This interview was originally recorded on May 1st, 2024.
The Oral History Project is supported by the Arthur F. and Alice E. Adams Charitable Foundation.

James Conlon, conductor

One of today’s most versatile and respected conductors, James Conlon has cultivated a vast symphonic, operatic, and choral repertoire. Since his 1974 debut with the New York Philharmonic, he has conducted virtually every major American and European symphony orchestra and at many of the world’s leading opera houses. Through worldwide touring, an extensive discography and filmography, numerous writings, television appearances, and guest speaking engagements, Conlon is one of classical music’s most recognized and prolific figures.

Conlon has served as music director of LA Opera since 2006 and will conclude his tenure in the 2025– 2026 season, becoming conductor laureate. Conlon has been principal conductor of the RAI National Symphony Orchestra in Torino, Italy (2016–2020); principal conductor of the Paris Opera (1995–2004); general music director of the City of Cologne, Germany (1989–2003), simultaneously leading the Gürzenich Orchestra and the Cologne Opera; and music director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra (1983–1991). Conlon was music director of the Ravinia Festival (2005–2015) and is now music director laureate of the Cincinnati May Festival, where he was music director for 37 years (1979–2016). He has conducted over 270 performances at the Metropolitan Opera since his 1976 debut.

Transcript

Marc A. Scorca: James Conlon, thank you so much for joining us to be a part of our Oral History Project, where we talk to people who have made a truly great contribution to American Opera, and you are one of them. 

James Conlon: Well, thank you very much; I'm honored that you would have me.

Marc A. Scorca: And you certainly have had an incredible career. But I start, always, by asking people: who brought you to your first opera? 

James Conlon: My best friend was named Walther Mugdan, who came to me one day and he said...(I grew up in New York; I grew up in Queens. He was the son of German immigrants). And he said, "My mother's done something really stupid. She's started an opera company and she's insisting I go, and I don't want to go, but I said I would go if I can sit in the front row, and bring a friend, so will you come with me?" So I said, "I don't know. I have to ask my mother" So I went home and said, "Is this okay? What do you think?" Well, my mother was very excited. She says, "Your father and I used to go to the opera, but now there are five kids, so we don't do that anymore. But we'll be thrilled if you go, and we'll go too; we'll buy tickets and go". That's how it happened, and that's why it happened. I was 11 years old at the time, and that opera company, which was called the North Shore Opera Company, existed for about five seasons and performed at Queen's College. I actually heard Sherrill Milnes, Justino Díaz, George Shirley in my first operas. It was, I guess, very good. I mean, I thought everything was great then, but I'm sure it was.

Marc A. Scorca: You just rattled off the names of three people with whom I have done Oral History interviews, so it's really wonderful. But I had no idea about this North Shore Opera Company. It's entirely news to my ears. 

James Conlon: Well, it might be interesting for you to look into it, because it was only a moment in history, but for me, of course, it was what changed my life between November of 1961...since my age is a matter of public record, and I wear it proudly anyway, I don't have any problems saying I was 11 (in) November of 1961. Between then and March of 1962, I saw four operas, and I could say in those months, my entire life changed because all I wanted to do was listen to classical music. It all happened very fast. I suppose it's destiny. I mean, the signs were there, apparently. You know, my mother and my aunt and some teachers noticed that I was musical already. But I think the difference is that I realized that it was important to me, and my orientation changed within months and has never changed back.

Marc A. Scorca: There's something to be said about a lifetime of consistency. But let me ask you, because there's one thing about listening to music, and here you are, 11 years old, and listening to music has become a real part of your life. When did making music become a central force in your life? 

James Conlon: Virtually immediately. I asked for piano lessons and started with a wonderful woman named Dorothy Mesni, who lived around the corner. And she started me, and then I took violin lessons because we could get them in the public schools in those days. I went to New York City public schools. And it was immediate, and then it was a passion. It came upon me. I've never lost that passion. I can identify the moment in which it was born because it was self-conscious. I knew this was what I wanted to do. I then had the opportunity to sing in the children's chorus of that opera company, even though I was at the outer limit, but I did sing for a few years until they basically said, "You've got to stop, now". And then I just sort of segued. I wanted to be around the opera, so I started to help the stage management eventually before the opera company closed. I started doing librarian work for the orchestra. But the important thing for me was to be able to watch everything and to soak up every aspect of what it meant, which was, of course, the best kind of education, aside from one's formal education in conducting, which didn't start for a few years. But I can say that at the age of 13, suddenly I knew I wanted to conduct, and that was clear, and that never changed.

Marc A. Scorca: Now, I hear that, and I hear your clarity and a kind of recognition of a talent that was there and waiting to appear. But within basically 10 years, you made your debut with the New York Philharmonic, and that just seems to be an extraordinary acceleration of talent and career. How did that happen? Take us on that 10-year journey.

James Conlon: My thoughts are, at this point in life - those 10 years are absolutely critical. If I think of myself today, and 10 years ago, basically I'm not very different now. I mean, I'm doing what I've been doing all my life. Granted there must be some inborn talent, but the ability of a child to absorb is unbelievable. If I count from 1961, when I saw that performance, and it happened to be La Traviata, but it could have been anything. In 1971, I actually conducted my first opera at the Spoleto Festival, as an assistant in Spoleto, Italy, and that was Boris Godunov. (And I had already had a fantasy someday that Boris Gounov (would be my debut), because I fell in love with it as a 15, 14-year-old. I can't remember when it started). But 10 years, that's really a monument to the human mind and the importance of education in all areas of life. But children are able to do things, (especially if they really want to) that are pretty much unbelievable. I can't believe it all happened that fast. I made my debut at Juilliard in 1972. That was La Bohème, and then I took over for Thomas Schippers. Maria Callas had identified me to the president, Peter Mennin and said, "Take that kid, there. He's really talented. He is gonna have a great future". It all happened. It was unbelievable to me, and two years later, Pierre Boulez invited me to conduct the New York Philharmonic. Now, was I great then? I doubt it very much, but it was a recognition, and it was absolutely a way to start. 

Marc A. Scorca: I have to put in some questions here. So, public school through high school in New York?

James Conlon: That's correct. High School of Music and Art, which, of course, is now at Lincoln Center, but in those days, it was on 137th Street. I loved those years probably more than any other educational experience I had, those three years at the High School of Music and Art. Then I went to Juilliard, I went to Aspen, and I have to give Aspen credit because I went there - I had $300 as a scholarship. I had never conducted, really. And they took me anyway. (For) that I will thank their teacher, Jorge Mester, who also said, "Look, if you come out and study with me, I think this will be great". I went out, and they put me up in front of the student orchestra, and I had to conduct the Brahms Second, last movement - I remember it. And they said, "Hey, the kid can conduct", so the following September, (and remember, this is 1968, when you had to be in school, unless you wanted to be drafted), I went all the way not knowing if I would get into Juilliard. But I got into Juilliard in 1968 and started my studies there with Jean Morel, who was still the teacher at that time. And my formal training was Juilliard for four years. And that was it. 

Marc A. Scorca: Now, you name-dropped a soprano named Maria Callas. Could you fill in around that a little bit? 

James Conlon: Well, the purpose is not to namedrop, but I have been asked the question literally a hundred times, especially in my years in France, where the level of adoration is unsurpassed. But that was the year she was giving the masterclasses. So, she followed everything that went around, and because the production was quite beautiful, directed by Michael Cacoyannis, who was also Greek, as she was. And so she was quite interested and involved, and I think maybe 10 days before the opening night, Thomas Schippers basically canceled, had some health issues. And so, she was the one who went to the president...(and) said, "Take him. He is gonna have a great future". So, I'm very grateful to her for my entire life, because that was an enormous break, and it started me at a time when I never expected to get started.

Marc A. Scorca: Extraordinary. And she was a gracious person to you in 1972?

James Conlon: She was great. And I have to say, with all of the mythology about her, I had no negative experience; my experience was totally positive. And I would say to our surprise, because we all knew she was a great actress - by the way, everybody says it, (but) very few of us actually saw her on the stage in an opera production. I never did. But you can almost tell from the recordings, and of course, we were all told she was great on stage. But the idea that she was this kind of slightly hysteric, natural genius who just produced...my experience? Disciplined, demanding discipline, musical discipline, absolutely by the book - and I watched a lot of the masterclasses. It's just what's written. You could be doing what's written; you know how to read what's written. I mean, it was like that. And she was tough on some of the students. She was extremely gracious and supportive to me, which of course, I appreciated beyond what you can imagine.

Marc A. Scorca: What an extraordinary moment in your early life. What a great story. Thank you for that. Now, I look at your amazing resume and all the affiliations you've had, and there's been a remarkable balance between Opera and Symphony, and not many conductors have that and maintain that balance the way you do. How does that balance enrich your work as an artist, either on the orchestra podium, or on the opera podium?

James Conlon: Well, it was a determination that I made, as I started to realize I was going to have a professional life. And I knew I couldn't live without Beethoven and Brahms, and I couldn't live without Wagner and Verdi. I couldn't live without Mozart at all, and if you wanna do Mozart, I mean, you have your choice: there's the operas, there's the symphonies, there's the sacred music, there's the piano concerti. I mean, it was clear to me that I needed to do it all, but it also was clear to me that you had to actually...let's say preparation for a conductor has to be multi-faceted to be complete. Now, that said, I don't think anybody should conduct an opera who doesn't like opera, or who doesn't feel attracted to the art. I'm not saying you have to conduct opera, but I am saying, if you do love opera, and you learn to conduct opera well, just the technical part of controlling the moving elements: the chorus, the singers, people moving around the stage, the orchestra underneath you - if you can do that well, you can probably also conduct a symphony well. It doesn't work the other way around. So, then I would say, that the technical base of learning how to conduct an opera is pretty great training for everything. But from the point of view of repertory and your growth as an artist, I don't see how you can afford to ignore any significant part of that cannon of works. So, what I set out to do was 50/50 symphonic and opera. What it turned out to be, I guess I would say 45% symphony, 45% opera, and what's that other 10%? It's choral music. And in that regard, I had a great stroke of fortune young, and at the age of 29, I actually succeeded James Levine as music director of the Cincinnati May Festival, and I remained there for 37 years. And what did that mean? That meant every year, four, five concerts (of) large choral works. And I went through that repertory. And when you had to recycle that every five years - I went over that again and again and again. But what for me was probably the most important choral festival in America; a tradition that goes back 150 years, and one of the great, great, great institutions in America, and so that was a great fortune. Did I expect it? No, but that base became another part of this total puzzle.

Marc A. Scorca: How fantastic. Now, balance between orchestra and opera, and then a big balance between North America and Europe, as so many of your orchestral credits, but opera credits as well, are major European institutions, and major American institutions. Is there a significant difference to art making, music making on either side of the Atlantic?

James Conlon: That was also a conscious choice. At some point, quite early on, in my early twenties, after I had made one or two trips to Europe, I said, "You know what? I want this to be a significant part of my life". Now, the fact is, I always fantasized about going to Europe, even before I knew that music was going to be part of my life. And so, I determined that I wanted to split my time between the US and Europe. And the US is my home, our home, but Europe, to me, was the birthplace of most of the music that I was in love with. And so, I determined to do that, and in fact, as I look back over the years, I started traveling and conducting in Europe in the 1970's. When the time came to take a symphony orchestra, I was fortunate enough to be offered the Rotterdam Philharmonic, a great orchestra, 1983. I spent eight years there. And before I left there, I had been invited to go to Germany, to Cologne. I was invited to be the chief conductor of the opera, but that quickly developed into what they call the Generalmusikdirektor, which is one title. And that encompassed both responsibility for the orchestra and the symphonic season and the opera house. And so, in Cologne, it's called the Gürzenich Orchestra, but that orchestra plays both opera and symphony, just the way the Vienna Philharmonic does in Vienna. And we did actually poll the orchestra musicians once: would they like to split up into two orchestras? Would some of them like to play opera, and the other...? And I think out of 128 or 29 people, two people said yes. I mean, they valued that combination. And I valued that combination, and it was self-evident. And I'd like to point out, because especially in America, one tends to hear people categorized as opera conductors, or conductors. Of course, I reject this, obviously. You can tell from the discussion you and I are having, I reject that division. But I also want to point out, that all of the great conductors from the past…you go all the way back to Mahler, and every one of them, Toscanini, Klemperer, Bruno Walter - their primary position was the opera house. So that distinction was not made in Europe as, I would say, the profession of modern conducting as we understand it... As that profession was developing, there was no distinction, and there was just an assumption that you would do it. Now, that broke down in America, and for various historical reasons, which had to do with the fact that there were fewer opera companies - not now as you are the expert on that subject - but in the early part of the 20th century, there weren't many opera companies. And then after, there became an important place also for immigrant conductors, great conductors from Europe who had either moved after the First World War, or more importantly and significantly during the 1930's and '40's, who came to America, there were orchestras (for them), if they were fortunate. And of course, some of them were great, I mean, George Szell, Otto Klemperer, Bruno Walter - they went and took orchestras. They didn't necessarily take opera (companies), because there weren't that many opera companies around. So, I think that distinction got going: a real conductor is one who is a symphonic conductor, and yeah, then there are opera conductors. I reject that totally, because I also know that the technical ability to conduct opera well, is actually harder and more demanding, not just in the pit and in the theater, but also you have to know singing; you have to know the human voice; you have to know languages; you have to have a sense of drama; you have to have a sense of theater. You like poetry, or at least the poetry of the opera librettos that you're dealing with. I mean, it's a part of it. It is not simply getting up and conducting.

Marc A. Scorca: In looking at the European and North American scenes - your European audience is going to a concert where the music is very much part of the cultural patrimony. You know, German music belongs to the Germans, and they go and hear their music. In the United States, European 19th century music is imported. As much as we love it and embrace it, it's still an imported art form to a country that has a cultural patrimony that is so diverse. Is there a difference in music making, in art making, when in Europe the audience embraces it as their patrimony, and in the US, it isn't quite the same?

James Conlon: That's a great question, and the answer will have many facets. In today's world, almost all orchestras in Europe (and opera companies) are international in the sense that they do composers from everywhere, just as we do in the United States. So in that regard, not so different. However, you can really feel the difference, when they are in their inherited repertory. I mean, in the German speaking countries, and that's Germany, Austria and at least German Switzerland, you can feel it. You can feel it, that this is us. This is us. And that to me is one of the great gifts of being able to work there. And you go to France, you can feel when they play French music, it's as other people do not, and cannot. And, by extension, Italy - exactly the same in Italy.; exactly the same in Russia. The only place that has something similar to the US is England, of course, because England also was the country that imported music. And London became a capital of classical music from the time of Handel. And it was often remarked that between Purcell and Benjamin Britten, certainly for operas, almost nothing happened in England. And so England has always been top of the list of the European nations for the producing music of all nations. So, you can feel that. So, I had my years in Germany, 13 of them, which if I had to look back on my life and (you) ask(ed) me, "Well, where did you learn the most?" I would not hesitate for a second to say "Germany". It's something about how German musicians make music. They listen to it, and the audiences listen metaphysically. They want music to be more than just somebody beating time and keeping it all together. And if you don't give them more, they want to know why. And I think that the relationship with the Gürzenich Orchestra, it was 13 years, was very close. You know, some people call it the German grind. But having to conduct an opera in the evening and getting up the next morning to rehearse, I don't know, a Beethoven symphony or the Franck symphony or La Mer, or whatever, and having to do that day after day for years, that's a great education, and I'm grateful to that. And I literally shuttled between Paris and Cologne. I was in Paris for 10 years. I was in Cologne for 13 years. Seven of those years, I shuttled in between Paris and Cologne on, weekly, sometimes even a daily basis. I couldn't do that possibly today. I don't even know how I did it. But I did it. You were exposed to so much, you learn from it all.

Marc A. Scorca: Now at Paris, you were hired by the great Hugues Gall, one of those legendary general directors in the history of opera. What was it like to work with Hugues Gall, and are there other general directors, where you just felt inspired by their leadership?

James Conlon: Well, I'm glad you mentioned him, because if you asked me who was, of all of the general directors...I mean, I worked with a lot of people and respected everybody. I didn't always get along with everybody, but I did respect them. And that's not uncommon. I think the natural tension between general directors and music directors is almost baked into the situation. But that one was different. First, I'd like to say I considered him, and respected his ability to manage an opera house, which was, in my experience, unsurpassed. I was very flattered when he asked me to come to Paris. I actually never applied to any job. Every job I got was because somebody came to me. And when he came to me and said, "I'd like you to come to Paris", I was very flattered and very happy, because I already had quite a history with Paris, the orchestras, also already the Opera, but also a personal history, because I started to travel also as a tourist in my twenties. I learned French relatively early. And so it felt natural to me. I would say he was great in every regard. He was very straight. He said, "Look, I'm the boss. You are the principal conductor. And if we have a difference, it's my decision, if you respect that. On the other hand, if you and I work together, I will defend what you are working on and what you believe in, so long as I agree with it, and I will not let anybody come between us". And he did that, and he respected that to the utmost. First of all, his job was to expand the productivity of the Paris Opera, which up until his time, never really produced let's say (to) the degree that it should have. And he made an agreement with the government. I need this much money from you, and in return for that, I will produce so and so many performances. He reopened Garnier to the Opera, it had been consigned to the ballet. So we had two opera houses going at the same time. We needed to expand the orchestra, because we needed to make sure that there were basically a sufficient number of musicians for two orchestras. I auditioned constantly in those years. And I think that the total number of players, I took (was) 68 or 69 players. Part of that is the natural rotation, because people retire and all that, but many of those we sought, and he made a system work, that couldn't be dismantled and has never been dismantled. And it is basically that creation. And I think - and I say this with so much respect and affection – the last sign of how successful our relationship was...and he wasn't easy. I don't know if I was easy or not, but he certainly wasn't. He was an authoritarian, but that was the deal, and we both understood it. And when things are clear, it's understood. It worked. We are still friends. We talk to each other on the phone every two months at maximum. We share a birthday, March 18th; we were born 10 years apart. And the fact that we came out of that job, which I have to tell you, is like being in a pressure cooker. The daily pressure of the Paris Opera, making it work, making it all happen is very high. It worked great. And to be able to come to that, and to come out at the end closer to each other than we started, is a very meaningful sign of the success of that relationship, and of which I'm very, very proud. 

Marc A. Scorca: Wonderful to hear, because when I started at OPERA America 34 years ago, he was, at the time, running the Paris Opera, and people spoke about him in such respectful tones, and I only met with him once in that glorious office of his at the Opéra Bastille and...gracious. But people held him in such high esteem. I'm just delighted to capture these stories about your working with him. Thank you for that. Recovered Voices: this really signature project of yours at Los Angeles Opera - an exploration of work, sadly neglected, sadly suppressed. How did you become interested in this repertoire?

James Conlon: Well, first of all, Recovered Voices is a term we coined at the LA Opera. I owe that idea to my colleague and friend, John Nuckols, who's the head of development, because we were searching for a term. I didn't like, nor did he, the terms that were around, like 'Silenced Voices' - there was something definitively negative about that. And it was his suggestion. We batted around and he said, "Well, why not 'Recovered Voices?' Because they were covered, and now they're uncovered, they're recovered, and so the term stuck. But my determination and my mission started, 12, 13, 14 years before I even came to LA. It did not start in LA; it started in Cologne. And it started for the simple reason that I heard a piece on the radio (by) Alexander Zemlinsky, who is in my mind, one of the greatest of those composers. And I heard it on the radio by chance, and I just fell in love with it. And I was astonished at the fact - I was already 40 years old. How is it possible that I have never heard this piece? I knew his name vaguely. Some people do, but I knew none of the music. Now, fortunately, the Gürzenich Orchestra was recording at that time. And EMI said, "What would you like to record? I said, "I'd like to record some Zemlinsky". So we made a first recording of Die Seejungfrau (The Mermaid) and Sinfonietta. And then they said, "That was a good success. We have some more money. Would you like to do an opera?" And I said, "Yes, I'd like to do The Dwarf, Der Zwerg. And then that won a lot of critical acclaim, some prizes and so forth. And then they said, "Well, okay, run with it". And so in the years in Germany, I recorded all of his orchestral works and three of the eight operas. But more importantly, once that door became open, and I started to read about Zemlinsky, other names came up: Franz Schreker and then the Terezín composers, and then Walter Braunfels, one by one... It was a dramatic moment, because when you realize that the reason we do not know these composer's music; why it is not in the repertory has nothing to do with the quality of the music, and everything to do with a combination of political suppression, genocide in many cases, and you know why, and we see the dangers of censorship, because it's a form of censorship. We see genocide as murder, and we see cultural genocide also. Now, some people say, "Well, you do music that was written in the concentration camps". Actually, maybe 1% of the music that I actually do was written in concentration camps. That's not what the term is about. The term is to defend the mission of bringing back into the repertoire music that properly belongs there, because it was born there, and because it was artificially removed, by a regime that only lasted for 12 years, and yet the damage done, it's still being felt. The fact that I even need to do this mission, and I work toward it, means that that damage was done, and it has not been properly or sufficiently reintegrated. And so it all actually started in Germany. When I came back to the US because I lived in Europe - I don't know when I would start counting, but I mean, from the early '80's until 2004, which is when I left Paris Opera, when Hugues left, and so therefore I left. And my wife and I decided (we had two daughters), and we said, "Well, they could get their education in the US". And so, we decided to come back to the US. And so, I started doing a lot of that music around with the symphony orchestras. But LA was the first place I had an opportunity to really bring it into discussion. And I remember the first two things when Plácido (Domingo) invited me, because he invited me to become music director. I never imagined that I would go to LA. I mean, it was not even on my radar. And he said, "We need a music director soon, and blah, blah, blah. What is important to you?" I said, "Well, there are two things that are important". I said, "I want it to become a Wagner house".  And he said, "Well, we have to do The Ring". I said, "Well, here we go; I'm here". I had done a Ring-and-a-half in Cologne. And of course, just the temptation to take any job in order to do The Ring, of course, was already enough reason to do it. But he agreed with that, not just The Ring, but the rest. And I said, "And I have a special interest". It didn't even have a name yet. I said "To bring back composers whose operas were suppressed". He said, "Well, I don't know anything about it, but if you tell me they're good, we'll try it". And so it was one of the two pillars, and certainly, which provoked a lot of questions by members of the press as to how can you defend Wagner and how can you defend all of these Jewish musicians? Isn't there a contradiction? And of course, that's a long discussion, not really appropriate, perhaps here, but the answer is no, there's no contradiction, because first of all, I believe that we are musicians. We are supposed to bring performances of music, quality regardless of the human qualities, or lack thereof of the composers. I mean, as a human being, I think many people agree with me. I mean, Richard Wagner was in many respects a heinous individual, but, undeniably one of the great geniuses of Western civilization. So, in my mind, as an artist, you do it. At the same time, insist on composers who were taken off the radar by a regime that was, of course, largely antisemitic. But it's not about their Jewishness that I believe they should be performing, it's because they are important great composers. And they weren't all Jewish either. So Recovered Voices is about the substance of the music and the work, and let's say, it needs help. The issue needs help. It needs people to advocate for it. I don't feel that it's necessary for me to spend hours and hours and hours promoting Alban Berg or Schoenberg, although you'd be surprised how rarely Arnold Schoenberg's music is performed. Shocking, shocking. But their names are known. And so, it's the names that are not known, that is the essence of Recovered Voices.

Marc A. Scorca: It was so interesting this season where you paired The Dwarf with Highway One and a composer from Germany, early/mid 20th century with a Black composer, very much overlooked in American culture, a really interesting pairing.

James Conlon: Well, William Grant Still - shockingly overlooked and shockingly overlooked in Los Angeles, where he spent the last 30/40 years of his life. This was only, I believe, the second professional production, and that's, you know, for me, unacceptable. We had determined we would bring back The Dwarf, and it needs a companion piece - or maybe it doesn't need it, but it's like Cav & Pag. It's short enough to have a companion piece. It's also almost long enough to stand by itself. So we decided we're gonna do it again, because the first time we produced it, we had a very short comedy by Viktor Ullmann who was the leading light of Terezín, and was murdered in Auschwitz, and that was an American premiere called The Broken Jug (Der zerbrochene Krug). And the issue was very much on our minds at the time. This was just around the time of the George Floyd murder, and so we sort of talked about it. I said, "Well, you know, it is another form of Recovered Voices, because there is no question, although the circumstances of, let's say, the suppression of the music are totally different from Nazi Germany to America, Black American composers and performers were blocked. And William Grant Still was blocked all along the way. And despite that, he remained a productive and extremely disciplined composer, and wrote lots of music that is not performed today, that should be performed. So, we thought it was a different approach to what Recovered Voices had been, but I think an important one.

Marc A. Scorca: I thought it was a terrific pairing. Ghosts of Versailles, a recording that you did with LA Opera, capturing, I think, an important work of the late 20th century. There's been such a flowering, a burgeoning of American opera over the last half century, Ghosts of Versailles being an outstanding work within that productivity. What's your take on the direction of new American opera?

James Conlon: Well, let me say, first of all, that The Ghosts of Versailles was something that I wanted to do very badly, because I happened to be around The Met, when it was being produced. So, on my days off, I went to rehearsals, and I really loved it. And so, it eventually came up in the context of a Beaumarchais year, where we did, in fact, aside from Figaro and Barber, we also did with our young artists, the Paisiello Barber of Seville, another opera I loved. And of course, it had to be The Ghosts of Versailles. So, the opportunity came, and I was very happy to have that opportunity. I went through, looking over the 18 years, so far that I've been at LA Opera, and we've done, I think, around 30 American operas. I've done eight of them. And, of course, there're more planned, and they will continue to be planned. And so, there's clearly more openness today than there was 50 years ago, 40 years ago, even 30 years ago to the importance of producing opera in America, by American composers, for American opera companies, which hopefully also will make their way into the rest of the world. Now, you know, that's the way it is with premieres. After a premiere, you never know if something's gonna continue to be produced, but we have our American composers who have developed incredible track records. I think this is a very healthy part of the American opera scene. You know it better than I do, and you know more about it probably than anybody, but that was not true a hundred years ago, even when I was growing up. It was rare or, okay every so often. I mean, a very, very popular composer in his day, Gian Carlo Menotti sort of passed for American opera, but of course, he was Italian. So, Samuel Barber wrote, in the end, two operas. It was not common then. It is now, fortunately supported, I think, much more broadly than it was at the time.

Marc A. Scorca: Did you have role models through your career?

James Conlon: Of course, you should learn from everybody and everything. I mean, I went through my phases as a teenager, where, aside from the great privilege of growing up in New York where you could actually go to concerts all the time, and see a lot of great conductors. I mean, what did my parents do, when, as a 13-year-old, I announced I wanted to be a conductor? They just looked at (me). I mean, they were very supportive, but they said, "Well, that's nice, but you have to do your studies and all that". And I said, "Yes, of course", but what do you do? You can't teach yourself to conduct. You can't conduct, you have no instrument to conduct. But what I could do, was to take full advantage of New York City. I thank God that that's where I was, because I could go to Carnegie Hall all the time. Lincoln Center was just opening in the '60's. I could go to Philharmonic Hall; I could go to chamber music concerts, and one of my older brothers, Philip, brought me (because my mother didn't want me being on a subway alone). I mean, you could go to concerts every night of your life. You could go to the New York Public Library, to which I was very grateful. The library on 53rd Street, Lincoln Center Library, when it finally opened. But I still remember going to another library over on the east side of Lexington somewhere - I can't even remember where it was. You could read any book you wanted; you could get recordings out. And I did, because, I came from, let's call it a lower middle class family. I mean, there wasn't tons of money; there were five kids, so, I couldn't buy every record I wanted to buy. I couldn't buy scores. I depended on the libraries. And so, I'm very grateful to that experience and what that brought to me. So, you know, I went through - I wouldn't call it a phase - because the obvious adoration of Toscanini in his own right. But then there was Karajan. I liked older conductors, like Bruno Walter and Klemperer, as different as they were. And I know they didn't like each other, but, you know, I liked having that feeling that seemed to come from out of an indigenous culture, which was what they were. I would say the person from whom I learned more than anybody else, just as I give my experience in Cologne, Germany, credit for having taught me more about what it meant to be a music director and a conductor, I have to say, is James Levine, without a question. First of all, I met him when I was 19, and he was very supportive to me in my early years, even before he was at The Met. But I learned so much from him. And then having been given the privilege of starting to conduct at The Met, when I was 26. And basically, what did I do? Well, we need someone to do Bohème because it's gonna trail over three months, and we can't get quote/unquote 'great conductors' to do that, so that was convenient for them, and it was great for me. And Traviata, and then Carmen, and then Aida. Why was it great for me, aside from just the fact I was conducting at The Met? Because on all those off days, I could go to rehearsals and did, day and night. And these were the great years of James Levine. And I could see the incredible power of what it meant for an opera company to have somebody conduct constantly well. When an orchestra is conducted well, constantly, it becomes greater. Some orchestras are great despite their conductors, but when there is the right combination, and he was that right combination, the entire musical culture of The Met became solidified. It was already a great opera company of the world, or at least of America, but he solidified that. And I watched how he did that on a day-to-day basis, and saw him prepare operas that, even to this day, I haven't conducted. But I would say as a mentor, and naturally, as I grew up and grew older, we didn't stay as close...sometimes, it's time to move on and so forth. But I would say, I learned more from him. And as a testimony to the greatness of what he did at The Met, I learned from that, more than anybody else.

Marc A. Scorca: What a great testimonial. Thank you for that. So at this point, so many aspiring conductors must come to you for advice. And I'm curious to know, is there a core to James Conlon's advice to the young aspiring conductor?

James Conlon: Yes, but that becomes difficult when it comes to opera, because you'd be amazed how many young conductors come and say, "I'd like to learn how to conduct an opera. Can you show me how to conduct an opera?" And I start with "Only conduct an opera, if you actually are attracted and love the opera". You can't drop in on operas. As a symphonic conductor, to use that term, (which I don't like), but as a symphonic conductor, you can't just drop in and do an opera. It requires all those things that we outlined earlier: devotion to the theater, to drama to the human voice. If you don't understand the human voice, you can't properly work with singers. So I say all those things to them, and I say "And if you are attracted, then you should do it. And if you are not attracted, don't do it as an exercise, because it just doesn't work that way". And actually, I quote something James Levine said to me, which is one of the two most important things I think that any one of my older colleagues, said to me, and I never forgot. He said, "There's nothing you can afford not to know. And that means repertory also. And if you wanna conduct a great Don Giovanni, you've gotta know the symphonies; you have to know the concerti. And that basically sunk into me about the opera repertory. You don't have to conduct everything. There's nothing you can't know about the history and the music as it developed in a multicultural way, through Italy, into France, into England, as we discussed through Germany. There's nothing you can afford not to do. And now that I'm a mature person, if not an older person, I look back...I mean, I just happen to be, looking up at the statistics of how many operas I've done and I counted them up, and I've done 51 composers: that's a lot of composers. I've conducted 115 operas, and I am somewhere between 1,800-1,900 performances in my lifetime. I dunno if I'll make 2,000; you don't know what your life will bring. What is the most beautiful part of that experience for me, is that I was able to stay, and conduct so many things that I loved, in terms of repertory. I mean, if I just count Verdi, which is well over 500 and Mozart, which is over 200 and Puccini, which is about 200 and Wagner, which is somewhere close to 200, that's almost 1,000 operas right there. And if you were just to count up how many performances I've done at the LA Opera, which will surpass 500 by the time I stop in 2026, and I think the 266 performances at The Metropolitan Opera, well, that's 700 performances. I think that the richness of experience should not be underestimated in our world today. It certainly was not underestimated when I was young, in my twenties, I was very well aware of the value of what were considered the great conductors, and this incredible amount of musicmaking that they brought to every day when they rehearsed and performed. And I still believe that has a lasting value, that the accumulation of experience is an essential part. You can't have it when you're 25. You can have a lot of talent, and I remember this was being said to me too at the time, there is no substitute. Be patient, because you're gonna be better when you're 60 and when you're 70; you're gonna be better than you are today, if you work. And so, I applied that. And the other piece of advice that Daniel Barenboim gave to me, and he said, "And I'm giving you this from George Szell, who said it to me, 'You can guest conduct all you want, but if you want to make the best music, you can take a third tier orchestra, and if you stay with it and make music with it, you'll make better music with your own orchestra, than you do as a guest conductor.'" I'm grateful to Daniel for that advice, because it is absolutely true. First of all, if you're able to survive - and you'll know from my history that I have devoted myself as a music director and have relatively long tenures. I did not like the zigzag approach to, 'I take this job in order to get that job and back and forth and back and forth'. I wanted what I have done, which is long relationships. When I leave Los Angeles Opera, it will be 20 years. Almost 10 years in Paris was a pretty long tenure.

Marc A. Scorca: Oh, in Paris, that's like 50 years any place else.

James Conlon: The longest tenure of everything was Cincinnati May Festival. Now I know it's only two weeks a year, but nevertheless, 37 years is a long (tenure). And I stand by what George Szell and Daniel Barenboim said. And I stand by what James Levine said, "There's nothing you can afford not to know."

Marc A. Scorca: Maestro James Conlon, what a pleasure to spend this time with you today. Thank you for a rich conversation that tells us about you, but also gives the listeners, the readers great advice. I thank you. I'm gonna be seeing you very soon with hundreds of our favorite friends at the Opera Conference and the World Opera Forum. But in the meantime, know how grateful I am, how grateful we are for your lifetime of wonderful art. Thank you so much.

James Conlon: And I thank you for honoring me with this interview. It gives me a great pleasure to be able to do it.