My sincere thanks go to Marina Vecci, the Artistic Administrator of the company for translating my questions and his thoughts.

While setting up to record our conversation, the director mentioned being a bit tired . . . . .


Bruce Duffie:   What can we do to convince the audience that directing is a tiring business?

Giulio Chazalettes:   Nothing can be done to convince them.  Behind every activity, there is labor and hard work, and it would be too bad if there wasn’t.  The skill is not to show that there is hard work behind things, and that everything appears at its most natural.

BD:   Are we really living in the age of the director?

Chazalettes:   Evidently, yes, as there are so many of them.

BD:   Is that a good thing?

Chazalettes:   It depends on who is the director.  Sometimes it’s not such a good thing that this is the age of the stage director, and sometimes it is really a wonderful thing.  The stage director is great when he makes apparent what the motivation of the music is.

BD:   Do you get all your inspiration from the music, or is some from the stage directions?

Chazalettes:   Only the music.

BD:   I understand you are a composer yourself?

Chazalettes:   I studied composition in Florence.

BD:   Does this make you a better operatic director?

Chazalettes:   Only that it does make me know so much better the music.  But of course, the business of knowing the music better is a very long and involved matter.  The knowledge of knowing music is something purely physical, so it doesn’t mean much because the physical transcribing of music is only the concrete representation of what is behind the notation.  It is just the expression of something that is spiritual, and so it really belongs to the soul.

BD:   Without getting into any one specific opera, are there some that simply cannot be directed adequately?

Chazalettes:   There are those operas that are not inspired because they deal with music that is abstract.  Where there is no inspiration, there cannot be any communication.  Where there is no inspiration, there is no life, and therefore they cannot be communicated.

BD:   Are operas real people, or are they characters performing?

Chazalettes:   In good operas they are real people.

BD:   You also work with some sixteenth-century operas...

Chazalettes:   Yes, Monteverdi.

BD:   Is it different bringing a sixteenth-century opera to the stage, than a nineteenth- or twentieth-century opera?

Chazalettes:   It always depends on whether the music has been inspired or not.  Man is eternal in eternity, and is the same throughout all ages.  Naturally this eternity is expressed with different languages, but the basis for this is humanity.  The suffering of Penelope is the same of Juliet.

BD:   Is it the same as the suffering of Lulu?

Chazalettes:   It is the soul that suffers, and the soul is eternal.

BD:   You talk about suffering, but you also do comic operas.  Is there suffering in comic operas?

Chazalettes:   No, there’s no suffering in comic operas, just enjoyment.

BD:   Is general, is opera art or is opera entertainment?

Chazalettes:   Opera is art, and if it then also becomes enjoyment, it’s something that comes after, and is secondary.

BD:   What do you expect from the public?

Chazalettes:   It’s difficult for me to say, but what I hope is that the audience can be brought into this atmosphere where everybody is involved in creating the performance, and is bringing it to the audience.  The audience should be able to suffer with, or to enjoy themselves with what is going on on the stage.

BD:   How closely do you work with the scenic designers?  [News item with photo of his regular designer Ulisse Santicchi is shown at right.]

Chazalettes:   Very closely in my case.  I work very closely with them because what appears on the set is the physical representation of the situation.

BD:   Who comes up with the ideas?  Is it you or the designer?

Chazalettes:   There’s a bit of both together.

BD:   How long does it take to evolve a concept?

Chazalettes:   It depends.  Sometimes it’s a desperate situation and it doesn’t work out.  In other cases, it just works out right away.

BD:   Have you ever worked in a set that you don’t agree with?

Chazalettes:   No.

BD:   How do you decide which operas you will direct, and which operas you will not work on?

Chazalettes:   Sometimes one has to accept situations that are not ideal.  But what is curious is that sometimes, when you are doing an opera that you don’t like particularly, you put such desperation and aggressiveness in preparing it that they come out better than those that you really like!  It’s as though it is a case of a desperate love, like for instance Bellini’s The Capulets and the Montagues.

BD:   Is this not a good opera?

Chazalettes:   So-so!  [Laughter]

BD:   Then why do we do it?  Is it only a vocal exercise?

Chazalettes:   No, it needs to be very well-prepared, and studied and understood musical note by musical note, so that it can be represented in a dramatic way.  Otherwise, it becomes very boring and purely a vocal exercise.

BD:   Can the music be over-dissected?

Chazalettes:   It needs to be analyzed with a human kind of meter, so that every note, every pause, every breath all become convincingly human in approach.  Of course, it is very difficult to find an interpreter who is capable of doing this kind of work.

BD:   What do you do when you find singers who are incapable of interpreting?

Chazalettes:   That becomes desperation!  [Much laughter]

BD:   Do you direct differently when you know the audience is going to understand the language?  Do you direct Italian opera differently in Italy than in America?

Chazalettes:   When I go to listen to opera in my own language in Italian, I understand very little of what is sung.  In opera, there are words that go beyond words.  There are things you don’t necessarily need to understand.

BD:   Do you not encourage the singers to work on their diction?

Chazalettes:   I do, especially in certain situations, or operas in which the words and the music are very much tied together, or are dependent on each other.

BD:   Do you ever do any operas in translation?

Chazalettes:   Yes, but they are terrible!  I’ve done Werther both in Italian and French, and it’s terrible in Italian.

BD:   Why?

Chazalettes:   Most translations are terrible because the composer composes what the word actually sounds like.  The translator is not an artist in most cases, and does not have much feeling for the sound of the word.  I also did Jenůfa in Italian, and it was really ugly.  Just terrible!

BD:   Then if you are asked to do an opera that you know is going to be in translation, do you turn it down?

Chazalettes:   No, because I really like Jenůfa a lot.  I’ve done the occasional one in translation, but then it turned out not to be so good.  I changed a lot of things in the translation, but it didn’t do the job completely.

BD:   You’re doing this opera with supertitles here.  Does that enter into your direction at all?

Chazalettes:   They are just terrible!  They are not a good thing.  Even though I haven’t experienced them, just the whole idea is terrible!

BD:   [Surprised]  Why???  Will it not bring the opera closer to the public?

Chazalettes:   No, no, because you can’t look in all directions, to read the words and see the staging.  You just have to prepare yourself and then go to the opera.

BD:   Where did you do the Werther?  [Rehearsal photo shown at left]

Chazalettes:   At La Scala and Palermo in French, and then in Italian at Trieste.

BD:   Who was singing?

Chazalettes:   Alfredo Kraus did both the Italian and the French performances.

BD:   At La Scala, was it Elena Obraztsova?

Chazalettes:   Yes.

BD:   Tell me about that production.

Chazalettes:   It was a stupendous experience.

BD:   Was there one single thing that made it a wonderful experience, or was it just the totality?

Chazalettes:   It was all together, and it was totally a wonderful experience.  Werther is an opera that I have loved since I was a child, and so it was a miraculous moment to direct it.  In fact, it was such a success like they hadn’t seen since the years of Maria Callas at La Scala.

BD:   Does the character of Werther really speak to the twentieth-century audience?

Chazalettes:   Apparently, and according to the reactions of the audience, evidently it speaks a lot more to them than it did in the century before!  Even the stage crew were crying during the performance.

BD:   Is that a success for you when the audience has been moved to tears?

Chazalettes:   Yes, because it means that something has happened between the stage and the audience.

BD:   Werther is the principal character, and Charlotte is the secondary.  Is there anything you can do to add life to Albert and Sophie?

Chazalettes:   That they have a life of their own, and I just try to pull out what they have inside.  That production had created a kind of magic and energy, and it worked out for everybody.

BD:   Does opera belong on television?

Chazalettes:   No!  It depends on the television producer.  There’s a wonderful American director who did the television production of Madam Butterfly from Verona.  This is Brian Large, and he also did our Faust.  These were wonderful!  I think he’s a very good director, and it all worked out very well.  The Butterfly was televised with my direction, and with Brian Large it was really a continuation of my work.  The TV direction was truly a direction.  [Video shown below-right.]

BD:   Did you actually work together, or did it just happen that it came together?

Chazalettes:   No, we didn’t work together.  He just came and looked at the stage production, and understood everything.  He then did his own direction for the TV.

BD:   Could you ever work that way with a scenic designer?

Chazalettes:   It’s not quite the same thing, because Brian Large was sold a finished product.  It was something that already existed, and then he took it from there.  When you are creating a new production, you have to start from scratch, and you both have to discuss what’s going to happen, and what your concepts are.

BD:   Have you ever been plopped down where the stage picture has already been built, and then you have to work with it?

Chazalettes:   Thankfully, it only happened once.  The theater where I was working couldn’t put in this one particular production, so they had to resort to something they already had.  I tried to arrange or modify that one a little bit, but it was not a good experience, and I don’t wish to repeat such a thing!  [Laughter]

BD:   [With mock horror]  Stage directing is more than just pushing people around on a stage???

Chazalettes:   I hope so!  [All laugh]

BD:   Do you ever get into conflict with the singers who don’t want to do what you ask?  And if so, how do you convince them to come around to your ideas?

Chazalettes:   Perhaps in just one percent where this has happened.  It’s very rare.

BD:   Do you take into account the technical problems of actual singing when you’re asking people to do certain things?

Chazalettes:   Very much so.

BD:   I’ve heard a number of singers complaining that the director doesn’t know what they’re doing when they ask them for certain actions.  Can I take it that you’re more sympathetic?

Chazalettes:   There are times in which I demand difficult things from the singers, but I always pay attention to the problems of singing, and what they have to sing at any given moment.

BD:   You work closely with the scenic designer.  Do you also work closely with the conductor?

Chazalettes:   It is always much more difficult than with the scenic designer, because usually they’re not in the same place.  What you do is you find each other at the beginning of rehearsals.  But I’ve never had any problems with conductors so far.  Perhaps with one or two, but it was a case where those conductors were just starting out, and they really didn’t know what was happening.  [Laughs]

BD:   Has a conductor ever surprised you by going too slow or too fast?

Chazalettes:   I get somewhat cross with those conductors who are attracted to music as if it were something that is physical.  There are those who go fast or go slow, but without knowing why they go fast or slow.  The terms

BD:   Let me ask about The Love for Three Oranges.  Was that a special work for you to direct?

Chazalettes:   This was indeed very special for me.  It was my first encounter with America, and it was one of my first exalting encounters.  It meant so much to me that when I was on my way back to Italy, I thought that if the plane were to fall out of the sky, and I would die happy because I have experienced my most ideal working situation, my ideal encounter, my ideal theater.  If this had happened, I would have been perfectly happy.  Since then, I have experienced a great deal of nostalgia and homesickness for America.  

BD:   Do you direct straight plays as well as opera?

Chazalettes:   No, only opera.  I would otherwise feel the lack of music in straight theater.

BD:   How do we get more people to come to the opera?

Chazalettes:   I wouldn’t know about that!  Perhaps they could be injected with some musical desire in chemical form!  [Much laughter]

BD:   Have you done some world premiere operas?

Chazalettes:   Yes, unfortunately!  [More laughter]

BD:   Is doing that more difficult than recreating an established opera?

Chazalettes:   Perhaps it’s more amusing to start from scratch and do something new, but it all depends on whether this new opera is worthwhile or not!

BD:   So, we’re back to the inspiration again?

Chazalettes:   Yes, basically.  It’s the only important thing.

BD:   Where is opera going today?

Chazalettes:   Gosh!  I have no idea!

BD:   Do you worry about the future of opera?

Chazalettes:   No, I never worry about that kind of thing.  It’s something that will change, but won’t die or disappear.

BD:   Do the dimensions of the theater affect the way you direct?

Chazalettes:   I did, in fact, produce the most intimate of operas, Madam Butterfly, in Verona which seats about 20,000 people!  It all has to do with making a very large space into a very intimate space.

BD:   Is there any way that a youngster can learn to be a stage director, or do they just have to do it and learn by experimentation?

Chazalettes:   I don’t know.  I think one needs to do something of it oneself before they can communicate it to others.  So what is most necessary in order to become a stage director, is to have been part of the theater, not from the audience side, but from the acting side.  Perhaps the most important experience for somebody who wants to become a stage director is having oneself been trained as an actor, in order to understand what is involved in bringing the experience of a play or an opera out to an audience.

BD:   What’s the role of the critic?

Chazalettes:   It’s a very difficult role, because the critic, in theory, should be above the composer, above the artist, and above the stage director in order to judge them more than all of those people.  How can a critic judge if he has not had any experience of either composing, singing, directing, or acting?  I cannot judge the work of an engineer because I am not an engineer, and I don’t understand anything about engineering.  Being a critic should be one of those difficult and responsible jobs, and the role of the critic has, above all, a moral responsibility.  It’s a very delicate role and responsibility.

BD:   Can opera get over-rehearsed?  [Vis-à-vis the production shown at left, see my interviews with Nicolai Ghiaurov, and Piero Cappuccilli.]

Chazalettes:   Yes, and if it gets over-rehearsed (which does happen), then it becomes very mechanical, and it should be avoided.

BD:   Is it part of your responsibility to ensure that the sixth, and the eighth, and the twenty-first, and the thirty-fifth performance of the work will be as fresh as the first?

Chazalettes:   If you are present in the theater throughout all the performances, then it would be.  But since custom has it that the director will leave after the opening performance, it cannot be my responsibility as to what follows with the production.  It should then become the responsibility of the resident stage director, who goes to all performances.  He sits in the audience and watches, and then goes to the singers involved with notes and recommendations on what to do.  That should be the case.  It has to be like that.

BD:   Is it frustrating for you to give birth to the production, and then have to leave?

Chazalettes:   Oh yes, very much so.  Sometimes you have to rush right away after the opening, and you leave part of your heart behind.  Sometimes it’s even hard to know and realize that you have done everything for a certain production.  It’s been so fast and I’ve left so quickly.

BD:   When you’re on the plane going back, do you think you should have done this or that, or moved them this way or that way?

Chazalettes:   [Laughs]  Yes, that happens all the time!

BD:   You don’t send a cable back saying to change this placement?

Chazalettes:   No, that doesn’t happen.

BD:   Have you ever come back later in a run to see one of the productions that you’ve directed?

Chazalettes:   Yes I have, and I’ve seen something totally different than what I had done!  It was not visually different, but they were empty inside, and with the inspiration lacking, the tension was lacking.

BD:   You wanted to give them a little kick?

Chazalettes:   Yes, a big kick!  [Much laughter]

This conversation was recorded in a dressing room backstage at the Civic Opera House in Chicago on December 4, 1985.  Portions were broadcast on WNIB a few days later to promote the performances.  This transcription was made in 2025, and posted on this website at that time.  My thanks to Marina Vecci, Artistic Administrator of Lyric Opera for translating during the interview.  Also, my thanks to British soprano Una Barry for her help in preparing this website presentation.

To see a full list (with links) of interviews which have been transcribed and posted on this website, click here.  To read my thoughts on editing these interviews for print, as well as a few other interesting observations, click here.

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Award - winning broadcaster Bruce Duffie was with WNIB, Classical 97 in Chicago from 1975 until its final moment as a classical station in February of 2001.  His interviews have also appeared in various magazines and journals since 1980, and he now continues his broadcast series on WNUR-FM, as well as on Contemporary Classical Internet Radio.