Feb. 23--Bartlett Sher is plopped on a sofa in a backstage office at the Civic Opera House, fresh from one of the final run-throughs of Gounod's "Romeo et Juliette," the opera that opened Monday at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Although his slouch makes him appear weary, his animated conversation signals a mind perking on all cylinders.
Rehearsals have been going smoothly, reports the Tony Award-winning Sher, one of the most widely admired directors in theater and opera, who's got hit revivals of "The King and I" and "Fiddler on the Roof" running on Broadway, and plenty of other projects filling his plate.
"The opera is hard, but I've done it before in Salzburg and at La Scala, so I know it really well," says the 56-year-old American director, who's making his Lyric Opera debut with this new-to-Chicago production of Gounod's melodious lyric tragedy. "The conditions at Lyric are good, considering that they can be harrowing at some opera companies."
"No similarities to Broadway!" he quickly deadpans.
The biggest enemy in opera, concedes the theater whiz -- whom everyone calls Bart -- is time.
"On Broadway, I get five or six weeks of rehearsal, and two weeks of technical rehearsal. You don't get that in opera. Chicago is the first place I've done this show where we've actually had the time (to get it right)."
In previous capacities as company director at Minneapolis' Guthrie Theater and artistic director of Seattle's Intiman Theatre, Sher (who's presently the resident director of New York's Lincoln Center Theater) has staged Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet." I ask him the differences between directing the Bard's star-crossed lovers and Gounod's.
"The healthy way to look at it is to refrain from making comparisons," he replies, before launching into comparisons.
"First of all, I don't think of directing in terms of one genre's being better than the other. Opera and theater each have extraordinary qualities. I feel very privileged to be in opera, because it gives another dimension to my work and helps me hone my practice a bit better.
"I absolutely love the Gounod -- it's a brilliant musical piece -- and I adore the Shakespeare too. The original play, with its incredibly quick transitions, is almost cinematic. The opera tends to be much more 'act, act, act.' So I've tried to make (the Lyric remounting) feel more cinematic, without breaks between scenes, to keep the dramatic momentum going. That's never easy in opera, where you have 60 people onstage who need to be moved around quickly."
The fancy footwork Sher himself exhibits as he shuttles between the worlds of theater, music theater and opera has made him one of today's most sought-after directors: the stage man of the moment.
As of next season he will have directed six productions at the Metropolitan Opera -- including, next season, the same "Romeo et Juliette," with sets by Michael Yeargan and costumes by Catherine Zuber, that Lyric is presenting as its final operatic staging of 2015-16. Last week it was announced that Sher and scriptwriter Aaron Sorkin will collaborate on a stage adaptation of the late Harper Lee's celebrated novel "To Kill a Mockingbird," scheduled for Broadway in the 2017-18 season.
So how does his cumulative experience at the Met and other major opera houses impact on his work in the legitimate theater?
"The experience of music and rhythm undergirding any opera is almost epically of value to me when I direct a play," Sher explains. "What makes plays much, much harder to direct is that you have no support: You must build the rhythm into the rhetoric and sound of the piece. With opera, rhythm is built into the musical fabric of the piece. It carries you all the way through."
Chicago audiences knew an important director had arrived on the local scene in 2004 when "The Light in the Piazza," the Adam Guettel-Craig Lucas musical Sher directed for the Goodman Theatre, won a Jeff Award as best production-musical. His best-director award was one of seven Tonys the rapturously received revival of "South Pacific" garnered following its opening on Broadway in 2008.
The much-lauded director's loyalty and commitment to co-workers who are prepared to give as much as he does to his shows is a two-way street.
"It's a pleasure working with Bart," says French conductor Emmanuel Villaume, who's returning to Lyric to pace the Gounod opera. "He's a no-nonsense director, with so much imagination. He takes a very practical approach to the problems of this work and is very specific about details. His general concept is beautiful."
Other performers are known to have found Sher intimidating to work with, but they usually tend to be the kind of performers who require pushing. Sher is not one to coddle balky performers.
To be sure, he is fulsome in his praise of opera singers in general, Lyric's "Romeo" roster in particular.
"I absolutely adore opera singers," he says. "They are mind-blowingly gifted people. I am in awe of them, given all that they are required to do onstage -- sing, act, dance, everything -- all at once. I do like it when they come to me with questions during rehearsal. The first stage of my working with them is to establish enough trust so that I, as director, have something to build on.
"Soprano Susanna Phillips, our Juliet, is an amazing artist, an intelligent person, so talented. She listens. She challenges me on things. I just love her."
Sher has worked with Joseph Calleja, Lyric's Romeo, on the director's production of Offenbach's "The Tales of Hoffmann" at the Met. He praises the Maltese tenor's "very special, Pavarotti-like sound," along with the fact that Calleja is "exceptionally powerful physically, extremely good on his feet." (Calleja is sharing the Gounod role here with tenor Eric Cutler.)
The fresh contemporary perspective Sher brings to his shows -- whether it's an operatic staple such as Rossini's "The Barber of Seville" at the Met, or a musical revival such as "King and I" on Broadway -- sets him apart from those director-provocateurs given to mindless updatings that have little or nothing to do with the works as written. Tradition with tweaks, that's more Sher's approach.
This has led writer Barry Singer, in an Opera News profile of the director, to coin the phrase "the Sher effect" -- an onstage synthesis of emotion and intellect that feels effortless and organic.
For his part, Sher regards his role as that of a seeker of theatrical truth: a director who, as he once described himself, "digs around in the music and narrative, then devises a structure that releases that information as feelings, in the audience."
"When it comes to directing opera for today's public, what's important for me is to get them out of this" -- Sher says, holding his iPhone high in the air -- "when they enter the theater. People in the modern world have their attention fragmented in all sorts of directions. When you think about it, opera is one of the rare experiences an audience can have that allows them to spend two to three hours focused on one thing, and one thing alone."
Lyric Opera's production of Gounod's "Romeo et Juliette" runs to March 19 at the Civic Opera House, 20 N. Wacker Drive; $34-$239; 312-827-5600, www.lyricopera.org.
Sharps and flats
-- WTTW-Ch. 11 has an annoying tendency to delay broadcasts in PBS' "Great Performances at the Met" series until weeks, or even months, after segments have aired in other parts of the nation. The new Bartlett Sher production of Verdi's "Othello" that first reached the PBS airwaves last Sunday isn't scheduled to air locally until April 3. Heading the cast are tenor Aleksandrs Antonenko and soprano Sonya Yoncheva. Yannick Nezet-Seguin conducts.
-- More than 300 students from the Merit School of Music Conservatory will play classical and jazz virtually nonstop at the tuition-free school's 34th annual Performathon fundraiser this weekend at the West Loop facility, 38 S. Peoria St. The school's top young musicians and ensembles will perform for a total of nearly 12 hours; the marathon begins at 7:30 p.m. Friday and will run from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday.
Although admission is free, donations will be solicited to help the school continue providing quality music education to children regardless of their economic circumstances. For information, call 312-786-9428, or go to meritmusic.org/performathon.
-- Haymarket Opera Company is offering a summer course for young vocal artists, June 5-11 at Roosevelt University's Chicago College of Performing Arts. A select number of singers will be chosen by audition to study 17th century repertory with countertenor and stage director Drew Minter. Sessions involving vocal coaching, stage acting and movement will culminate in a public performance of Monteverdi's opera "L'incoronazione di Poppea" at Roosevelt's Ganz Hall. Faculty will include Haymarket artistic director Craig Trompeter and harpsichordist Jory Vinikour. For further information, call 312-523-6945 or visit www.haymarketopera.org.
-- American conductor Gilbert Levine this month was honored by Pope Francis as a Knight Grand Cross of the First Class, Order of St. Gregory the Great. Levine is only the second person in the arts to be named a Knight of the First Class, after Chicago Symphony Orchestra music director Riccardo Muti. ... The late Chicago Symphony Chorus founder and director Margaret Hillis, a former music director of the Elgin Symphony, has been named to the 2016 Fox Valley Arts Hall of Fame.
John von Rhein is a Tribune critic.
jvonrhein@tribpub.com
Twitter @jvonrhein
