The opera A View From the Bridge is based on the play of the same name by U-M alumnus Arthur Miller '38. Miller also contributed to the libretto written by Arnold Weinstein. Set in Brooklyn in a neighborhood of Italian-American dockworkers, the story is charged with operatic ingredients–sexual obsession, paranoia, envy, super-masculine latent homosexiality, betrayal and violences Early reviews praised the fusion of William Bolcom's music and the Weinstein/Miller libretto. Several compared the intense theatrical experience with the presumed effect of sung drama in Classical Greece.

On top of the demands of preparing for the Oct. 9 world premiere in Chicago of his much-heralded opera A View From the Bridge, the composer William Bolcom kept up his teaching duties, too.

Bolcom, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Ross Lee Finney Distinguished University Professor of Music, arranged for four U-M School of Music composition students to join him at the last four days of rehearsals at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. "My colleague Michael Daugherty (professor of composition) and our dean, Paul Boylan, suggested the idea to me," Bolcom said, "and I thought it was a great one."

Among the opportunities the field trip provided the students–Gabriela Frank of Berkeley, California; Stephanie Johnson of Cincinnati; Pei Lu of Shanghai, and undergraduate Chad Hughes '00 of Detroit–was a chance to quiz conductor Dennis Russell Davies, with Bolcom chiming in, a day before the final rehearsal. Michigan Today's John Woodford was invited to attend.

Q: What kinds of changes are you making now, with just two days before the premiere? Dennis Russell Davies: We're always rethinking everything, but at this point most changes result from requests from singers to relieve some stresses–especially from high notes for female singers and tenors. The other important changes now are to refine the balance between singers and orchestra. Any instrument played loudly can easily cover the human voice, so you have to provide enough space for the voices to come through.

You may recall that in Amadeus, Mozart is quoted as saying that opera is dramatically superior to theater because he could have three or four people talking at the same time and the audience could understand them all. That is really not always the case, but it is true in Mozart's operas.

William Bolcom: I just took a bunch of percussion out of the score today because they got in the way of the words. I didn't know when I composed it that they would sound like somebody kibitzing at the singer. Verdi made a big shift in how to balance the words and the musical themes linked with them. In early Verdi, the lights were up, and the audience could read the lyrics, so the strong musical phrase went right with the singing of the emotional phrase. But later in his career, he emphasized the dramatic elements more and more, so he kept the lights down low and made sure the words could be heard by having the key musical phrase immediately follow the words. First the singer says it, then–boom–the music comes.

As a conductor, do you hesitate to give advice to a composer, for fear they'll think you're interfering? DRD: I'm active with composers. If I've rehearsed a piece hard and found that I think some changes would get the rhythm of the words out better, I'm hands-on and will suggest that a change is needed. Composers generally welcome that. In fact, you have to be careful because composers are usually too fast to change things. A conductor often has to convince them to wait and give the orchestra time to try to do it better before changing a passage.

How can a composer help a conductor? DD: Composers must understand what a musician needs to do the job. Some contemporary composers are writing to show how many clever and difficult rhythmic permutations they can create, like having some instruments counting 11 beats a measure while other players' parts call for five beats and still others three beats per measure. That makes for a very difficult score to read and play. There's an awful lot of that going on now. I tell the composer, OK, you sing the way this goes for us first, then we'll play it. If they can't do it, why should we?

WB: Some composers are looking for prizes by making great-looking scores–scores jammed with lots of 16th notes and 32nd notes. They could make an easier-to-read score by changing the time signature so the same music could be written with more eighth notes and quarter notes. But then the music doesn't look as hard to play.

DRD: Also, a composer should know what each instrument sounds like and not just score for a lot of different instruments to make things complex. With Bill, if he puts something in for a bass clarinet, you know he wants exactly that sound for those bars. I see some scores where they call for a rarely used instrument like a contrabassoon, and it would make no difference if a kazoo played the part. It's not a theoretical issue. You need to go listen to as many orchestras as you can until you know each instrument's sound.

WB: I do that by not writing so much for a clarinet as for thinking of an individual clarinetist I know and writing for that person. When I'm composing for any part, I'm focusing on a certain player even if that person is not going to end up playing the part.

It must be a lot harder to get an orchestra to change what they've been doing than, say, working with the soloist performing a concerto? DRD: You either have authority or you don't. You have to enjoy leading a bunch of rambunctious people. You have to look at it as: They are trying their very best, and you are there to help them. You make changes within that context. You also want an orchestra to laugh and relax from time to time. What we're doing is important, but it ain't brain surgery. If I screw up a four-bar passage, nobody's dead.

WB: A great conductor like Dennis develops a sense of why each player chose the instruments they did. That way, he knows what each player on each instrument needs.