A Conversation with Leon Major as He Prepares to Direct Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera in Austin, Texas
Many years ago, in 1979 to be exact, Leon Major and I worked together at the St. Lawrence Centre in Toronto. Leon was the General Manager and directed most of the plays, and I was the incoming director of music programming, succeeding Franz Kraemer. For me it was a great opportunity to broaden my approach to music programming. I was to continue my work as music director at CJRT-FM and as conductor of the CJRT Radio Orchestra, but with Leon I could see new challenges. Alas, it was not to be. After ten years of working together, Leon and his board were ready to part ways, and he left just after I arrived. Without Leon at the helm, the St. Lawrence Centre seemed far less idealistic and far less interested in taking artistic risks. I too soon moved on.
Leon and I recently reconnected in Austin, Texas, of all places. I spend part of each year in Austin and Leon was in town to direct Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera for Austin Opera. Leon is 81 now but still the warm and charming human being I remembered so fondly from Toronto, and when we met recently he was a man on a mission. With conductor Richard Buckley, he was spending most of his waking hours bringing Verdi to life on stage.
When I knew him, Leon was mostly a director of plays not operas. He was in love with Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov, Shakespeare, Shaw and all the rest. How did he become almost exclusively an opera director?
It was Herman Geiger-Torel who got me going. Back in 1961 he was the General Director of the Canadian Opera Company and he asked me to do Pagliacci. My father was a huge opera fan and I grew up listening to the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts, but I had never directed an opera. After that I did maybe one opera a year until I left the St. Lawrence Centre. And the first free-lance job I got after that was for the Lake George Opera Festival in upstate New York. One thing led to another and I got pegged as an opera director. But I love singers and they also have a better sense of humour than actors.
I free-lanced for a few years and then I did an opera at the Kennedy Center in Washington. On the strength of that I was invited to apply for a job at the University of Maryland. They were starting an opera studio. I got the job and started work there in 1987.
With the University of Maryland Opera Studio, Leon directed dozens of operas and saw the program grow by leaps and bounds. Then came the building of a huge arts center on the campus. It had five theaters. With so many theaters of different sizes and shapes “we could do anything.” And they did. Leon stayed on until last year – more than 25 years – as the head of a program that has attracted and trained gifted young singers from all over the country.
While at the University of Maryland, Leon found time to direct opera elsewhere. From 1998 to 2003 he was Artistic Director of Boston Lyric Opera although he says now that “it wasn’t a good fit.” He was also artistic consultant for Opera Cleveland from 2003 to 2007.
What can we expect from Leon Major’s Un ballo in maschera in Austin? Is it set in Sweden or Boston? Or some other place?
Some other place. Verdi and his librettist originally set the opera in Sweden but the Italian authorities wouldn’t hear of it. In the 1850s they wouldn’t tolerate an opera in which a king was assassinated. The alternative Verdi chose was colonial Boston. But that doesn’t make sense today with someone named Riccardo as governor of Boston. Instead, we’ve chosen to give the opera a contemporary setting. The only point of reference is a dome, and that could be almost anywhere – including Austin.
You know I have come to believe over the years that less and less is better. Especially less scenery. Our production has some projections and a few props but mostly nothing more than the singers and 21 chairs – the better to concentrate on the music, the words and the drama.
Leon has set down what he has learned about teaching acting to opera singers in a book called The Empty Voice: Acting Opera (Hal Leonard Corporation, 2011).
I try to give the singers a method of preparing a role. Look at the words and the pronunciation. It really will help you sing because it is the words that will tell you how the music should be sung. And don’t substitute movement for thought.
Since 1980 Leon Major has made his career largely in the United States. But he has also maintained ties with Canada. Twice a year he comes to the Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM) in Toronto to give classes in acting for singers. He says he “doesn’t recognize Toronto anymore” but loves the opportunity to work with such talented young people. Leon’s first stint at the RCM this season will come in early November.
Un ballo in maschera opens in Austin on November 8th at the Long Center for the Performing Arts. For more about Leon Major visit his website at www.leonmajor.com.
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