This interview was originally recorded on November 13th, 2024.
The Oral History Project is supported by the Arthur F. and Alice E. Adams Charitable Foundation.

Peter Kazaras, stage director and educator 

Peter Kazaras served as the inaugural director of Opera UCLA from 2007 to 2024 and as the inaugural Susan G. and Mitchel D. Covel, M.D., chair at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music from 2016 to 2021. A stage director, teacher, and librettist, he was also artistic director of the Seattle Opera Young Artists Program from 2006 to 2013. As an operatic tenor, he performed worldwide at major houses and premiered several new works, including The Ghosts of Versailles at the Metropolitan Opera, A Quiet Place and New Year at Houston Grand Opera, and Thérèse Raquin at The Dallas Opera, Opéra de Montréal, and San Diego Opera.

Over the past 25 years, Kazaras has also worked with great success as a stage director. His recent productions include The Thieving Magpie and An American Tragedy at The Glimmerglass Festival; Samson and Delilah, La bohème, Le nozze di Figaro, and Il barbiere di Siviglia at Washington National Opera; and additional productions of La bohème at The Dallas Opera and LA Opera. In 2018, he scored a triumph with a new production of Korngold’s first opera, Der Ring des Polykrates, at The Dallas Opera. In 2022, he directed a new production of The Rake’s Progress and produced a chamber version of L’elisir d’amore directed by James Darrah. He also produced chamber productions of Acis and Galatea and Dido and Aeneas, directed by Crystal Manich and James Darrah, respectively.   

Transcript

Marc A. Scorca: Peter Kazaras, welcome. I am so pleased to be talking to you today, and to add this conversation into our Oral History collection. Thank you.

Peter Kazaras: It's my pleasure, Marc. It's an honor, and I'm happy to be here to talk with you.

Marc A. Scorca: You know, as I researched, to prepare for this interview...you are the man with many careers, and I look forward to talking about those. But I'm amazed at the many chapters of your life. But I will not let you escape without my first question, which is, who brought you to your first opera?

Peter Kazaras: My Dad brought me to my first opera, but there, of course, is a tale to be (told), because there always is. You know, I'm part Greek and part Jewish, so I come from both Socratic and Talmudic traditions, so lots of questions and answers. It was my 11th birthday and my parents said, "What present would you like for your birthday?" And I said, "I think it's time for me to go to the opera". Now, what you need to understand is that my father had been a singer, and indeed he was a lyric baritone who eventually became a heldentenor. But as a lyric baritone, he was in the opening casts of New York City Opera in the '40's. He toured around the country with Jan Kiepura and Marta Eggerth doing operetta, so he was an old hand. My mom was a musicologist and had actually done some criticism and had been told - just to let you know how far we have, or have not progressed...she had an interview with Olin Downes around 1942, and he said to her, "Miss Simons, I should tell you that you write better than many people on this paper. However, it will be a cold day in hell before I hire a woman".

Marc A. Scorca: Wow.

Peter Kazaras: Just like, boom. She was like, "Okay". So, whatever. I was around it my entire life, but it was never forced on me at all, especially opera. And then when it was time for me to go to my first plays - actually, I went to see King and I in a tent down in Hollywood, Florida. But then we went to see My Fair Lady on Broadway with the second cast, which was divine. And then my parents took me to see a play, and the play was Midsummer Night's Dream in Stratford, Connecticut, and we sat down with the Moira Shearer recording with Sir Adrian Boult and all the music, and we went through the whole thing. So this is what I was used to. And I realize that that does not happen very much anymore, unfortunately.

Marc A. Scorca: And what was the first opera?

Peter Kazaras: Well, the first opera was a little bit strange. And I will tell you that looking back, I don't know if you remember, but in the New Yorker, they always have those lists. And the lists that week - they were doing Elixir of Love, Bohème, (I think) Dutchman, Tristan and this thing called Boris Godunov. And I said to them, "Tell me about all the stories". And they told me, and I said, "I want the Russian one". So my first opera was Boris Godunov, which by the way, was the opera in which I made my Met debut, just a few years later. And it was kind of a magical thing, 'cause I took the train with my Dad, and then we realized it was gonna be really late, and we didn't have tokens. So during the intermission, we ran from the old Met to the Times Square Station to buy tokens, to then come back. So it was all very drama, which is typical of my family. Here is the cast. Giorgio Tozzi and Jerome Hines had been switching off as Pimen and Boris for that run. Tozzi did two performances. I saw one of his performances. Paul Franke was Shuisky, Hines was Pimen, William Olvis was Grigoriy, Marina was Ros (Rosalind) Elias, beloved, Walter Castle as Rangoni, Fernando Corena as Varlaam, George Shirley as The Simpleton, Louis Sgarro as Nikitich. I'm not naming everybody, but Elinor Harper, whom I remember from the old days (was also in it). Shchelkalov was Calvin Marsh. Janis Martin, who became a famous, famous dramatic soprano, was the Innkeeper. Andrea Velis was Missail. John Macurdy, whom (I met when) I was later covering in Seattle in Rheingold when he was one of the giants in '87 (was in it, too). Jeanette Scovotti as Xenia, Margaret Roggero as Feodor, Lili Chookasian as the Nurse, and there was this unknown guy named Georg Solti conducting.

Marc A. Scorca: Wow.

Peter Kazaras: But it's astonishing to read this, because Arturo Sergi had made his debut earlier in the year, and he was doing the Grigoriys. But William Olvis was great. And that was a normal night at The Met.

Marc A. Scorca: It is wonderful to hear, because I didn't start going to The Met until the new house, but so many of those names carried through the new house.

Peter Kazaras: And I remember thinking, "I loved it". I was enchanted by it. I loved the coronation scene. Loved, loved, loved. Of course, that's the scene where Shuisky first sings, and that's how I made my debut later on. I was a little bit bored by all the mushy stuff, as I said to my Dad - you know, the Polish act, even though, of course, now I love it - even though it's out of favor.

Marc A. Scorca: Oh, I think the Polish Act is so gorgeous. I agree with you.

Peter Kazaras: Yeah. And I also loved the dancing. So that was the first one. And then followed quickly, soon thereafter by (James) McCracken, (Regina) Resnik and (Robert) Merrill in Otello. (People like) Roberta Peters, (Richard) Tucker and Anselmo Colzani. And Justino Díaz in Rigoletto, with Roberta Peters showing off her legs. And that was one of the first times I went backstage, and a friend of hers was saying, "Bobby, I saw you showing off your legs". She said, "Well, you have to do something". And I'm like, "Okay. They're just human".

Marc A. Scorca: Wow. So, singing. When did singing come into your life?

Peter Kazaras: Okay, so the story is that I was a cesarean section. This is a little bit more information than you needed, but the story is, that apparently they did not even need to whack me, because when they took me out, I was already screaming. So, it came into my life in the first seconds. I have someplace here a tape of me saying, "Hello, my name is Peter Kazaras, and I'm now going to sing for you the original Broadway cast album of My Fair Lady", which I proceeded to do. (Sings dah, dah etc). The whole thing - with the orchestra parts. So I was a little bit of a freak. My parents, the one thing they said to me about music is, "Music is great". (I had piano lessons. I sang in a chorus at elementary school and then in high school). And they said, "But the thing is you don't ever want to go into it as a business, 'cause it's a lousy business. And all musicians are dumb and you're not dumb, so you can't be a musician". And a couple of years later I was like, "Alright, number one, maybe I'm not totally dumb. There are a lot of really smart musicians. And contrary to rumor, there are a lot of really smart singers. Much smarter than I am, and much more capable of a certain kind of work than I am". I mean, I have a student now who's about to do Pli selon pli by Boulez with the (New York) Philharmonic, by heart, in a couple of months. And I'm like, "Good luck". I mean, how she's gonna manage to... Jana McIntyre... God bless. But I realized that it was a propaganda war. And I did my first things on stage when I was in ninth grade, and then in high school I did musicals, and I did plays. And I remember someone saying to my grandmother after she had seen me do the role of Ruth in Wonderful Town, ('cause I went to a school, which at that time, did musicals with all boys). I mean, it was an all boys school; there was a girls school attached. And I should say, the people who were also involved in that school were young David and young Christopher Alden, and all of our musicals were directed by their mother, Barbara Alden, who was a force of nature, who had been like in the original cast of Annie Get Your Gun. So, I mean, "Buckle your seat belts". Anyway, somebody came up to my grandmother and said, "Are you having a good time?" And she was like, "Hmm". They said, "But he's so good". And she said, "I know". So that gives you the idea. I went to Harvard. I majored in government, which was ridiculous. It was their version of political science. But I basically did history and lit and shows. I did shows the entire time I was there. Very first thing I did at school was I auditioned for Die Fledermaus, got cast as Eisenstein, and everybody else in the cast was eight years older, nine years older, and was at NEC (New England Conservatory) or at BU (Boston University). Along about that time, I thought, "Hmm, there might be something here. Maybe I should start to sing, take lessons". So I started to take lessons. I did Ottavio when they had a little festival, and everybody else was, again, much more advanced, except for a young man, who was actually younger than I, who did the Masetto. And his name was Stephen Zinsser, but his full name was Stephen Wadsworth Zinsser, and he was my best friend starting in 1971. We've been through the mill.

Marc A. Scorca: But you became a lawyer.

Peter Kazaras: Well, but that's the thing. So now, when I think about it, still to this day, I'm like, "Are you kidding me? Why?" And because I knew in some way, and I have to say, I applied for, and got a fellowship to travel in Europe after my studies. And I said, "My point of traveling is that I love opera. I'm about to go become a lawyer. I'll never get a chance to travel again, so please send me to Europe and I'll see operas everywhere", which I proceeded to do. Many of them with Stephen, as a matter of fact. So, I went all over, saw things, went to Bayreuth, went to Deutsche Oper, Staatsoper, Glyndebourne and this, that, and the other. And I had to get deferred from law school, because I had this fellowship. And they said, "Just reapply". And I have to say, they took me immediately and I decided to go to NYU, 'cause that's where my voice teacher was. It seems pretty clear that already I knew what I wanted to do, but I just was not ready. And then I thought, "I've heard what goes on in conservatories. I don't think I can take that. That seems like a level of competitiveness and backstabbing that is way beyond me". Ironic, considering that I ended up working in a music school, but one which is known for its friendliness among peer groups, I must say - that being UCLA. So, I just knew when it was time, when somebody at the law firm said, "So you've been here now, a year and a half". And I had said to them, "How would you feel about hiring someone if you knew that they were gonna be something else, like an opera singer?" They said, people have gone on to become lawyers at other places, doctors, journalists, congresspeople, all sorts of things. As long as you work for us and you work here, it'll be fine. This person said, "Are you ready to commit?" And I said, "I'm gonna leave in six months". And that's pretty much what happened. So I put my ducks in a row, made a couple of small announcements, (to) see how it went over. And one of the partners said, "Peter, you are doing the right thing, 'cause I would hate for you to be 40 and say, 'Why didn't I do it?'" So, I left the law when I was 27. Very quickly, I got a role covering and then a small role in Hamlet, with Friends of French Opera with Robert Lawrence. So that was the first thing I did. That was at Carnegie Hall with Sherrill Milnes. I was like, "Okay, I know him".

Marc A. Scorca: Did you have a manager?

Peter Kazaras: At that point, I did not have a manager, but I had started a group with a woman named Ruth Bierhoff, who was a music director, called Opera Workshop of New York. And this turned into Opera Ensemble of New York. And actually, the very first thing we did was a scenes program, and Stephen ended up directing it. And I was in a bunch of those scenes, and then a couple of years later, he directed The Coronation of Poppea at the Skylight (Opera Theatre), which was the second thing I'd done for them, and that's when he really got launched. But this opera ensemble was sort of in the background, and I was doing stuff with them. And I did Nemorino and I did Romeo, which I had no business doing, but whatever, and Tamino. And by 1980, I had been invited to go audition for Steven Blier, (who then became, of course, a treasured collaborator for many decades) and Martha Schlamme, who were putting on a German language version of Threepenny in Aspen, semi-staged. So, I got cast in that. And I went there, and I don't say this in the spirit of bemoaning, it's just kind of funny. When the year was out, somebody from the opera program came and said to me - this was aside from the opera program - they said, "You did a really good job". And I said, "Oh, thanks". He said, "Yeah, 'cause when you auditioned for that, we thought you had absolutely no talent". It's not the first time I heard that, by the way. So, note to self and to others, if you believe in yourself, keep believing in yourself. So, I came back from that. Stephen and I had been talking and he started putting together a series of classes. I was in them; a lot of interesting singers were in them. And somebody who'd just been promoted from within by Matthew Epstein, who was leaving his division at Columbia Artists Management) who also was a friend of Steven Blier and the Aldens. So, I met Matthew first when I was 14, standing online downstairs to get tickets for the new Met. He said, "What are you going to get tickets for?" And I was like, "I'm thinking of getting tickets for the Tristan". And he said, "Yes, that's gonna be a good cast. That's a good choice". And I was like, "Thank you". Matthew was very kind to me and very generous when I first started. And I did take his advice. And anyway, so I knew all those folks from when I was little.

Marc A. Scorca: That's just remarkable, and it does mean that I probably saw you performing 50 years ago because when I was an intern at The Met, I knew Stephen Zinsser, who was working for Opera News at the time, and he was directing some of the scenes that you (did).

Peter Kazaras: Yes, there you go. So we did one, in which there was (the) Onegin duel scene, act three of Bohème, act one, scene two of Falstaff. Those were my things. And a Rosenkavalier thing. I should say that that is how I met Joyce Arbib, who is a fantastic person now at the Abbey of Regina Laudis as a nun, Mother Angèle. She came to see me, and I was one of the first people she signed, when she had her own independent roster. I also was lucky enough to meet Eve Queler and sang with her, and she had a lot of faith in me and that sort of got me going.

Marc A. Scorca: That's fantastic. Eve alive and well, and she comes to OPERA America events and well into her 90's now. So, what do you think of as your official sort of opera debut?

Peter Kazaras: Well, I guess aside from workshop stuff, which I mean, it counts, but it doesn't count. My first independent gig was as Macheath in the Britten arrangement of Beggar's Opera, which was at the Skylight. And the person in charge of the Skylight at that time was Colin Cabot, who I'd also gone to school with. I had to fight to be hired for that. The music director did not want me, so I had to come out - I'd submitted a tape. They didn't like it. So I went out and I sang in person and he was like, "Okay". Again, "You're much better than I thought you were". "Okay, thank you". So, we did it. And I will just share a tiny little story about the beginning of rehearsals for that. I was staying at my now-husband's family's house, which is about 15 minutes outside of Milwaukee in Wauwatosa. And I was getting used to the idea of driving in, and I was a little bit confused about where I had to go, and when. The first day I was five minutes late. Second day I was six minutes late. The director took me aside, and he said, "I want to tell you something. You're doing the lead in this show. If you're early, you're on time. If you're on time, you're late. And if you're late, you'll get an AGMA (American Guild of Musical Artists) citation, even though it's not an AGMA house. So, I want you to bear that in mind that everyone in this room is waiting for you". And I must say I did my best to never be late again. And when that really kicked in, was when I started directing, 'cause you don't wanna show up in a room with 70 people going (acts fed-up, drumming fingers). So, I've tried to always be early for that.

Marc A. Scorca: Your repertoire just spans the opera literature, whether it is Handel, because early on, you did Alcina and A Quiet Place in almost the same season. So, Handel to Bernstein. And then at The Met, there's a year when you did two Mozart operas, the same year you were doing the premier of Ghosts of Versailles. So your repertoire has spanned the new and the old - Benjamin Britten figuring very prominently in there.

Peter Kazaras: And Janáček, I should also say.

Marc A. Scorca: Absolutely. And you know, I regret that we seem to be beyond that moment in time 10 years ago, when everyone was exploring the Janáček operas, 'cause they are such fabulous pieces.

Peter Kazaras: Fantastic. They're fantastic.

Marc A. Scorca: I'm kind of curious to know how you relate to the different ends of the spectrum here. What is it about bringing life to works of Handel or Mozart, or bringing life to a brand-new work? You as an artist, you as a singer? Let's focus on singer for now, 'cause of course you've done the same thing as a stage director. What about each end of the spectrum really speaks to you?

Peter Kazaras: All right, so when I did Quiet Place, I got a phone call one afternoon. It was Leonard Bernstein. He's saying, "Hi, I'm sending over the draft of the manuscript of your aria. I want you to take a look at it".

Marc A. Scorca: Just pause there - as a young artist getting a phone call from Leonard Bernstein.

Peter Kazaras: Oh yeah. It wasn't the first time, but still, it was like, "Okay, okay, Lenny, I'm on it". And a courier came by and I didn't have a pianist handy. I went over to the old Mason & Hamlin, which is sitting at the back of me right now. I started plunking away, and I thought, "Okay, this is really beautiful. It's nice". And I called him. So he said, "Could you read it?" And I said, "Well, I'm a pretty good sight singer. I mean, I'm sure I'll be..." "No, no, no. I mean, can you physically see what the notes are?" And I thought, "Oh, okay. That's what he's concerned about". 'Cause he'd written it out himself. It was in manuscript. And he just wanted to know if this was good enough to go to the copyist, which is kind of amazing. I'm like "He's asking me. All right". So that's one end of the spectrum. Couple of years later, I'm in Houston. I'm doing the world premiere of New Year by Michael Tippett. A year before we open, we get the finished, printed score from the publisher. And I'm like, "Okay". So we know that when they did Bohème, they didn't have that ossia in there for the tenor aria at the beginning. There were all sorts of things that changed. We know that (in) Benjamin Britten scores, lots of things changed during rehearsals for the premiere. How does he know that anybody can even sing this? And trust me, there were some things in that, which were really tough to sing. And so you realize that different people have different expectations. Tobias Picker: a whole different set of things; always very involved in what was going on. And (John) Corigliano, of course had had a lot of time to work on the piece, but there were lots of changes. So, that sort of led me to understand that it is a living thing. Now the problem is when you look at that, and you look at Magic Flute and you say, "Well, is Magic Flute a living thing, or is it a dead thing?" And of course, it must be a living thing if anybody's gonna be interested in it. And so you figure out whether it's in terms of ornaments or in terms of interpretation or staging or whatever, how you're going to make it speak to say something you want it to say, or you wanna help it deliver its original message, whatever that might be. So, I think to a certain extent, my approach is always: start with the text. What is the story? Listen to the music; study the music. What is the composer trying to say about the story in the music? Does what the orchestra says go along with the story, or undercut it? As might be the case in a lot of, um, Britten, because sometimes the narrators are unreliable and what the orchestra says, tells you a different story from the words. So, that's a lifelong study.

Marc A. Scorca: Okay. So then you're a stage director. And you had a substantial vocal career at great houses singing wonderful repertoire. What moved you into stage direction? What appealed? Why did you do it? What spoke to you?

Peter Kazaras: Because part of me is stubborn, and I'm not really envious, but two of my best friends are Stephen and Francesca Zambello. And I was like, "So they're gonna be able to be doing what they do until they're like 85 or 90 or whatever. And I know what's gonna happen to me is, eventually, I'll sing Altoum", which I did in Toronto. But I'm not gonna be traveling around the world singing Lenski when I'm 50, 'cause I'm not gonna stay in a role that way. And I thought, "So is it all gonna be over? Do I want to teach?" And I knew that that was really not for me. But I had worked on scenes and little opera workshop things, and actually Jonathan Sheffer, also a school friend, gave me my first break, in that I directed a staged version of Pulcinella by Stravinsky for him and his Eos orchestra in New York. And I did several other things for him, including a semi-staging of Nixon in China (act three) that he did at (Alice) Tully Hall. And I took to it, shall we say. Then, Speight Jenkins offered me a Norma, which we had to do in a new house, 'cause they were retrofitting the old one, and I convinced him to turn it into a new production, because it would've cost about as much money to change the old one. And so I did that. And then Mark Adamo had seen a workshop of a piece of Jonathan's called Blood on the Dining Room Floor that I'd done in New York. He recommended me to Marin Alsop for the Cabrillo Festival to do Little Women, and Sheri Greenawald saw that. And then she hired me to do Merola etc, etc, etc. So one thing kind of led to another, I guess.

Marc A. Scorca: It is rare that there's a stage director who's had such a substantial career as a singer. Did you find that your career as a singer really informed and brought something unique to your work as a stage director?

Peter Kazaras: It did; it definitely did. And it has been told to me by people I've worked with that - although it was really funny... There was one very sweet person, who is not from this country who said to Speight Jenkins, as I was directing him as the Count in Marriage of Figaro. They went to a baseball game together. And Mariusz (Kwiecień) said to him, "Who is this Kazaras? He knows everything about the opera. He knows all the words. How does he know so much?" Speight was like, "Yeah, right. Okay, let me explain". So Mariusz was a delight to work with. Asher Fisch, another great friend, wonderful conductor, he saw something I'd done once, and I'd worked with him as a singer. He said, "It doesn't surprise me that you've taken to this so well, because you always actually approached your work as a singer, as a director, 'cause you were always thinking, "Why am I doing this? What's the point?" Even if you didn't discuss that with the director. One could tell that you were always working out a track in your mind. When I first started working on Marriage of Figaro, I thought, "Oh, Beaumarchais. Clocks, clockwork. This is kind of the way I think about directing". It's like one thing leads to another. The audience loves to do the math. The audience loves to be led, but not hit on the head saying, "Look at this. Look at this. Oh, what's gonna happen?" And they love to go "Two plus two equals four. Oh my God. There it is". Even if sometimes it's five, and even if sometimes it's 13. So, as a singer, it helped me to understand the feeling of, "Oh, I can't do that. Oh, I don't wanna do that". And I would generally work with someone and say, "Can you just try and we'll see if it feels okay". I have to say, there is one person I will eternally regret not having (spotted unease). She didn't say anything to me about something she was uncomfortable with. And it was simply a matter of staging and a costume and I should have picked up on it sooner. And I didn't, and I regret that, ('cause the costume was too heavy). Most of the time, I feel that I am enough on their wavelength. So, I know when they're just being nervous about something or unsure. And my general request is "Try it", and if it doesn't work, I'm gonna be the first who knows, because I'm a Pisces, so I'm very intuitive. And if I feel that the cord has been cut between me and the stage, I know it stinks, so we change it. We do something else.

Marc A. Scorca: Let's talk about the relative rewards to you as an artist. So, there you are singing - the adrenaline of curtain going up, and any good artist'll have adrenaline every night that they're performing. And there's a curtain call and the adrenaline then drains out of your system. Very different emotional sequences as a stage director, and were there different rewards? Did you miss performing when you gave it up?

Peter Kazaras: Somebody told me at one point, when they saw me, they said, "I knew once you got to that side of the table you'd never come back". Which was not quite true, and in fact, I have to say, (I will not tell you what), but I will be returning to the lyric stage next summer. So that's kind of sweet. It's in a music theater piece and it will be fun. And there's much to say about that too, but never mind. But in terms of rewards, it was always rewarding and fun for me to sing, except for when I was sick, when it was not so much fun. But I have to say, there was a time when I was waiting to go on as Altoum, having climbed up a whole set of stairs offstage, wearing these sort of Prada boots in a production that was at Seattle, and with really high heels, and my feet hurt so much. And I was like, "Birgit Nilsson, where are you now, 'cause I need a comfortable pair of shoes and these are not it". And then there was one time when I was in the middle of doing I think probably my last run of Herods in an interesting production, and Herod is always a blast to sing. But I was sitting there going I (sings 'mindlessly') thinking, "Who the hell cares? I mean, who really cares about what I'm doing right now? Do I even care?" And I was like, "Yeah, well, it's a job so you have to do your job". And I had this inner monologue and I was thinking, "This is not what I'm supposed to be thinking of". I am lucky that like, one of the first big things I directed was a piece that I'd only been tangentially involved with as a singer, which was Norma. I had covered the role of Flavio in San Francisco with these three unknown singers named Joan Sutherland, Marilyn Horne and Ermanno Mauro, conducted by (Richard) Bonynge, so I was around some pretty interesting singing at that point. And that's not even to mention, that the same year I did the Servo d'Amelia, if you please. It was my San Francisco Opera debut. One line to Madam (Montserrat) Caballé. Therein hang many tales.

Marc A. Scorca: It's a lot of good singing right there.

Peter Kazaras: Unbelievable. Yes. And the opening night was Luciano (Pavarotti) and then after that it was (Vasile) Moldoveanu, who was also great. Anyway, as a director, I literally felt my brain go (opens arms wide in a gesture of explosion). The first time I was sitting with a lighting designer and I was like, "This, this, this, how about this? How about this? I don't know how to do it. I don't know how to do it, but I'm suggesting", and I have to say, very nicely, he said, "That thing you say about you don't know how to do it? Stop saying that. No stage director knows how to do it. I know how to do it. You just need to know what you want, and you know what you want. Thank you". So that was interesting. That was new to me. Working with costume designers is thrilling for me. And actually the realization that I kind of knew what I wanted, 'cause I knew the look, and bear in mind I had worked with some pretty amazing costume designers, Marty (Martin) Pakledinaz for God's sakes. And may he rest in peace. When you do a whole bunch of shows with him or in sets designed by Tom (Thomas) Lynch, you start to realize what wonderful design is. So, I had that background and I always was the guy who would sit in rehearsals at the house to watch what other directors were doing. I would come to rehearsals. I remember at The Met, sometimes you're not even called, if you're a cover. And I kept thinking, "What if somebody's sick and I have to go on?" So I watched every rehearsal I could watch, and that was a big help. And it also, frankly, helped because it meant, for instance, for my debut - Philip Langridge, wonderful, terrific man... We became pals. And he reminded me to lift up my skirts before I went down the stairs in the coronation scene. And he warned me about the tricky curtain to enter into the chamber scene. And it didn't matter, I still tripped over my thing, but no one saw it 'cause I hadn't gone through the curtain yet. Anyway, it's a whole different set of skills. And it was thrilling to use them because, ultimately, I was interested in telling the story. I love that. The second production I did of Turn of the Screw I tried something at the end where actually for the final few seconds of the show, no one in the audience was breathing. And that was pretty great. It was a little bit of a stage device what we did, but it worked. And people are just like (mimics awestruck), and when it ended, you heard (makes slow outtake of breath).

Marc A. Scorca: And of course, another piece you had performed. So you knew it so well.

Peter Kazaras: Yes, but that's kind of the reaction you should have at the end of Turn of the Screw. You shouldn't be sitting there saying, "Oh, it's so sad". Like, there's no more upsetting piece.

Marc A. Scorca: Young artist programs, apprentice programs. So this is maybe career 2(B), where suddenly you were working with ensembles of young artists. You ran the program in Seattle. How was that different? I mean, here you're not shaping a production, but you're actually shaping artists,

Peter Kazaras: Shaping artists, and in the way it worked in Seattle at the beginning, those young artists were not in main stage shows. We eventually helped that to happen. So that was great. But indeed, we were casting shows. The idea was to bring them in, and to do two shows with them. Small one in the fall, bigger one in the spring. And they had seven weeks each time. And lots of masterclasses and other instruction. I think some of it has to do with what one cottons on to, in a sense, what you sort of get along with. And hearing auditions is different for everybody. I will say that someone who asked me to start working with her early on in 1997, I think, as a teacher was Marlena Malas in Chautauqua. And I came up and I worked with the kids there, and then in 1999, I did a production of Turn of the Screw there that was great. (Maybe it was '97). And lots of people who have gone on to fame and fortune were in that. And listening to auditions with Marlena was really interesting to me, because she and I agreed on everything, and it wasn't always what other people thought. And I'm not saying that it was better or worse, it was our own idiosyncratic reactions, but we were always listening for something special, not necessarily something that was on the surface, the most commercially viable, but something that was different. And in a sense, I have to say, I only really wanted to hit Speight Jenkins on the head once. I adore him, I revere him, and when we heard auditions, we agreed on pretty much everything, except for one time. But again, when you have people like that who you're listening with, who definitely have a certain set of ears. I mean, for God's sakes, Speight chose me repeatedly, and I was hardly the top of everyone's list. But you understand that there maybe is something to a value to be gained from having an artistic point of view. So I've always looked for someone who has something to say, not just someone who can sing the piece from A to Z. I did all the pianos, I did all the fortes, although sometimes one thinks that someone who does all the dynamics these days is a rare bird, 'cause it's still an elusive goal for some. There is a delicacy mixed with a firmness. And frankly, after 17 years of teaching at UCLA, the first 14 of which were heavenly, and the last three of which, with Covid and everything, were kind of a nightmare, not because of UCLA, just because of what was going on in the world. When you get to a situation where people are saying, "Does it really matter if I say 'tu' instead of 'to'", and I'm like, "Yeah, if you wanna speak French, it matters. If you wanna speak Italian, it doesn't matter". Especially nowadays, where a certain canonical knowledge is continually assailed, as being emblematic of stuff that is problematic. And that's tough. That's tough to deal with, when you're dealing with our discipline, because it is a discipline.

Marc A. Scorca: Absolutely. So in a way, they rub together here, working at UCLA with younger artists, still within a young artist ensemble, which is a notch more advanced, you are shaping their performances as if you were a stage director.

Peter Kazaras: Absolutely.

Marc A. Scorca: But also, you're shaping their consciousness as an artist. And how do you teach that?

Peter Kazaras: You teach it by having an excellent coaching staff, which we have, which was headed at UCLA by Rakefet Hak, who's now started to conduct, which is great. That's what she should be doing. But we have excellent coaches, and we work with them to make sure that the students have the tools, and that, of course, is language. And that is foreign language diction. And that is musicianship skills. Some of the saddest and most frustrating experiences are when you have someone who has a voice from heaven, and who lacks musicianship skills. And this I've run into, and this is tough. This is tough to figure out what to do with it. But even at UCLA when I started there as a guest, the first person I directed in a show there when I was coming in for what turned out to sort of be an audition for me, was this young soprano named Angel Blue, who was doing Suor Angelica. And I later found out I was her first opera director. And she has shared with me, she said, "I thought it would always be like that". And not so much. Like we don't sit around a table and read through the libretto. And when you realize that you're in a staging rehearsal and your scene partner doesn't know what they're saying, it's a little off-putting. Right? So, it's great that we have the chance in school to take the time to really instill certain habits. And that has been great. Again, for me, it was just more and more mind expanding.

Marc A. Scorca: Now, you've mentioned Seattle Opera a number of times as a singer, as a director, young artist program, Speight. In a way, you had the rare experience of kind of having a home company. And rare, unfortunately. What were the benefits to you, as an artist of having a company that you could call kind of your home company?

Peter Kazaras: Well, it was interesting. People thought I lived in Seattle. I never did.

Marc A. Scorca: I thought you lived in Seattle.

Peter Kazaras: Never lived in Seattle. The benefits were that I had someone who believed in me, who was Speight. At the beginning, he cast me in everything from Števa to Tamino to Edgardo, which obviously was not the rep that I would end up singing, although I have to say, boy, when I was singing Edgardo silver cast with Edoardo Müller conducting - that was amazing; a direct line to the greats. I never in my life was in such good voice. I barely even had to warm up. And eventually I did Shuisky, I did Peter Quint, I did Captain Vere, I did Pierre Bezukhovb with Francesca, which was fantastic, in War and Peace, just wonderful, wonderful stuff. I also did Faust for him in Francesca's production. But it gave me a range of stuff. He was also very generous to let me out of an Eisenstein once, so that I could do Loge in Geneva. And just as a generous and inventive and smart and empathic general director, he pretty much defined what that role is, including all the times he would sit in on rehearsals for which he was famous. And also including the time when he put his 2 cents in after someone had done something really bad, and said, "Oh, that's just fabulous; just do it just like that". And I had to take him aside and say, "Not that; don't do that again, or at least check with me", because I'm about to give her a note which says, "Don't do that", but in a nice way. But he took the note. He is the best to work with. He just was great. And he was like a partner in creativity. And it extended to his helping me. I directed a ton of stuff there.

Marc A. Scorca: Yes, absolutely. Then it went from your singing career to your directing career, to your teaching career. It really did manifest every aspect of what you're doing.

Peter Kazaras: And also, I think I probably did my first world premiere there, which was An American Dream by Jack Perla and Jessica Murphy Moo, which is an important piece, and which I did twice there. I survived the interregnum from Speight to Aidan Lang and from Aidan Lang to Christina (Scheppelmann), and who knows what will happen in the future, but I've had a good run there.

Marc A. Scorca: That's just fabulous. Now, competitions. You are a frequent judge at competitions. And I recognize that competitions can be very helpful to the winners who have to pay for housing accommodations, student loans and all that. And yet I also realize that they can be discouraging if you are a good singer, but you always get third place. So, how do you see the competition world figuring in the trajectory of the artist?

Peter Kazaras: It depends on the artist. I did The Met Competition once. I won at the districts in New York, and that was it. And I just realized that was really not for me, and it is not for everybody. Some people always do well in competitions, and some people just don't really show off what they can do. And I have to say that as a judge, I have had the peculiar experience...of sometimes we have a panel where everyone just agrees and it's like that. And then sometimes people have wildly divergent views. I've been on a panel with someone who's like, "I am only listening for vocal technique; nothing else interests me". And I'm like, "Okay. For me, vocal technique is very important because that's what you use to express. But if what you're expressing with your perfect vocal technique is nothing, then I'm not interested. So we're gonna have to find a middle ground". And we've never had a hung jury to refer to my old career. I've managed to find a way to forge a middle ground. I think that's important.

Marc A. Scorca: And there are some singers who can win a lot of competitions, but don't necessarily then show well on stage. It's a weird reversal.

Peter Kazaras: Yeah. I heard once the districts in Portland, and I was sitting next to Gayletha Nichols, and we heard this young woman sing 'Casta diva', and her name was Angela Meade, and the rest is history. I have been in auditions where I hear someone whom I'm sure is going to go on to fame and fortune, and it has not happened. The Met's new guidelines are really helpful, and they're wonderful. What Melissa Wegner and her team has put together is fantastic, to help people say the right thing and to say helpful things at competitions, as opposed to creepy things, and I support them wholeheartedly. I have not had occasion to do this at The Met Competition, but at other competitions, I sometimes have taken someone aside and said, "Look, I want you to know that I really thought you were special, and I really believe you have a gift. Keep at it. If you go to New York, try looking up this person, this person, this person to work with as a coach. Try to do some dramatic coaching with this person or this person. These are just my suggestions. I'm not shilling for anybody, but I think you are gifted. Please believe in yourself". And that's happened a few times. Not many, but a few, where somebody just walks away with nothing.

Marc A. Scorca: Have you said the reverse, where you pull someone over and say, "You know, Marc, gosh, you really tried so hard, but it's just not gonna happen".

Peter Kazaras: No, and I'll tell you why. Because in 1985 at a concert, I was standing in the men's room doing what one does in a men's room, and somebody was standing next to me and turned over to me and said, "I really have to hand it to you. You've done pretty well for yourself. And when you started, absolutely no one thought you had any talent". That's the second time that happened. I was like, "Okay, thanks". And that person had as much said so in written reviews of my career. But I thought, "No, it is not for me". I have a friend/colleague, who was told a gazillion times he would never have a career. He sang everywhere in the world, and he laughs about the fact that "Everyone told me, 'You just don't have enough voice to have a career'".

Marc A. Scorca: And I remember sitting - this is now 20 years ago - with a circle of managers, all of whom had passed up on Dawn Upshaw.

Peter Kazaras: I'm going to share a tale, which I'm sort of actually proud of, and still completely incredulous about. I cannot believe it happened. I think the second year, or maybe the first year I was hearing for Seattle Young Artist Program, this person came through. I thought, "Fantastic. We'll do this and this with her. She'll be great. She'll be great. Wonderful". Then I thought, "Other people are gonna hear her, they're gonna want her. We better send her a contract". We sent her a contract. She signed the contract. At the end of the year, I get a phone call in May from Lenore Rosenberg saying, "Hi, Peter, it's Lenore". "Hi Lenore". I knew immediately what was coming. "So I just judged the Bethlehem Bach competition". And I was like, "Right". She said, "Sasha Cooke". And I said, "Right". Now, here's the thing. Sasha had sung for about 32 or 33 places. Exactly two places were interested in her: me and Lenore, because Lenore knew that Jimmy (James Levine) would flip over her, which of course he did. She'd won the Washington Friday Morning Musical Club Award there too. But I'm like, "How could you not get that?" This woman who defines her fach at this point, and who is an artist for the ages in my book and is totally the person you want to have in the room. So we ended up doing a timeshare with Lenore. She took her in the fall. I had her in the spring, and she did Meg for me in my Young Artist Program version of Falstaff. And then when I did it on the main stage, she came back to do that too. But I mean, how can you explain that?

Marc A. Scorca: Right. So you encourage, but never discourage.

Peter Kazaras: Absolutely not. And it's not my place to discourage. I mean, if someone comes to me and says, "I've tried this, I've tried this, I've tried this", and all these things make sense. "And I've gone to Europe, and I got nothing". I once said to someone at school, who sort of sang a song of woe. And I said, "Have you ever thought of doing something (else)?" So I guess I lied. I wasn't thinking of this at that time. It was the one person (to whom) I said, "Have you thought of doing something singer-adjacent, like being an artists manager, or being an artistic administrator? You look down the rosters of all the artist managers and all the artistic administrators - a huge number of them started out as singers. And he flipped. I took him to coffee. We sat and talked. He said, "I think I just have to go home and kill myself". That turned into a whole thing, because if you say that at a state-run institution, that triggers certain things. I called him that night and I said, "I need to know what you meant by that". He said, "What? I'm just a drama queen. Come on. You know that by now." I'm like, "I don't know that. If a student says that to a teacher, I have to report it. So what are you telling me?" He said, "Peter, I'm fine. I'll see you tomorrow in class, don't worry. And I thank you for suggesting that. I hadn't really thought of it, but it seems to me it might not be a bad idea". I don't actually know what he ended up doing. But also with that person, there were a lot of issues about sort of appearing on stage and doing stuff. He was very uncomfortable. You know, when you're in a class or in a workshop in a school situation, and they're 20 people sitting around looking at you and you're doing your thing, there are no secrets in that room. Everybody knows who's comfortable in their body, who's not; who's having vocal problems that day, who's not; who is sure of themselves as a person; who is still sort of all up in the air and insecure. Everybody can tell everything, and that's why you have to continually support a culture of empathy and understanding that we're all in this together. And even your teacher, as a teacher, is still going, "Okay, I hope this works", because there's no magic button. You're constantly trying. I'm married to a psychotherapist, and every now and then some of those tools come in handy. But that's really above my pay grade.

Marc A. Scorca: Sure. Did you ever wanna be a general director?

Peter Kazaras: I kind of thought about it for a hot minute; it did not go farther than that. I thought about being just an artistic administrator. By now my knees are like semi-shot, and I thought, "I can't afford to spend all my time on my knees begging for money". So, that's really not on the cards for me. I like the doing, one way or another. And I have to say, the very first time, I think it may have been that Norma...it was a piano dress. And I was taking notes on the singers, on their staging, on their acting, on even diction things. I was taking notes on some music things; I was taking notes about lighting; I was taking notes about set; I was taking notes about costume; I was taking notes about props; I was taking chorus. I mean, I was giving notes to assistants and I thought, "Boy, if anyone has ADHD, this is the perfect thing to just sharpen them right up". Because at its best, when I'm directing the way I feel good directing, I am in that flow, thanks to Mr. (Mihaly) Csikszentmihalyi. And I won't say that I don't know where the time is going, 'cause I'm always aware of it. But I really love it. And I have to say that was a difference, because as a singer, when you do your thing and then you're waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting, and then you do your thing and you're waiting and waiting and waiting. I believe Sutherland would do needlepoint or crochet something, and people do their little things. That didn't work for me. I had to figure out, would I be the kind of person who would be happy going someplace to do a small part; to be away from home for six weeks to do a role where I was doing something where I wasn't used that much? And ultimately that wouldn't work.

Marc A. Scorca: So Peter Kazaras's advice for happiness in a career in opera, what is it?

Peter Kazaras: It sounds trite, but find and be merciless with yourself. Find the thing that works for you, that when you do it, people go, "Wow". So, I mean, I never got more applause in my life than when I sang Lenski. I remember at Seattle, it was ridiculous. And I was like, "Whoa". (Except when I sang Loge). But when you sing the thing that you're supposed to be singing, you can tell, the people around you can tell and your audience can tell. And if that is something you feel you can continue to do, go and create a new dream. So if your dream has been to be Cavaradossi, which was never particularly mine, and you really are going to be the next Charlie (Charles) Anthony or Paul Franke or Anthony Laciura - accept that. And if you don't feel comfortable accepting that, that's okay. Go do something else. And it doesn't have to be, become a lawyer or become a real estate agent. It can be become something else in the theater world, or in the opera world. But it's a question of aligning your desires, with what is possible. I always say it's like if you're having a love affair, and people have been saying, "Ach, stop. We hate her/We hate him. Get rid of 'em". And you're like, "What do you mean? I think we're doing great". And people are like, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We're telling you, we're telling you". And it doesn't matter what other people say, but one morning you wake up and you say, "If that toothpaste tube is here when I get home from work, I'm gonna kill him (or her). That's when you know it's time to say "Ciao". And if you get to that point in singing, it's already too late, in a sense. You have to try to reinvent before you get to that point. So people have said to me, "You're actually the Kevin Bacon of opera, because you know people. I mean, you knew Ros (Rosalind) Elias and you knew people like that. And you also know John Corigliano and you know people who are young. So you've been around a lot of different circles of stuff. And I've had to invent myself a bunch of times. And each one of those has been, in a sense, scary, but also thrilling. I will share, and this is weird, and I don't think of it as bragging, 'cause it's just true. I never for a second doubted that I could have a career. I don't know where that came from, 'cause the outside evidence was not that. I got just enough positive evidence. The people who hired me when they first heard me said, "Yes, fine", were Leonard Bernstein, Eve Queler, Beverly Sills, James Levine, Daniel Barenboim, Lotfi Mansouri, Speight. That's it. But everybody else was like, "Who? What does he do? What is his niche?" And I would look at those other names and I think, "Yeah, well..."

Marc A. Scorca: What more do you need? That was an eight cylinder engine right there.

Peter Kazaras: It's sort of like, okay. It's not for everybody. Or as someone said, "Ethel Merman, you either love her or you hate her".

Marc A. Scorca: It's incredible. Peter Kazaras, it is so good to talk to you. We run into one another every so often in a theater lobby. It's so great to have a conversation, to really peel back all the layers of your great career. I'm so thankful for your time today, for the generosity of your responses. And all I can say is, I look forward to seeing you again and continuing this conversation.

Peter Kazaras: Absolutely, Marc, thank you so much.

Peter Kazaras: The main thing that I should have said, and I usually do say, is: when you are in a class, or a workshop, or a young artist program, look around that room, 'cause there are people in that room who you're gonna run into for the next 40 or 50 years.

Marc A. Scorca: For the rest of your life.

Peter Kazaras: And first of all, try not to make enemies. And second of all, try to find out what's good about all of them. I mean, we had people in the Young Artist Program in Seattle, who were hiring their peers, who had been in the program with them within five years of leaving the program.

Marc A. Scorca: I was a student at Amherst and I spent my winter term always at The Met, and Stephen was at Opera News, as Stephen Zinsser. He was Stephen Wadsworth as a director, Steven Zinsser at Opera News. And we'd go out and see what he was up to, in some hotel ballroom.

Peter Kazaras: So I will tell you to show you how worlds intersect. My Mom knew him. She died in '77. Because he left Harvard when I left. And also, his friend Emily Mann, who went on to fame and fortune as well, she was a year after me. But he had tried to craft some sort of major in languages, and they weren't buying it. And he wrote Rudolf Bing and said, "I wanna do what you do. Would you write a letter on my behalf?" And he said, "Well, frankly, I've only spoken German and English. I don't speak French, I don't speak Italian. So I don't think you need languages to be a general director". Fine. So Stephen left after two years. My mother had a fit. Jewish mother. She was like, "Do not leave; you need that degree. Please, please, please don't leave. Don't leave". It's like, "Hilda, I'll be okay". "No, no, you won't be okay. You'll always be able to come stay with us, but please don't leave. Don't leave. You must get your degree". And then she finally said, "Okay, the day you get a decent job, I'll eat my hat". He said, "Okay". And she said, "I mean a decent job, not waiting at a restaurant". The day he got hired by Opera News, I called her 'cause he'd been doing freelance stuff, but then he was actually hired. She called him immediately and said, "Do you have a knife and fork sufficient to cut through my hat, so I can start eating it?", which was pretty sweet.