New York, 24/11/2015​

Ben Woodward is undoubtedly part of the future.  He is a musician that will make even the most difficult performance happen on minimal budgets with two such Wagner Ring Cycles under his organisational and conducting belt, among many other things.  Founder of Fulham Opera, he has successfully taken the few financial tools given to him and started what can only be characterised as a phenomenon, inspiring his coworkers to risk with him in even the most outrageous of endeavours.  Ben belongs to that generation of musicians that has decided to take back the scepter of theatre leadership from non musical "bosses" and is one of the people who is paving the way in London for a new music industry.
By @kassandra_dimopoulou_official


​

How did you decide to become a musical director?
Becoming a Musical Director sort of happened at University.  I was organ scholar at Trinity College Cambridge, and in my second year I was just expected to be able to conduct a choir.  They were such a good choir that had I not have been able to conduct, they’d have made a nice sound anyway, but it turned out I found my feet rather quickly.  In my final year I mounted a Bach B Minor Mass, two of the soloists of which - Iestyn Davies and Andrew Tortise – have now gone on to be international opera stars.  Making music happen, from the ground up, booking the people I wanted to work with, often having to find the financial backers, and then actually conducting the performances has always just been one of those things I do.  In my second year in the U.S., I did a similar thing with the Bach St John Passion;  putting it on from scratch, and again, one of the soloists from that – Liam Bonner – has been seen as Guglielmo (Cosi fan tutte) at E.N.O. as well as dozens of other baritone roles across the world. Founding Fulham Opera has been a much bigger operation than just doing these oratorio concerts, but the principles are the same, and being able to conduct the final musical results make all of the rest of the work worthwhile.



How did Fulham Opera form?
I returned to the UK from a 5 year stay in the US in 2007, got a church job as organist at St John’s Fulham and pretty shortly afterwards started making operas happen in the church.  This included La Cenerentola with a group called Tell Tale Opera and then Amahl and the Night Visitors with a group which worked off the back of the church’s music programme.  It became very quickly obvious that if opera in the church were to continue, then it needed to work as a separate entity to the church.  After the Amahl performance, the gentleman playing Melchior - the middle King - said to me the immortal words “I wanna be Alberich, let’s do Rheingold”.  This is not the kind of thing you can say to me and expect it not to happen.  Fulham Opera was formed and in August 2011 we did our Rheingold.  To our great surprise, it was a huge hit and rather laid down a gauntlet for us to continue with the Ring, as well as other projects over the past 4 years including Tosca, Il Trittico, Falstaff and now Der Fliegender Hollaender.



What is your favourite work?
It’s difficult to come up with a specific “favourite” work: I enjoy so many pieces for different reasons, some of them quite personal reasons because I had a good time working on them.  Most recently, Fulham Opera’s production of Verdi’s Falstaff  has put itself squarely at the top of my list of desert island discs.  Conducting the fugue at the end is so joyous, as indeed is the whole work.  I similarly enjoy Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, because in 2012 I had such a nice time conducting it. I’d certainly take the Ring to my desert island, but I don’t know how often it would get played!  Of the Ring operas, I most enjoyed Siegfried, partly because I think the third act is the strongest music in the cycle, but also because the experience of putting it on in 2013 was extremely positive.   Salome is deliciously macabre and fun to conduct, Dialogues des Carmelites is profoundly emotional.  And this list doesn’t include the major Bach works, which I’m desperate to find an opportunity to do again.



You have recently put on the entire “Ring Cycle” by R. Wagner.  Do you have a special connection with the composer?
The more I read about Richard Wagner the more sure I am that I wouldn’t invite him to my dinner party!  He was - and this is all well-documented - a bigot, a racist and a womaniser.  He borrowed money and fled from his debts and generally caused trouble wherever he went!  He was, however, quite an extraordinarily talented composer, and - incredibly irritatingly - his obnoxious megalomaniacal vision is actually backed up by his production of some of the most wonderful music ever put to paper; music that I absolutely feel a connection to, yes, but a man who I most certainly don’t.



How viable is independent opera in the UK?
Independent Opera in the UK is phenomenally challenging to make work.  Fulham Opera has gone through a period where we have to ask so much of our performers “for the exposure” and on a profit-share basis that can feel tantamount to slave labour! People who might donate funds to fringe companies will only do so if there is a good track record of quality, and that is difficult to build up without having any capital to start with, and one finds oneself trying to break out of a vicious circle.  There are so many fringe opera companies cropping up in London.  This is a symptom of the music colleges churning out so many singers (of wildly varying quality) and them suddenly finding themselves with no outlet for their expression.  If you can’t succeed at an audition, then start your own company – seems to be the mindset.  Of course, myself and Fulham Opera are absolutely a part of this, the difference, I would like to think, is that we have, since 2011, built up a reputation for having good singers work with us, and of course, we did the Ring.


​
Who is your favourite conductor?
A couple of seasons ago, I went to three operas at the ROH and saw three very different styles of conducting.  I saw David Syrus, the Head of Music there, who has been a mentor to me, conducting The Marriage of Figaro, I saw Antonio Pappano conducting Ariadne auf Naxos and Simon Rattle conducting Dialogues des Carmelites.  It was fascinating to see how David conducts using the baton the same way he (and many other people) accompany at the piano.  The singers lead, the singers breathe, and the orchestra acts as their accompanist.  Pappano leads the orchestra and pulls the music out of the pit and pulls the singers along with him.  He leads with a sure hand.  Then there’s Sir Simon, who has such remarkable charisma, that music – and most importantly rhythm – simply pour out from him.  In Carmelites I was so struck by how there was such an amazing synergy between stage and pit.  There is a reason why Sir Simon is where he is today.  I’d like to think that when I conduct opera, it is with a combination of the need and desire to lead and to accompany.  If the singers think they are leading, they are usually happier as well!  It’s a cunning illusion!



What is your opinion about the opera world internationally?
My main thought about the International Opera world is that all too often it seems to lose its focus on the voice.  I go to the opera to be entertained and to watch a story yes, but if I’m going to see a new Traviata – for example – I want to hear the three main roles being sung better than ever before. I was disheartened by “Rosenkavgate” – the “scandal” where the critics seemed only to care about Tara Erraught’s appearance – mainly because at no time did they mention that she sang it so well, which unequivocally she did.  Sure, it’s nice to see “pretty” people on stage, but surely, if we’re casting an opera, we should begin our casting process with the voice – can they sing it? I recently saw a beautiful production of La traviata in the London fringe.  The cast were visually absolutely right for the roles of Violetta and Alfredo, and the direction was beautiful and the design of the set was lovely, but neither of those two leads should have been singing those roles, and – presuming they have singing lessons – their teachers should have told them to steer clear of such music.  I was quite uncomfortable listening to them attempting it.  In the major houses as well there seems to be more and more of a focus on how a singer looks than how a singer sings.  Some general directors will cite the cinema streams that are now happening as being the root cause of this.  I would remind them of the old maxim : prima la voce…



What is your opinion about classical music in the USA? Do you see any differences between the USA and Europe?
I spent five years in the US, mainly in and around New York City between 2002-2007. The US being such a capitalist society makes things very different for artists, as indeed does the heathcare system. A friend of mine, an extremely promising Brunnhilde has been rather forced into a desk job rather than spending the time and energies needed to become a world-class opera star, because without health insurance, she would find herself in trouble. I’m sure she’s not the only such opera singer.  In my humble opinion, it’s much harder to foster a co-operative spirit in the States; Fulham Opera couldn’t exist without the proactive cooperation of all of its singers and crew. I may be wrong, but I never experienced that kind of semi-professional music-making hands-on spirit while I was there. I worked with a group called The One World Symphony, with whom I had my first experiences as an operatic repetiteur.  There, the company had the singers buy really quite a lot of tickets in a sliding scale as to the level of role they were performing, and this money would be used to pay the orchestra a small fee and the various and sundry expenses. I’d never ask singers to pay to sing, though I know there are companies in London that do.



Tell us about the "Presley Verdi Prize".  How did it come to be?
The prize was a huge success.  We had 11 terrific singers in the final, which was won by Nadine Benjamin, notably with a very stirring rendition of the Ave Maria from Otello.  Alberto Sousa took the runners up prize, and a truly promising 26 year old baritone called Benjamin Lewis took the judges’ special mention prize for particular promise for the future. It was good for me to sit in deliberations with the judges (and not have a vote, I might add), as it is good to see what people at the very top of the profession are looking for in singers – that “imagination” I mentioned earlier, and the real communication of the words and being the character and seeing that character’s emotions.  Nadine and Alberto did that fantastically well.



What advice do you have for young people entering the profession?
Advice to young people entering into the profession:  I think the most important thing is to make sure you are enjoying what you are doing.  If you’re not enjoying what you’re doing, it’s going to be very difficult to give your best performance – this is true for anyone on stage, I would’ve thought.  Also, when presenting your audition pieces, be imaginative and interpretative in and commit to the characters you are portraying and the emotions that you – as that character – is having.  Know what every word means that you are singing and as much as the syntax as you can understand, and communicate that.  I was watching a director work with a singer today in an audition session, and the thing that really set her apart was how she knew the precise meanings and subtexts of what (in this case) the Countess was talking about, and therefore the different emotions the Countess was having through the course of the recitative.  The singer was then able to portray those emotions and be positively challenged to different interpretations by the director, and by implication, the “orchestra” (i.e. me behind the piano) played the interjections differently, responding to her pointing the words.  Another singer was using broad brush strokes and it was more like “oh, this sentence is sad”, which didn’t have the same impact.  Opera is about communicating words, just like a play.  The fact that they are often in foreign languages changes nothing.  If you know that entering the profession, you will at least make people remember you.



Future plans?
I’m just starting work on Fulham Opera’s production of The Flying Dutchman;  we’ve had some initial musical rehearsals and production starts next week. We’re also doing some preliminary work on our March 2016 show (not yet announced), and in May-July I’m Musically Directing Regents Opera’s tour of La boheme, which I’m greatly looking forward to.  Oh yes, and I’m getting married in April.  That’s going to be quite the party!


​
Art is...
... expression!