A few words about your background.
Gloucestershire based, I have worked mostly as a screenwriter for the past ten years writing material for a variety of genres. More recently I have been interested in bringing my film sensibility into the world of opera working as a dramatist/librettist.
What are you current and future projects?
I am currently working on several new opera projects with some of my favourite contemporary composers. I am also about to embark on pre-production for a British/Chinese feature film entitled “The Rickshaw Boy” which promises to be Ang Lee meets Mike Leigh.
When did you hear your first opera and what was it?
The first piece of opera music I ever heard would have been Magda’s aria “Chi il bel sogno di Doretta” from Puccini’s La Rondine used in the Merchant Ivory film “A Room with a View”, which I watched when I must have been around eight or nine.
What was the first opera you ever saw and where was it?
I was 11 when I was taken to see English Touring Opera’s production of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale and loved it so much I insisted on seeing it twice. It was set in Italy re-imagined in 1950’s Hollywood where Norino was styled after Leslie Caron a la Gigi and Ernesto was a coiffured matinee idol. The sets were pure Vincente Minnelli and the whole event was a magical experience for me and one which made a profound impression.
What opera composers do you listen to most?
My opera listening tends to mostly oscillate between the Italians and the Germans, which I guess would make me typical of most opera lovers. Verdi, Wagner and Puccini are played most days and Richard Strauss and Mozart also take up many hours of devoted listening.
What operas do you find most meaningful, touching and memorable?
The operas that move me the most are those which create some kind of universal totality within their construction/illusion of a world on the stage. Parsifal, Meistersinger, Ariadne auf Naxos and Le Nozze di Figaro are all operas that leave you with a sense of touching the very core of the human condition.
I find this humanity is often best revealed through the composer’s minute detailing of the smaller characters, who, although having less stage time than their dramatic counterparts, reveal something truly profound about the composers’ intentions to colour and characterise every player within the piece as a whole.
I’m thinking specifically of the Night Watchman in Die Meistersinger throughout his two key scenes in Act 2 and Barbarina in act 4 of Le Nozze where she sings the aria “Lo Perduta”.
Who would you cast in your favourite opera (throughout ages)?
I’m choosing Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg for this question as it is the opera I have been to see more than any other so it seems reasonable to assume that it must be my favourite on that basic criterion.
Hans Sachs – Gerard Finley
Beckmesser – Geraint Evans
Walther – Max Lorenz
Pogner – John Tomlinson
Eva – Elizabeth Schwarzkopf
David – Toby Spence
Magdalene – Lucia Popp
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What do you love about opera and what makes you cringe?
What I love most about opera is the immediacy of the art form itself. It is so visceral and appears to channel the entire gamut of human emotion and transcend each and every one of them through some kind of dramatized catharsis.
And I find you’re always left with a sense of humility about the way so many of these great operas continue to resonate with audiences around the world throughout time.
I cringe only when I see a crossover artist attempt to convey a dramatic aria with faux earnestness. It not only reduces the power of the music but it also comes across as a parody somehow.
What would you change in the world of opera?
I would like to see opera houses, especially in the UK, be more courageous and adventurous in developing and promoting new opera repertoire.
Do you think opera is funded adequately? Are the funds appropriately distributed?
I worry about the sustainability of smaller regional theatres that provide the stages for touring opera companies. The bigger opera houses will generally always take care of themselves so I have less concern in that regard.
What are your other passions?
Outside of opera & cinema, my passions are love, literature, poetry and sport. I am a country boy so always find nature a great inspiration in my life. Dim sum whenever I get the chance could also qualify as a minor passion of mine.
VIEW Max Waller’s page here.
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