something that you don’t learn in school. You learn by doing. 

What’s it like, then, coming into something like a revival of this “Onegin” at the Komische Oper, where it’s been done before, the orchestra has a set way of doing it—how do you get people to change from what they’ve previously done?

We just read the overture the other day, and I could tell everything they had penciled in. It drives me crazy. No offense to my colleagues, but you always can tell when an orchestra’s reading something on the page that’s not what Tchaikovsky wrote. Someone tried to make the music more interesting than Tchaikovsky intended, which is kind of embarrassing. It’s like over-editing or spoon-feeding musical ideas through pencil markings, saying: Crescendo here. Put a comma here. Little things are important for the clarity of the piece, but I don’t like when people add things for the sake of adding. And I always hear it in the first reading. So I very gently say, “Oh sorry, do you have a crescendo there?” “Oh yeah, we have it penciled in.” “Okay, please take it out.” When I do a Wiederaufnahme [revival], the first rehearsal is usually taking out information.… Even “Bohème” at the Met. They do it every single season, but I can’t believe some of these traditions. When I finally got a rehearsal for “Bohème” with them about eight years ago, I said, “Why are we doing this?” And nobody knew why. They said, “We just do it that way.” I said, “But it’s not what’s there,” and they were like, “Oh yeah… you’re the first person to say something.” 

A lot of my colleagues are scared to say that, especially if they’re in front of the New York Philharmonic and have to say someone’s playing a wrong rhythm in the trumpet section on a piece by Leonard Bernstein. But I feel like, once I was old enough to say, “I’m not trying to impress anyone anymore—I’m going to do my job the best I can, and I’m going to be prepared, and I’m going to love what I do and I don’t care if I’m re-invited.” As soon as I had that mentality, my life just got better. And I got re-invited to all of the places I love going. And rehearsals are fun. I don’t think anyone takes offense to anything I say, because it’s never a personal attack. 

This is your first season as Komische Oper’s Music Director. It’s also the company’s first season outside of its home theater, which is closed for renovations.

Maybe I’m a weirdo, but I love the feeling of the [Komische Oper temporary venue] Schiller Theater. It’s crazy and compact, the backstage area is chaotic right now—we’re still figuring it all out. But there’s a good feeling. I love the lobby, where the audience can socialize and have a drink by those beautiful windows. It’s intimate. When you sit in that house, you feel close to the singers. I saw an “Abduction from the Seraglio” there and I loved it. And it’s very cool, acoustically. The orchestra sounds better onstage here than they did at the Komische Oper—which was dry and distant sounding. So the theater here is better for a concert performance. We can play softer at the Schiller Theater. We can really explore a softer dynamic. It’s an interesting opportunity—not a bad thing. I don’t see anything that’s much worse.

Earlier, you mentioned the children’s opera at the Komische Oper this year: Elena Kats-Chernin’s “Nils Holgersson’s Wondrous Adventures.” I believe that’s the only opera written by a woman on this season’s program. Is that something you’re going to be focusing on in future seasons?

We [co-Artistic Directors Philip Bröking and Susanne Moser and I] talk a lot about the balance of the programming. Elena Kats-Chernin’s music is amazing—her Violin Concerto is even more amazing. We almost programmed it for next season, but we had a conflict with the soloist that has the rights to it. Programming-wise for opera, I have nothing to do with the next three seasons, because it was already done [when I was hired]. I do most of my programming with Philip, Susanne’s more of a financial visionary, and concert-wise, we’ve talked about all of the repertoire. It’s very important to me that that’s balanced. There’s a lot of forgotten composers we try to hit—not just female composers, but also East German composers… I find it fascinating to look into history. We’re doing an experiment with this “1923” program that’s coming up. It’s going to include headlines from that time: what was going on in the world, in the city of Berlin. It’s a seamless journey, which I like. I believe the concert experience needs to change. I am so sick of overture, concerto, intermission, and then a symphony. I can’t.…I like a concentrated period of 45 minutes to an hour of just: We’re there. We listen and we go and think and discuss whatever. The intermission destroys things. In opera, it’s necessary. We need to digest something. But in a symphonic program, it’s too long. It’s just the way I feel as an audience member. You have a drink, you come back in the hall, and you’re like… [Sighs.] “Oh, boy.” And the musicians feel that way too. Even if they’re not having a drink, they’re feeling like it back onstage for “Alpensinfonie” or Mahler Seven. It’s a lot. So I would really like to change that. I would also like to get to the point, maybe in a few years’ time, where we don’t print programs anymore. That the audience will come based on a theme or a person. 

I love the idea of curating. I love the idea [of a concert curated by] someone like a Salman Rushdie, someone who loves music but is not necessarily a musician. And people would just know that this person is curating a program and would come. For me, the whole concert experience needs to change the way it’s advertised. Let the Berlin Philharmonic have Yuja [Wang] and Jonas Kaufmann. We’re not going to tell you what we’re doing, and you’re going to have an amazing experience. That’s what I would love to get to. 

It sounds like a mixtape. 

I think the future is versatility—a mixtape. I really believe that if a piece is put next to the right piece, even if it’s Schubert and Taylor Swift… they’ll shine light on each other. I see that working perfectly. 

Both Schubert and Taylor Swift are songwriters who are about being overly-invested in failed relationships. 

And storytelling in a very miniature way that’s very [makes a gesture of Romantic heartbreak]… When these things shine light on each other, that’s what great programming is about. When Mozart’s next to Ravel, or when Lully is next to Wagner, it gets you thinking differently. It’s like a great art museum. Or food and wine pairings. Certain things complement each other, and you don’t know why. Sometimes you can make sense of the science of it. Other times, it just works. And why does this work together? It shouldn’t actually. I love that about music. 

I mean, the idea that, Oh, we have an orchestra in the budget, so we’re going to use the full orchestra for the whole program. You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve wanted Mitsuko Uchida to play a Schubert sonata, then intermission, then a Bruckner symphony. They’re like, “Yeah, but James, she has to play with the orchestra.” Why?! Mitsuko on her own—or Radu Lupu, when he was alive? That sonata stands alone on the first half, and then people leave and reflect on that. And then the next step from Schubert is Bruckner. It’s sonic architecture on the biggest scale. So, yeah, I don’t like the constraints of programming. The concert experience is so predictable now, and when every orchestra in Berlin is doing the Brahms Symphonies…give me a break. 

The “1923” program will be your first performance as the Komische Oper’s Music Director. How much input did you have in the programming of this concert?

The curator is Iñigo Giner Miranda. He’s brilliant at crafting an evening—meaning outfits, lighting, what audiences can experience from beginning to end. We looked for everything that was written in 1923, then we said, “OK, let’s narrow it down to some interesting orchestral works—works that are not necessarily revolutionary, but a piece of their time.” We came up with hundreds, narrowed it down to 50. I chose two of about four or five orchestral works [on the program], and there are other small songs that Iñigo chose with Max, one of our dramaturgs. So it was a big joint effort for the three of us, coming up with the program. I also wanted to know: What were people drinking? What was the cocktail of 1923 in Berlin? How were people dressing? All of these things. 

And then we needed a throughline, we needed some kind of story. The biggest challenge in this program is the seamlessness, keeping musicians moving on and offstage without all of the noise. There’s nothing worse than [with] any orchestra, how they move the piano onstage. All of the musicians leave, then they roll out a piano, then the musicians come back onstage, and then the conductor… And then this thing of going on and offstage bowing. I can’t stand it. It makes us look so pretentious.

My husband feels the same way. When we first started dating, we both worked at the Metropolitan Opera shop and would sometimes sit in on performances where they bring the gold curtain down after each act and the soloists come out…

When I was a student at LaGuardia High School, I dressed like a skater. I was a skater, but I liked classical music. I was a very weird combination of going to Central Park, hanging out with my friends, and loving Wagner and Verdi. So I would go to the Met gift shop and fantasize—because I didn’t have money. My parents didn’t have a lot of money, and I wanted the CDs so bad. And I was like, You know what? I’m going to steal something. I took “Aida”—Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra—and, I think, Solti conducting “Götterdämmerung.” And I thought [I was fine] because there were no tags or anything…and then the alarm goes off. And the sweetest woman looks me in the eye, she says “Come here.” I had my instrument case, and she said, “I’m going to ask you once, and I’m only going to ask you once: Do you have something that belongs to us?” 

I broke down in tears and I said [in a weeping voice] “Yes, I do.” And she said [suddenly alert]: “Who asked you to take this? Who asked you to steal this!?” “No, no one!” “Is he out there? Is the man that asked you out there?” I had on, like, a Jif peanut butter T-shirt and big pink corduroys. I was really not a kid that looked like he was stealing “Götterdämmerung” and “Aida.” I broke down into tears and said, “Please don’t call my family!” And this woman, she was such a sweet African-American lady, she goes: “Get your scrawny ass out of here. If I ever see your face again, you’re in big trouble.” I was like, “I’m so sorry!” I felt so ashamed. I never stole anything before! But I thought, This is a rich people shop, no one’s going to care if I take a CD. I felt so ashamed that I told my father.… I was 14 or 15, and it was a moment in my life where I felt so strange for loving this music, so ashamed that I tried to steal something. 

Did you go back? 

[Laughs.] I’ll tell you: I had never been to the Metropolitan Opera, and there were free tickets for us at school to go to the Met. It was “The Marriage of Figaro.” They gave me an extra ticket for my dad, and me and three singers from LaGuardia High School met someone there. They told me the name, I just didn’t know the name. Why would I? I didn’t know a single conductor or musician, I just knew my high school.

So this lady meets us halfway between Lincoln Center and LaGuardia, and she’s a character. A big, African-American woman. Huge voice. Huge personality. And she starts telling us the story of the opera we’re about to see. She was so happy. We were saying, “Are you singing in the opera?” “No, no, no, no, no, my dear, I’m not singing the opera.” She tells us about Cherubino’s cross-dressing—“but she’s really a girl!” All this information. And then she just says, “Enjoy the opera! It was such a pleasure meeting you all!” and gets escorted by someone backstage or to her car. Ten years later, I realized that was Jessye Norman. ¶