Hadrian, New Operas and Staging - Interview with Russell Wustenberg, Assistant Director

This fall, the Canadian Opera Company will present the world premiere of the opera Hadrian by composer Rufus Wainwright and librettist Daniel MacIvor. The latest COC commissioned opera is highly anticipated (the last one goes back to The Golden Ass in 1999!) and will feature noteworthy Canadian artists, notably director Peter Hinton, soprano Ambur Braid, as Hadrian's wife, and tenor Ben Heppner, as Dinarchus. Heppner, host of Saturday Afternoon at the Opera on CBC Music, actually comes out of opera performance retirement for this special occasion! And of course two opera legends, American baritone Thomas Hampson in the title role, and Finnish soprano Karita Mattila as the former empress Plotina, bring international talent to the opera.

For this article, I really wanted to have a fresh look into not only the opera itself, but also into what creating and staging a new opera production entails, and how it contributes to the operatic repertoire. Luckily, a friend of mine, Russell Wustenberg, is working on the production as an Assistant Director, and he agreed to answer some questions that I had!

I first met Russell when he was working on (and singing in!) opera performances by Opera McGill, in Montreal

"I HAVE TRIED MANY POSITIONS IN OPERA, I FIND THAT DIRECTING IS ONE ELEMENT OF BEING AN OPERATIC ARTIST."
-Russell Wustenberg, Assistant Director, Hadrian

Russell Wustenberg (Matthew King Photography)

In brief, what are your main tasks on this production? 
As an Assistant Director, I keep a written record of what is decided in the rehearsals. We can then we use that book to restage that production, prepare understudies, and run review sessions parallel with technical rehearsals.

At what part of the process of staging the opera did you arrive?
I was brought in last December to work in designing the show, and that was followed by touch-up meetings to make sure that all the ideas of the show were cohesive. In August, I introduced the production to COC staff to clarify questions about the nature of the work. What is unique about this production is that I have been much more involved in the creative process than prior experiences.

What is the difference between staging a new opera and an already existing one?
Every production opens a series of doors. when you explore a new work you explore the first set of possibility and create the first path to how people interpret it, and will arrive potentially at a different result. With existing repertoire however, these paths become somewhat predictable; opera-goers have come to expect certain interpretations of the work.

Daniel MacIver and Rufus Wainwright have offered their thoughts on every level of the production, opening the conversation with the singers to develop their new roles. It is great for singers to give life to new characters and it's also a daunting task in many ways. I am grateful to have witnessed the development of these sensitively crafted roles. It is an immense joy to have worked on new operas so young in my career and I am happy to have been a part of the living tradition of opera today.

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What makes Hadrian an opera that will stand the test of time?
What is seducing about Hadrian as an opera is this amazing balance between the grand romantic quality of opera and the naturalistic virility of modern drama. This manifests itself in the form of the multiple dramatic pressures that are put on Hadrian as a character and the dilemma that he faces in his dying days, between all the accumulation of choices made in ruling Rome pitted against the legacy of him as a lover. And out of that springs a wild and audacious corroboration between Daniel and Rufus. When I imagine a future production, I can imagine each producer and director finding their own balance of political forces. And that sheer wealth of potential is going to make this something that people will want to explore.

Who in the cast impresses you the most? 
(Side note: I admit this is not a typical question, and Russell totally called me out on it!)
That is an impossible task, Catherine! I have been blessed with this amazing opportunity to be inspired by each member of this production. They are all charming and warm people. What has giving me great hope for future of opera however, is to have witnessed in particular soprano Ambur Braid, tenor Isaiah Bell and bass David Leigh, emerging singers of our generation, standing toe to toe with some of the greatest leading operatic talents, as equals.
It was also a difficult secret to keep that Ben Heppner was going to perform!

Why is it important to continue creating new operas?
With new opera goes the great passion and imagination of visionary art. Like Rufus, like Daniel, it requires an orchestra of a million bodies to produce an opera well. It is of immense importance to place these grand visions on stage because when we make new opera, we are telling the stories of today and not doing them through the lens of the past. It is a great accuity of insight into our own time.

(l-r) Composer Rufus Wainwright and librettist Daniel MacIvor at the first read-through of Hadrian's score, May 2018, photo: COC

What are the challenges that you face every day?
Directors need to direct the gaze of the audience and the actor into a particular interpretation. And so, in many ways, directing is the hardest thing that can expect to do because it is essentially to force people to look at something in a very specific way.

For this production, generically, the challenge is to manage all different viewpoints that are present in the room. Directorially, it's to find a way to manage the resources of what is on stage. With up to 68 bodies on stage, it's also pure traffic control. Other than that, it's not unlike any other production, and we are blessed to be at the country's leading opera company. It is unlike any other experience I've ever had.

What do you want to take away from this experience?
I think that for any of us in the moment, we don't know what will come back to us later in life. But what I hope when looking back into this particular moment in time, is that it will have opened up a new understanding of what it means to have lived in the ancient world (130 AD Rome) and in what ways that world influences our modern perception.

What should the audience know before experiencing the opera?
In order to approach the ancient world, they need to be aware that they are entering in a psychic reality that is completely foreign to our world. The world of Rome is one which is governed by beliefs and predictions that are lost in the sedimentary layers of history and when we look into the past, we look at is through the lenses of every era. So to view Antinous, Hadrian's lover, we can see him with our modern eyes as a statue, and also as through the lens of early Christrian writers who saw him as a clear indication of idolatry, and through that homosexuality as a form of sin. As Hadrian's own contemporaries, Antinous was a political threat because of his proximity to the most powerful man in the ancient world.

What we ask is to approach this telling for its own merits and to allow the necessary freedom for this story to come from ancient time yet to allow us to react as the modern individuals that we are.

(l-r) David Leigh (Turbo), Ambur Braid (Sabina) and Thomas Hampson (Hadrian) in rehearsal for the Canadian Opera Company's Hadrian on September 14, 2018, photo: Gaetz Photography

Hadrian, by composer Rufus Wainwright and librettist Daniel MacIvor opens on October 13, and performances run through October 27.
Under 30? You can get tickets at only 22$! And while the ticket buyer must be under 30, you can bring a guest of any age at that same price!