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By Mark Thomas Ketterson

Paul Gemignani

In 2001, conductor Paul Gemignani was presented with a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the American Theater. It is difficult to imagine any award so well deserved. Over the last several decades, Gemignani has been the conductor and musical director for scores of Broadway shows and with his superb musicality and theatrical instinct has shaped the performances of some of the most notable musical figures of the era. He has guest conducted or recorded with the orchestras of Boston, San Francisco and Baltimore as well as the London Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic, picking up several Grammy nominations on the way. Operatic activities have included performances of Carmen, La Bohème and The Wife of Martin Guerre. It is for his work with composer Stephen Sondheim however that the conductor is most strongly identified and in the course of his career he has served as either conductor or music director for all but two of Sondheim’s scores. One highlight of this association has been Gemignani’s contribution to the development of Sondheim’s masterwork, Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Mr. Gemignani spoke with USOPERAWEB in during a rehearsal break for Sweeney Todd at Lyric Opera of Chicago.

He is a genial presence and with his easy laugh and direct gaze, Paul Gemignani radiates the rare confidence of an individual who has been securely on the top of his game for a long time. His involvement in the musical theater began early. “I went to school at San Francisco State University, where there was a great faculty, people like Earl Bernard Murray. The entire San Francisco symphony taught there, so it was very much like a conservatory situation. I started to play in town in both the classical field and in nightclubs. I was a percussionist. I went on a job with a singer to Minneapolis and decided since I was so close I might as well go to New York. I saw Cabaret and was bowled over by what was happening on the stage. I hadn’t been much interested in musicals. I mean I had seen them as a kid with my mother. But this was a fabulous experience and I ended up giving my resume to the musical director who hired me to do Cabaret on the road as the drummer and assistant conductor. His name was Hal Hastings and he happened to work for the Hal Prince office and had worked for the George Abbott office before that. He kept me working on various things for the next year or so. I was out for nine months with Cabaret, then he called me back to do the original Zorba. I kept crabbing to him ‘I’m a conductor, I don’t want to keep playing the drums.’ I had conducted enough by that time to know that was what I wanted to do. I always did, studying with Earl Bernard Murray and watching Lenny [Leonard Bernstein] on television - the best teacher there was. He finally sent me out on the road as conductor with Zorba because he couldn’t stand me crabbing at him anymore. One day he called me and said, ‘Listen, I’d like you to come back and do this new show with me. It would be very good for you.’ I said, ‘I am not coming back to play drums. I’ll stay out here the rest of my life unless it’s a conducting job’. He says, ‘You really ought to do this. It’s a great show by a new composer, Stephen Sondheim.’ Never heard of him. He says, ‘Listen, everybody is in this musical, Hal Prince is directing, Michael Bennett is choreographing and Stephen is writing the music.’ I gave him a hard time for two weeks until he finally said, ‘Look you have to trust me on this.’ So I reluctantly went back to New York to work as drummer on Follies. And the rest is sort of history. I took over as conductor after it opened and that was my debut in New York as conductor. For the next twelve years I was with Prince and Sondheim, and then just Steve. I have conducted all his works except Company and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.”

Judith Christin as Mrs. Lovett and David Cangelosi as Tobias in Lyric Opera of Chicago Sweeney Todd. Photo by Dan Rest/LOC.

Fortunately, Gemignani did do Sweeney Todd in the dual roles of conductor and musical director for the original Broadway production in 1979 and later for its transfer to the New York City Opera in the early ‘80s. A bit of mild controversy emerges when a work like Sweeney is done in the opera house. Some opera lovers feel the work to be out of place in operatic repertory, despite the fact that many of the operatic artists who have performed the score feel strongly otherwise. Sondheim himself has referred to the piece as a “melodramatic operetta” and has suggested in interviews that the piece becomes opera when experienced by an audience who brings an understanding of operatic tradition to the work. Gemignani chuckles at the inevitable genre question and eloquently settles the issue. “As a musician I don’t classify. I don’t mean that Sting is the same as Mozart, but music is music to me. To say ‘that doesn’t belong here’ is ludicrous in my brain. I hate the word crossover; you say crossover and it gets this stigma, it doesn’t mean anything. I think Sweeney and A Little Night Music are pieces that can be very well performed by the opera house. If you said to me Into the Woods, I‘d say no, that would be silly. The technique needed for Into the Woods, like the comic, Vaudevillian kind of thing, is too difficult. It’s like asking someone on Broadway to sing Carmen. It’s not that they are not talented enough, they don’t have those tools. Why put a performer through that when there are other people who can do it? Opera singers, especially modern ones, contrary to popular belief, are good actors. The ones we have here in Chicago for Sweeney are really good actors, in fact they are all extraordinary actors. Roz Elias [Rosalind Elias who played Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd at NYCO in 1982] is a good actor, but I wouldn’t want to see her play Mame, you know what I mean? Not that she couldn’t do it, but what would she be compared to?”

Are operatic performers, with their considerable challenges regarding vocal production, ever less willing than musical comedy performers to take dramatic risks? “They’re not as used to it. You go to the opera house and you have to cajole more - they’re not used to it. It’s like the chorus. This happens to be a great chorus here, but I will be yelling and screaming for the next three weeks that I don’t want to hear all these vowels (because they are used to singing vowels), I want to hear consonants. But I have to say I have never found anybody reluctant to try. Most performers, whether in the opera or on the Broadway stage, are totally willing to adapt their talent to the task at hand. I have never had anybody turn to me and say, ‘I‘m not doing that.’ Never. And I‘ve worked with some pretty heavyweight people. I‘ve had some turn to me and ask. ‘Why?’ and I have to explain it. But I have never had anyone say, ‘I‘m not sacrificing my vocal quality for the words.’ I just said to Judith Christen [who plays Mrs. Lovett in LOC’s Sweeney Todd] the other day, ‘Speak the word, don’t sing it.’ - we were having a thing over the break issue, you know? - ‘It is perfectly legitimate with what you are doing as an actress here. And she thought it was a great idea.”

Mention of breaks in the vocal register speaks to various challenges involved in performing the score of Sweeney Todd with operatic voices. Sometimes these are merely issues of vocal timbre. The role of Mrs. Lovett however presents some specific technical difficulties for an operatic artist. Broadway singers tend to bring chest resonance up into a higher register than operatic singers do - and much of the role of Mrs. Lovett is composed around what would be a major register break for an operatic artist. “That is correct, it’s in the crack in a couple of places. In the first song, ‘The Worst Pies In London’, which is more of a belting, chesty kind of singing, the legit singer will have more trouble because they will have to make more difficult choices. I never ask an opera singer to use chest voice as we speak about it in the theater. If they happen to be able to do it, fine. But most mezzos don’t, they use what I call ‘legit chest,’ which is fine. What’s really hard is the diction. You get up around ‘E,’ ‘da-da-dee-da worst pies in London’ and that is right on the break for them. Most people who play Mrs. Lovett don’t want to go legit there, they want to be able to hold on to the quality of the voice as they have it in the rest of the song.” Rosalind Elias said that this first aria is the most difficult part of the score. “She is absolutely right. After that you can pretty well sing the score legit if you want to. It was the reverse problem with Angela [Lansbury, who created the role on Broadway] because she had never sung up there in head voice before and I had to convince her that she could. She had always been a low belter, like in Mame. I only tell you that to illustrate the fact that as many problems as there are in the legit world, there are just as many in reverse because the piece is written as an operetta, as Night Music is. The trio in Night Music is as operatic as anything I can think of. The baritone part may be more words, but the other two parts are wailing, singing. That is why I never classify. Problems exist no matter where you are.” And what of an operatic baritone like Nathan Gunn as Anthony, a juvenile role composed for a lighter-textured Broadway voice, any problem there? “No, providing that he understands, and he does, that the character is young and inexperienced and full of energy. The thing that works against him in this case is the timbre of his voice and he is going to have to color it lighter to make that work as an actor. And when I get a microphone on him I’ll prove to him that he can sing less and get the same result.”

In the minds of many, the utilization of microphones in the opera house is the most controversial issue in mounting a work like Sweeney Todd. Some have suggested that as the piece was composed with miked voices in mind, microphones are intrinsically necessary in performing this score. Are difficulties encountered with operatic performers around the issue of mikes? “Not with a piece like this, because they are good musicians, they understand there’s a lot of stuff they cannot do without the help of a microphone here - the dialogue for one thing. See, the problem with people who are not used to microphones is that they think microphones mean loud. Lyric Opera went outside the opera house and brought in a sound designer I recommended who has done a lot of Broadway shows and knows this stuff backwards and forwards. The idea would be not to have the audience aware of the mikes, as you sit there everything is all the same acoustical experience. The sound designer and myself have said to Lyric Opera that we are not turning the microphones off when the people sing and turning them on when they have dialogue. You hear this miked dialogue and next thing you know it sounds like somebody turned the volume down on the radio. It takes people away from the experience and I don’t get the concept; it’s snooty if you ask me. People haven’t really thought it through and because it is the opera house they say, ‘Oh, we don’t need mikes for singing.’ Well fine, tell them to speak up when they do the dialogue then. Which would be insane, because there is no way you can talk as loud as you can sing. And there is another thing that nobody ever thinks about these days. We are so inundated with loudness that people don’t hear and are not willing to work to hear like they used to. If this were a thousand seat house, you wouldn’t hear me talking about microphones. But opera houses are humongous, none of these pieces were written for these size houses. Unless you go to La Scala or some European opera house that is the right size to start with, the whole conversation about microphones is silly because of course you should use microphones.” It’s an interesting point as a number of standard operas such as many bel canto works and much of Mozart seem dwarfed in large American houses. “Exactly! When you figure for instance - and don’t tell the musician’s union this - that the largest orchestra Puccini ever orchestrated for was about 37, well when was the last time you heard a Puccini opera with 37 musicians? For Sweeney we have about 50, but it actually could be done with about 40.”

Throughout Sweeney’s various incarnations several bits of music have come and gone, including an extra parlor song for the Beadle, a tooth pulling incident for Pirelli, and a very disturbing episode in which the Judge whips himself in guilt over his lust for Johanna. Does the Lyric production present the score complete? “Everything’s in, the only thing I cut was a little lullaby that he put in for the Beggar Woman. Both the director and I feel that it slowed the story down and didn’t do anything. I think the composer agreed because he didn’t put up a fight. The Judge’s aria was cut in the original production. I guess the feeling at the time was that they were getting enough shock value out of the slicing everybody’s throat. Somebody like Tim [Timothy Nolen, who sings the Judge in Lyric’s production] can really do this. I always liked it because it underscored the painful lives that all these people have had. See, the Judge is more the villain than Sweeney in this piece. The first thing you think is that Sweeney is the killer; well no, he is the person who is revengeful. I think it helps the whole show to have the Judge underscored a bit more.

"You know it was very ballsy to put this show on the first time. The minute he sliced the first throat, people would leave. For the producers it was nerve-wracking, because the investment was walking out the door.”

A cheery musical about a serial killer? “Yeah! Bring the whole family! But the world has grown up a bit and the piece is now understood. I think one of the reasons Sondheim is having such resurgence is because people are finally getting him. West Side Story was a bomb when it first was on. It only ran about seven months. Over a period of time it became this huge thing when people had a chance to understand it. Pop music hasn’t changed that much in its quality and when you have no responsibility except to listen to the same four lyrics for three minutes you can practically be dead, drunk or asleep and still understand what the song was talking about. Well, that’s what was happening on Broadway. Then you got somebody like a Sondheim who, if you don’t listen, you’re dead in the water. It took a while for people to figure that out.”

We have seen an evolution on Broadway with pieces such as Sweeney Todd, just as happened with Weill’s Three Penny Opera and Blitzstein’s Regina. “Yes, Sweeney is sort of Sondheim’s Porgy and Bess, if you know what I mean. The two shows I have done the most are Sweeney and Night Music. Every time I rediscover them, not only do I learn more about them, but I see what marvelous pieces they are, not only to work on as an artist, but just to sit and listen to. I listened to the record a couple of months ago just to refresh my memory and I was thunderstruck at just how wonderful the show is.”

As an integral part of the American theatrical scene for several decades now, does Gemignani care to assess the state of the Broadway theater today? “Everything is so expensive. The rents on Broadway are astronomical; it’s a real estate game. The musician’s salary hasn’t gone up that much, the actor’s salary hasn’t gone up that much. Nowhere near what the rent has done. If we did this show today in New York, I don’t think they could afford to have the chorus we had originally. We did [the revival of] Kiss Me Kate with the principals and fifteen people; the original company had thirty. You aren’t going to talk any producer into putting thirty people on stage. You are talking about $600,000 a week as opposed to somewhere between $350,000 and $400,000. To put it in perspective, Follies was at about $700,000 in ‘82. It was very lavish. Have you ever seen any of the photographs? That same thing would be close to $13 million today. But the street’s in good shape and also you guys are paying for it. It’s $90 a ticket now? That’s what the Met used to be charging. They’re out of the water now with the tickets. You go to the Met and three tickets are like one month’s salary.”

Bryn Terfel as Sweeney and Timothy Nolen as Judge Turpin in Lyric Opera of Chicago Sweeney Todd. Photo by Dan Rest/LOC.

Any pieces that are particular favorites? “The one I am doing now is a favorite, but it’s hard to make a choice. I‘ll tell you one of the reasons I don’t think I could work in the opera world. I couldn’t stand to be the guy coming in and staying in the same place he did in Cologne and singing the same aria the same way. I don’t like doing ballet either. I am not interested in reproducing the Tchaikowsky Serenade exactly the way it was done before. With one or two exceptions, everything I have done have been new works and that is where I fit. It’s not so much the doing repetition; I have done eight shows a week of the same piece for a year and a year is a long time to do anything. But it is a piece I helped create. It’s different than going in and doing a couple of performances of Carmen with people you haven’t actually created the part with; you have just gone through a coaching and you are sort of an accompanist.”

I remind Gemignani that in an off-record part of our conversation he quipped that being a symphonic conductor would turn him into an alcoholic. “Absolutely!” he roars, “It would! I mean, you know when you do pops concerts and they play pieces they know like the Candide overture, you can feel how the orchestra wants to play that piece, where they want to go and you have to let them go there, because you don’t have the time in a two and a half-hour rehearsal to do anything about it. That kind of element makes me feel like I am not part of it. I like to be part of the performance and when the orchestra is playing by themselves… listen, most professional musicians don’t need a conductor. They need someone to start and stop and the rest of the time they can do it themselves. What the conductor should be is a great teacher.”

It is impossible not to ask someone of such eclectic musical taste what else he likes. "I love most other music; I love jazz and the blues. I‘m not a big pop fan, like Whitney Houston kind of pop, although I can see why she is popular. But that music is not on my radio very often. My least favorite stations on the radio are the ones they call ‘Lite FM’ that play the same generic pop tunes over and over. But I don’t really hate any music. I don’t understand rap, but I don’t hate it. I just don’t get it. I have a 16-year-old at home who plays it all the time and I actually said to him, ‘Just tell me what you hear in this, there is no music in this,’ and he says, ‘Yeah there is, Dad,’ and he talks about drumbeats and I say, ‘Well, OK, I‘m not saying it’s not music, but it’s just rhythm, there is no melody. I mean what is the point in this?’ ‘I don’t really listen to the lyrics that much, Dad,’ he says. ‘Well then just listen to a good drum record without all the talking.’” An interesting point of view, coming from a percussionist!

With such an impressive track record, it is difficult to imagine for which of his many accomplishments Gemignani would most want to be remembered. “Oh man, I don’t know how to answer that question. I know I would like to be remembered as somebody who moved my profession forward and gave it some respect, that I have set some standards people have to go for.”

And has he achieved that? “No. Well, I have achieved it personally, but I don’t think people pay attention to other people. I have a lot of young people who talk to me and how they’ll turn out, who knows. I guess it is sort of like being Tiger Woods, you don’t know how good a golf player you are, you just play golf. You know what I mean? I don’t mean to be trivial about it, I just know what my goal was and why I went into musical theater. I went into musical theater because it was going to be creative for me and I wouldn’t get stale and I thought I could actually improve the level of singing and the level of playing in the orchestra pit. To my mind I have done that. Does anybody realize I have done that? I don’t know, that is why I can’t answer the question. But that would be my wish, that they would hear the orchestra and know that they can attain that level of playing and they would see that the singing was at a higher level. That is what I would like to be remembered for.”

Mark Thomas Ketterson is a free lance writer and psychotherapist in private clinical practice in Chicago.