Making sense of music and text with Neil Armfield
Allerta! catches up with Neil Armfield as he prepares for the opening of Bliss.
Allerta!: Staging a brand-new work must be very different from staging a work that has a production history?
Neil Armfield: I don’t think my approach to directing a new work is different from my approach to directing an existing work. You do every work as if it’s the first time you’re doing it. It’s always about trying to make sense of the music and the text in an interesting way.
A: Is it difficult to familiarise yourself with a score that has never been recorded?
NA: That’s the really hard part. I have musical instincts but I don’t read a score very well at all. And rhythmically I’m terrible. [laughs] With a new score you don’t really have the opportunity, before the start of rehearsals, to immerse yourself in the work in the way that you can when it’s known repertoire.
A: How do you deal with that?
NA: You learn it as well as you can, and you listen very hard during workshops. You also allow for invention during rehearsals.
A: What sort of issues did you and Brett Dean iron out in the lead-up to the rehearsal period?
NA: Issues of clarity. I didn’t want a divided stage, or lots of things happening simultaneously, because I believe that you always need clarity of vision. Yet where too much is being assumed about audience knowledge (as sometimes happens in adaptations), you may put in too little detail.
A: So how does one find a balance?
NA: You try to have innocent ears.
A: How did interaction with Amanda Holden influence your approach to the piece?
NA: Once Amanda had a draft, the three of us started working together. I suppose I helped with the “Australianness” of it all, and with the humour. Amanda had a great sense of the geometry of the work, and the singability of the words.
A: Were you involved in casting?
NA: Yes, and so was Brett. [The role of] Harry Joy was always conceived of for Peter [Coleman-Wright], with whom I’d worked a few times over the years. I didn’t know Merlyn, but Brett was very sure that she would be terrific as Betty.
A: Do you usually have a say in casting an opera?
NA: More and more. I’m about to do my fourth production in Houston, second production in Chicago, third production in Toronto, and you get to know the singers working for these companies. The voice has to come first, but good general directors will always consult with the director as well.
A: Have you ever had bad experiences with casting?
NA: I’ve had the experience of feeling that I was working with the wrong person for the role yes, a couple of times. You just make the best of it.
A: You obviously enjoy directing 20th century repertoire?
NA: I love the psycho-sexual energy in Britten and Janáček, which is perhaps more complicated than that of the great 19th-century works. I’ve done four Brittens and four Janáček’s, and I’d love to do more – once I get the rhythm I enjoy going further into a composer’s repertoire. I’d love to do another Alan John too.
A: Singers say that you bring out the best in them, despite the fact that you never dictate. How do you do that?
NA: I don’t have preconceived ideas of how a scene should play. I have a sense of what the scene is about, which I assume the singers do as well. I quite like that we all start in the room at the same point, with the same kind of ignorance of where it might go, and it’s only by allowing the singers to start playing that you’ll sense a shape happening, and you start to build on that shape.
A: You’re obviously not a control freak.
NA: Oh no, I think every director is a control freak! But I can’t work it out before, it doesn’t make any sense to me, it’s very boring. Because it’s only my imagination of what it is. Your role as director is to help singers to open up, use their own imaginations, and sometimes clichés will come in straightaway, and all you can say is, don’t do anything and let’s see what starts to grow. Because you can do far too much, especially in opera. [laughs]
A: Have you ever had a personality clash with an artist?
NA: Uh-huh.
A: How do you deal with that?
NA: Just try to get out of their way, really. It’s only happened…twice. [laughs]. In both instances it was in revivals of productions that I’d done, and you could fall back on saying, “Look, this is the production”. But that’s not very creative. You aim to tailor the moment to the particular needs of a singer.
A: What are the characteristics of your ideal singer?
NA: Someone who has a great voice, and a great, playful imagination, someone who can free their body to behave without giving the appearance of counting. [smiles]. They’re quite miraculous, those people.
A: How did you choose the Bliss creative team?
NA: You cast designers in the same way that you cast performers, I find. It’s about what you think their strengths are or might be, and if it’s a set designer, how their structural imagination works.
A: Did you meet with Peter Carey to discuss Bliss?
NA: I’ve known Peter for years, but I didn’t meet with him for this project.
A: What’s the attraction of directing opera?
NA: Opera can connect with the senses in a way that is bigger and fuller and deeper than spoken theatre. A play can be a fabulous thing in its own way, but an opera allows [for] all the colours of the orchestra, and all the colours of the human voice, [to come into play] in a very rich and overwhelming way. That’s what the attraction is.