Most of the interviews I have done are with musicians who are visible to the audience during their performances.  I have also met a few directors and managers, and even a few critics.  In 1998, it was suggested to me that I do a series of programs featuring some of the unsung heroes who live and work backstage at Lyric Opera of Chicago.  They are truly the ones who keep the shows running, and provide the performers with what they need in order to bring each work to life.

As can be seen from the advertisement shown below-right, the ten programs gave a well-rounded view of these important people.  The series ran on WNIB, Classical 97, from mid-October through mid-December of 1998, and was repeated in early-January through mid-March of the following year.  It was a fine success, and brought many positive comments from listeners.

Most of these interviews have been transcribed and posted on this website.  This one, with two administrators, and another with two stage managers complete the series.  It is obvious from this conversation that these two women work well together, and their enthusiasm shows just how much they loved their jobs and looked forward to every situation.

Josie Campbell retired in 2018 after more than 34 years with the company.  My other guest on this page, Marina Vecci, who retired in 2013, has actually been seen on quite a few of my previous interviews.  She provided the translation for Italian performers who required this service . . . . .


Bruce Duffie:   You’ve been on the radio with me many times!

Marina Vecci:   Yes, but not with my own words; with other people’s words, as interpreter.

BD:   Do you like interpreting for the backstage people, to keep everything running?

Vecci:   Yes, you could say that.  Some of our job is that we pass information.  We interpret it, and we make it understood hopefully by most.  This is one way of looking at our job, but I would say the most important one is communicating to all kinds of people.

BD:   What exactly is your title?  [Vis-à-vis the program announcement shown at right, see my interviews with William Mason, Drew Landmesser, Duane Schuler, Bruno Bartoletti, Thomas Gilbert, Hugh Pruett, Stan Dufford, and Donald Palumbo.]

Vecci:   My title is Production Administrator, which covers a multitude of sins, among which is being head of the rehearsal department.  But Josie and I are both heading this.  Mine is just a seniority title as far as I can see.

Josie Campbell:   When there’s a particularly prickly problem, I can say that she’s the head, and give it over to her.  [Much laughter]

BD:   So, you two really do work in tandem?

Vecci:   Yes, very much so.

Campbell:   Oh, yes.  My title is Artistic Services Coordinator, so I’m a little more on the artistic administration side than Marina, who is on the production administration side.  She has more to do with contact with the artists, and artistic planning, but not so much the execution of the artistic plans with regard to contract fulfillment, and things like that.  Marina deals more with the physical production.

Vecci:   It’s more like the costumes and sets.

BD:   Is it fun dealing with all of these people who come in and expect everything done yesterday?

Campbell:   Yes, it’s fun.

Vecci:   [Laughs]  Yes, it is fun, and it is always new.  Like Josie, I’ve done this job for a very long time, and in a sense, it is always the same old thing.  There is a new season every year, but there’s always a new group of people, or a returning group of people that we had fun with in the past.  There’s always a new adventure, so we try to get to that new adventure part of it and enjoy it every time.  It might be frustrating at times, and you seem to have the same problems all the time.  But in trying to solve them, you find the newness of them, and the new challenge.

BD:   You’re working backstage.  Do you work in coordination with the stage manager and the lighting designer, or do you mostly just work with the artists and personnel?

Campbell:   We work in coordination with absolutely all the backstage groups.  We’re a little bit like the dot in the center of a starburst.  Everything goes out from us, and it happens to come back to us as well.  As Marina was saying before with the respect to communicating, information goes out from us, and information comes in to us.  Then it’s filtered through us, and goes back out again.  It’s very important to stay coordinated with the production staff, that is the stage managers, who are trying to coordinate the desires of the director, and also the music staff which is trying to coordinate as best they can the desires of the conductor, and also the singers.  So, it’s really a web, and it

s quite complicated.

BD:   But you’re able to hold it all together?

Campbell:   We hope to, and we try to.  Everyone does.

BD:   What do you do when it starts to fall apart?

Campbell:   [Looking at her cohort]  Marina?!  [Much laughter]

Vecci:   We panic a bit, but then we get calm, and we try to see where we went wrong (if we did).  Then we trace the steps, and try to put it back together, and we do.  We’ve seen a lot of scenarios in which things have happened, so we try to go back to what happened the last time in the same situation, and see what we did, and we try to do the same thing, because we do have a lot of little bits of panicky situations that happen.  We have to deal both with the inside opera world, and the outside during a performance.  Things happen, like a cloud in the house that might affect us a bit, or like some people getting sick.  Then we just have to do something about that, too.

BD:   It sounds like much of your job is problem-solving.

Vecci:   Yes, it is a bit of that.

BD:   Is much of it anticipating the problems so they don’t come up?

Vecci:   There are some irrational parts, but it’s an endlessly fascinating process.

Campbell:   I can’t remember ever being bored here.  There are longs stretches of quiet backstage, let’s not be deceived.  There are nights when things go awfully well...  [All laugh]

BD:   Are those nice times to be able to sit and just soak it all in?

Campbell:   Yes.

Vecci:   That’s so nice.

Campbell:   But one mustn’t get complacent.  One has to be alert to the simmering events.

BD:   You’re always on call?

Campbell:   If we are on the premises, we are certainly on call.

Vecci:   [Laughs]  We always try to see what’s going to happen next.

BD:   I would assume that you look back on all of these problems which have been solved as fun problems, rather than disasters.

Vecci:   Yes, because if something has happened that was disturbing, or wrong, or very difficult, a while after you’ve solved it, or if someone else has solved it, you look back at it and you smile... not immediately after it, but...  [Laughs]

Campbell:   There are very few things that I can think of that have been disasters.  Even the things that were horrific at the time, that we felt were so horrible, we couldn’t look back and say it was *that* horrible.

BD:   That’s very comforting.

Vecci:   Maybe it was a close call, or something interesting like that.  We can look back and enjoy the thought, and the adventure that happened.

BD:   You both may see the principal singers and the secondary singers in a little different light than the stage managers and even the directors, because they’re working so hard out there getting everything done.  You see them perhaps in a more relaxed situation just before they’re going on, or in a more tense situation when they’re just arriving at the theater.  How have singers changed over the years that you’ve been watching them, if at all?  Are they becoming more neurotic or less neurotic, more friendly or less friendly, or is there a way of generalizing because each one is an individual?

Vecci:   I would say that each one is an individual, and you can’t really generalize other than the most obvious things.  You can say that there may be a general barrier-like defensiveness when someone arrives for the first time in a new place, and therefore a little bit of an aura as they come in and they approach us because they don’t know what to expect.  I’ve always found from the moment that they know that we are there for them, and see that we will do anything we can to help out and be of service, they relax and become very friendly, and very nice, and just absolutely a pleasure to deal with.  For the most part, for the ninety-nine percent of them, it’s just a pleasure.  It’s one of the things that makes this job great, and also to see this little bit of a transformation.  I’m not saying that everybody comes in being guarded and defensive, not at all.  But if could make a generalization, that is it.
 
BD:   They wonder what they’re going to find?

Vecci:   Exactly.

Campbell:   Yes.  They don’t necessarily know what to expect.

Vecci:   Then comes the moment that they realize we’re really trying to help.  This is a very friendly house, and it comes from the top.  It is always that we’re doing anything we can to help the singer to settle in, and to relax, and to be comfortable with the environment.

Campbell:   I always say that if we’re going to ask them to come to Chicago in January, we’ve got to treat them well.  [Laughter]

Vecci:   Yes, it does help.  We try very hard to make them feel comfortable, and they respond very well.

Campbell:   They need a welcoming environment.  We’re right inside the stage door, so we’re the first thing they see the first time they ever come to the theater.

Vecci:   Whether they like it or not!  [Much laughter]

Campbell:   But we’re a presence there whatever that presence is interpreted as being.

BD:   So, you’ve got to establish a trust right away?

Campbell:   We try to, yes.  We certainly do, and, generally speaking, they very much like it that there is a center right there as they come in the door where they can communicate everything they need to, and get all their mail, and find out what they need to find out.

Vecci:   They find their schedule, ask the questions, and do all of that stuff.

Campbell:   The information we provide for them is everything from the important bits

BD:   Did you get to go out into the house to listen?

Vecci:   We have a PA system, so we heard some of it.

Campbell:   If we’re running an errand out to the house, we get a chance to hear it there.  Or if we have a few minutes between things, we run out and listen a bit.  I like to do that.  It’s important to hear what it sounds like out there.

Vecci:   It’s one of the bonuses of our job that you can sneak out there and listen to these things....

Campbell:   ...or stride boldly out and listen!

BD:   Are there ever times when you get to go out and listen to an entire performance?

Campbell:   Yes, and it’s important to do that too, because a performance itself is a situation that’s sort of apart.  There are certain things that happen only in a performance.  The dynamic is in the energy, and that is different than in any rehearsal.  It’s important for us to experience that.

Vecci:   After working here, I don’t think I can ever again go to the opera as a spectator.  I used to go before I was in this job, but now I always worry about something.  [Laughs]  I don’t know why.  Nothing bad ever happens, but it’s just that feeling.

Campbell:   Like why didn’t that torch go on?

Vecci:   Yes, or whether she will come in on time or not.  We have these doors that open, and someone is supposed to be there, and maybe they will not.  I always worry about these things when I watch.  I don’t know why I should worry about those things.

BD:   Is this just when you are here at Lyric, or also when you go to other theaters?

Vecci:   It

s messy!

Campbell:   A lot of extra make-up people, and ends up being more work for the cleaning crew.  It’s all a domino effect.  La Gioconda has children’s chorus, ballet, chorus, extra chorus, lots of principals, fair number of supers, and it’s a big costume and wig show.  So, there is just more to coordinate.

BD:   Is there more congestion backstage?

Campbell:   Yes, more congestion.

BD:   I would assume though that something such as Die Meistersinger, with its huge cast and chorus, might be easier than something with a lot of supers, where you have people who are not necessarily involved in it day to day.  [The 1977 production of Meistersinger is shown below-left.  See my interviews with Ferdinand Leitner, and Nathaniel Merrill.  Also in the cast (among others) were Pilar Lorengar, William Johns, Gwynne Howell, Kenneth Riegel, Frank Little, and William Powers.]

Vecci:   Now we are having the satiation in which supers have become so prevalent and integral to the show, that somehow you have a lot of supers no matter what you do.  So they’re really part of the cast.  It has become much more like that.  This is one transformation.

Campbell:   They are more seasoned and more reliable.

Vecci:   Yes.  They’re present more at rehearsals, and therefore they get more integrated in the whole situation.  They are really more than people that used to just carry the proverbial spear in and out.

BD:   [With a wink]  You don’t long for the days when you went out into the street and paid someone $1 to carry a spear across the stage?

Vecci:   [Laughs]  It was a bit more like that in the past when I started working here.  Now the supers are more like actors.  They’re more involved, and they all show a deeper understanding as far as I can tell, which is a very good thing.  The shows are more interesting as a spectacle from a visual and dramatic point of view, so this is good.  [See my interview with Ken Recu, Captain of the Supers at Lyric Opera 1977-83.]

BD:   Are you able to have some influence on ideas, or repertoire, or production, or anything at all, or are you just making sure everything gets done correctly?

Campbell:   It’s mostly making sure that the plan is implemented.  Sometimes, when we’ve had emergencies with last minute cancellations, or last minute replacements, we’ve had some input into who would be good, but this was just sort of brainstorming at the last minute as to who might be available, and ready, and prepared, and handy for that sort of thing.

BD:   Do you help make the schedule?

Campbell:   We implement the schedule as it’s made by the production manager, who is the point person for that.

BD:   Do you look at the schedule and say something can’t work because of such and such?

Campbell:   Yes.  If we something that can’t work, we can make minor changes to it, or if things occur at the last minute.

Vecci:   Yes, a last minute change because someone disappears...

Campbell:   ...or they’ve made more progress with a scene than they anticipated, so they have decided not to do that scene tomorrow after all.  They’ll do other scenes, and we just change it.  The thing about implementing the schedule is that it’s almost constantly changing.

BD:   As they say, the only constant is change.

Campbell:   Yes.

Vecci:   Yes, but we mostly just implement the schedule, and disseminate the information regarding the schedule to everybody who needs to have it.

Campbell:   In a relentless fashion.

Vecci:   [Laughs]  In a relentless fashion, yes.  We leave no stone unturned to reach the person or persons, and tell them where they should be and at what time the following day.

© 1998 Bruce Duffie

This conversation was recorded at the Civic Opera House in Chicago on September 18, 1998.  Portions were broadcast on WNIB the following December, and again in March of 1999.  This transcription was made in 2025, and posted on this website at that time.  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 continued his broadcast series on WNUR-FM, as well as on Contemporary Classical Internet Radio.