Spotlight on Brian Fitzsousa
Part of the Life of the Opera Pianist series
Photo by Iryna Sosnovska
General Information
Education
BM Composition NYU
MM Composition San Francisco Conservatory of Music
Current opera house and position(s)
Metropolitan Opera: Ballet Pianist
Other or former affiliations
San Francisco Opera, American Ballet Theater,
Mark Morris Dance Group
Connect
www.brianfitzsousa.com
instagram: @fitzsousa
11 Questions
Many people do not know the many roles and responsibilities a répétiteur has in the opera house. How do you explain your job to non-musicians, or even other musicians?
As the ballet pianist at the Met, my job is two-fold. Firstly, I am responsible for playing choreography rehearsals for all operas that involve dancers at the Met.
Secondly, I play a daily company ballet class for the dancers. Class for dancers serves both as a warm up for their day of rehearsing and/or performing and as conditioning to develop and maintain technique and prevent injury. Playing ballet classes is a fascinating skill that I’ve learned over my years of experience. There is no score to play from; it is the pianist’s job to play music that suits each exercise in class and requires an understanding of the structure of ballet classes and the needed meter, tempo, and mood of each exercise.
What do you find to be one of the most challenging aspects of your job?
One of the things people are usually surprised to hear about my job is that I not only play the orchestral reduction/piano score in rehearsals but also sing much of the opera! In our dance rehearsals, we are almost always rehearsing without any of the principals. Usually the dancers start rehearsals before principal singers arrive and rehearse alone so that they are ready to jump into staging rehearsals fully prepared when they begin. The dancers are learning the vocabulary and blocking of what they will do in the opera, but without having the singers present they rely on me to learn what to be listening for and responding to on stage. I spend lots of time preparing how to provide all this information and spend lots of time singing duets, ensembles, choruses, and other big numbers by myself.
One of the biggest challenges for me has to do with the interesting balance to being a ballet pianist. The amount of rep can be daunting. This fall alone I worked on ten different productions at the Met, some of which were extremely involved and some which only required preparing a short scene or two. At the same time, I’m not as fully involved in each production as my colleagues who play for full staging rehearsals, coach singers, play in the orchestra, or are simply part of the process for one show from start to finish. It can be a challenge to be involved with a production but not have the same closeness to the work, the cast, or the creative team as my colleagues, and not to always get to see the project through to fruition because I’ve already started working on something else before the show opens.
Do you have a favorite part of the preparation (rehearsal or learning an opera) process? If so, what is it and why?
I love the early stages of rehearsing, especially in new works or new productions when there is a feeling of exploration and ‘figuring stuff out.’ Opera is complex and expensive put together. Productions become part of a company’s repertoire and remounted frequently, so rehearsals can often have the feeling of going through the paces of putting something back together quickly, especially at a large house that puts on hundreds of performances every season and even multiple runs of the same production. I’m always grateful when there is an opportunity for artists to create and develop in the rehearsal process. This season I’ve gotten to experience this with Camille A. Brown and Annie-B Parson, two choreographers I really admire. Both of them had time to develop new work in the studio and I was grateful to be a part of that.
What is your favorite opera?
Le nozze di Figaro, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Wozzeck
What is your favorite opera score to play and why?
As a composer, I always enjoy playing new works. It’s fascinating to see how new operas come together; to see how the composer and librettist worked together to create something new and solve the problems that making drama through music presents. This season I’ve gotten to rehearse the Met premieres of Terrance Blanchard and Kasi Lemmons’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones and Matt Aucoin and Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice, two pieces which could not be more unlike each other but both very effective pieces in their own ways, full of captivating music and storytelling.
What are some adjectives that describe the skills one needs to be a good répétiteur?
Patience, great communication skills, nerves of steel, a desire to constantly improve yourself, and of course passion for the work.
As a répétiteur, we are expected to prepare music quickly (sometimes having to sightread or transpose or play music from the orchestra full score), manage multiple opera productions at the same time, play rehearsals for last minute cast changes, conduct last minute rehearsals or performances and sometimes even sing roles in these rehearsals or performances. Do you have any advice on how to deal with the excitement of the job?
This is the part of the job that is the most stressful but the most exciting and rewarding. For me, I’ve had to learn to provide what’s needed for the rehearsal - to remember that as rehearsal pianists we are not recitalists putting on a performance but musicians providing what is necessary for a group of artists to put a show together. In these high stakes situations it's imperative to take on a “less is more” approach; to remember that if we leave out a countermelody or a baseline, it is not an act of blasphemy or sacrilege but perhaps the most prudent choice to make sure that the flow of the music and the rehearsal can continue.
We also wear many hats as a répétiteur. We are often asked to assist conductors by taking notes, provide backstage conducting for performances, prompt the singers, conduct staging rehearsals, accompany chorus rehearsals, manage sound effects or major musical cues for performances, perform a keyboard instrument (or two) in the orchestra pit and give notes to singers about language and diction. Do you have a favorite aspect of the career? Have you branched out in other directions related to our field?
As a ballet pianist, my duties in the opera house are fairly straightforward and a lot of these tasks are not asked of me. I do love working with singers and I try to do that quite a bit outside of my work at the Met. I have always been a musical-theater person and so I do a fair amount of crossover work in New York. I am currently working as music director, co-arranger, and orchestrator on a developmental workshop of a new musical, and I have a number of concerts planned with singers from that world. I’m also a composer and write concert music and film scores. It helps me to have balance and perspective by getting outside of the opera world and playing different music/working with different types of artists.
What was your first experience as a répétiteur? And your most recent experience as a répétiteur?
In 2016 I was hired by San Francisco Opera two weeks before the start of rehearsals with basically no experience in the opera world. But my background in jazz and improvisational skills gave me a solid background for playing ballet. I’ve always loved opera and knew the works well, but I have really learned the scores on the job. My most recent experience is my current position as ballet pianist at the Met.
How do you manage playing an opera (or opera aria) for the nth time?
My professional career in opera is still young. I’ve worked about four seasons total in professional settings so I haven’t experienced that many works that I’ve played time and time again. However, one of the things about being an operatic pianist is that you are always working to imitate the sound and scoring of an orchestra, rather than mastering a piece of piano literature. In operas, we rarely play exactly what’s written on the page because that is only an approximation of what the opera will sound like. Revisiting a work gives me the opportunity to try new solutions, add something from the orchestration that’s not in the piano/vocal score (or better yet, stop trying to actually play something unnecessary that’s there).
Do you have any advice for pianists interested in a career at an opera house? Any additional memories, thoughts or comments?
My only advice can be to follow the opportunities that excite you the most as a pianist. I never expected as a composition student to end up making a career as an opera pianist. But I has been exciting and rewarding and also led me back to composition in new ways that I wouldn’t have found before. And I have gotten to meet so many fantastic artists and musicians who have been so generous to me as a young pianist and have taught me so much. I am so grateful for what opera has given me!
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