Going to an Ivy League school was somewhat of an insurance policy in case Joseph Marcheso decided to let go of his dream of becoming an opera conductor. When his dream didn’t change, it became a bit of a liability as it disconnected him from the musical world for a number of years. Ultimately, he reconnected in just the right way to fulfill his professional dreams as well as the personal ones that seemed even less likely to come true. Find out how matching your value to someone else’s needs and vice versa can keep you content if you let it on today’s Roads Taken with me, Leslie Jennings Rowley.
Guest Joseph Marcheso was six or seven years old when he found out that being an opera conductor was something someone could do. From that moment, he knew he wanted to be one. So going to an Ivy League school was somewhat of an insurance policy in case he decided to let go of his dream. When his dream didn’t change, it became a bit of a liability as it disconnected him from the musical world for a number of years.
Through persistence, he built the connections and skills that he needed by conducting at a smaller theater in New York and then participating in a master’s program in San Francisco. When he got the opportunity to conduct at Opera San José Opera he realized that he’d found the type of place he could call home. With that came the realization of other dreams that seemed even less likely to come true.
In this episode, find out from Joe how matching your value to someone else’s needs and vice versa can keep you content if you let it…on Roads Taken with Leslie Jennings Rowley.
About This Episode’s Guest
Maestro Joseph Marcheso is a world-class conductor most recognized for his affiliation with Opera San José, where he has served as Music Director since 2014. He has also been a member of the conducting staff at San Francisco Opera and boasts an extensive and impressive repertoire of over 60 operas. Though he still travels to many of the world’s opera houses, he lives in Berkeley, California, with his husband and their young son. Find out more about his latest musical adventures at josephmarcheso.com.
Find more episodes at https://roadstakenshow.com
Executive Producer/Host: Leslie Jennings Rowley
Music: Brian Burrows
Email the show at RoadsTakenShow@gmail.com
Joseph Marcheso: There are places that I work in which I get a lot of value and you know they can replace me tomorrow and they would go on fine. And other place that are like I’m doing all this for you and I’m getting nothing out of it. There’s that dynamic as well. But to be in a place that needs you as much as you need it is really great environment for me.
Leslie Jennings Rowley: Going to an Ivy League school was somewhat of an insurance policy in case Joseph Marcheso decided to let go of his dream of becoming an opera conductor. When his dream didn’t change, it became a bit of a liability as it disconnected him from the musical world for a number of years. Ultimately, he reconnected in just the right way to fulfill his professional dreams as well as the personal ones that seemed even less likely to come true. Find out how matching your value to someone else’s needs and vice versa can keep you content if you let it…on today’s Roads Taken with me, Leslie Jennings Rowley
I’m here today with Joseph Marcheso and we are going to talk about how one conducts themselves and others through different periods of life and creativity. So, Joe, thanks so much for being here.
JM: My pleasure, abso..
LJR: So, we start this the same way asking the same two questions of all of our guests and they are these: When we were in college, who were you? And when we were getting ready to leave, who did you think you would become.
JM: Gracious. Hmm gracious. When I was in college, who was I? I'll only paraphrase it, but when I think of questions like this, I reminded of a quote that autobiography is only to be trusted if it reveals something disgraceful because viewed from the inside life is only a series of defeats. And I think about that quote a lot. I've kind of linked it with, I've been having this issue of people asking me how I am and not really being able to give an answer that encapsulates that earnestly. Not cause I I'm, have any suicidal ideation or I'm depressed. But when you, when you evaluate yourself, at least my bias is always am I letting myself off too easily? If I look back at who I was at, at any point am I gonna romanticize it? Am I going to try to focus on the good things or at least pass over the worst things? And I know that when I look back at periods, even periods that objectively were painful, I know that I don't, I cannot recreate the pain of that experience. I only look back into experience and fondly, like at Dartmouth, I didn't stay for my graduation. I couldn't wait to leave. But when I look back at Dartmouth, I think of only the most wonderful experiences and amazing times. Obviously, now that I'm a parent, I'd love for my child to go, but I know, I mean I have the evidence. I know that I didn't go there. I know that I couldn't wait to leave. But I can't, I can't recall that feeling.
LJR: Yeah. And when you kind of objectively say, I know I couldn't wait to leave, was it so much leaving the experience you were having or, Wow, I just wanna get to the next chapter or both? JM: I, I, I think it was both. I mean, I know that the fatigue accrues, especially when the last part of being there is a combination of it's like formulaic. There's been there, done that, and then a lot of preparation for rituals and exper…I mean, my parents weren't going to come. I didn't want them to come. I just wanted to put all my stuff in a bag and get out. I didn't know exactly what I was going to do. But the person that I was when I went there in many ways is, I mean, I was a music major. I knew that I wanted to work in opera. I, the things that I'm doing today are, are straight line from what I wanted to do in those days.
LJR: But that wasn't something you developed at Dartmouth.
JM: No, No.
LJR: That was something that had been a part of your youth, right?
JM: I certainly since elementary school, late, since about seventh or eighth grade, since I knew like what I learned about opera, I, I guess about sixth or or seventh grade. And once I figured out what a conductor did, especially about opera, that let's say, knew that that was a thing, that was something that I wanted to do, and going to Dartmouth was not really the step that you would take if that is something that you wanted to do.
LJR: Right. So how did you find yourself there?
JM: Good question. I spent many summers there part of, at the time it was the Adidas tennis camp and I, in fact, I spent a lot of time in the dorm that I ended up moving into, at Woodward.
LJR: Oh my gosh.
JM: And so I didn't wanna visit schools and I was familiar with that school and I really loved the physical environment of it, which is all I, I knew about it, so I applied to only music schools and Dartmouth. I didn't apply to any school in New York because at the time I had, it was similar to I wanted to get out of New York. I was sick of New York. You grow up in a place and you think that all the other places are like that. You think New York is what a big city is. All big cities are New York. My mother's English, so I spent some time in London and if all you know is New York and London, you think that that's what cities are. And so I was very anti New York and I didn't wanna stay in New York. So I applied. Dartmouth certainly the most impressive school that I got into. And also I thought, well, if I didn't, if I wanted to change my mind or wanted do something else better to have this experience than to have a music experience.
LJR: Right.
JM: Of course. If you don't change your mind that that calculation is is a little different, right? LJR: Less impressive.
JM: In general, the what if and keeping options open is something that I'll generally gravitate to no matter how sure I am in this instant of what I want.
LJR: Okay, so that probably informs the, all your stuff's in plastic bag and you're leaving campus. Are you still in the keeping options open mindset?
JM: No.
LJR: No? Okay.
JM: No. No.
LJR: Ok, so as you left, who did you think you would become, either short term or long term?
JM: Who did I think I would be after I left? That's the question? I think I was pretty daunted when I graduated about. All of the things that I would have to make up for, for going to Dartmouth and removing myself from the music scene. [LJR: Mm.] I would say at the time I probably had pretty, when I say low expectations, I mean, I don't think that I was a different person. I don't think that my self-conception changed from graduation, but I think that I recognized he consequences and probably exaggerated the negative consequences and underappreciated the positive consequences. [LJR: Mm-hmm.] And I tried to spend my time finding a way to make up for having been out of the musical element for that time and probably it took me many years. I worked in community theater in New York. I worked at a small opera company that had a busy season, many, many performances. Many, many, many more than today. The opera world today is again different from what the opera world was when I graduated. And I made a commitment that I would work at this opera company until I had conducted every opera that they did. They would do a…when the season came, at, which I had already connected every opera there were in those days, we, they did six. They did 12 performances of six operas. So each opera got 12 performances. When that season came that I had done every one, that was gonna be my last season. I don't know what I would do next, but picking up a thread here, I was fed up with doing that, but I didn't know what I was going to do next. So, I guess being fed up with where I am and what I'm doing turns out to be an engine of some sort, knowing that this can't go on, but, I don't know what the next step is. And in this case, the next step was going to San Francisco. They had opened a conducting program. They just started that year, and my mom invited me to San Francisco. So I went to visit her and I took one of the days to look at their conservatory. So I thought, Okay, I'll, I'll apply and I'll see what happens. So they accepted me. I moved to San Francisco. I was there for two years. Also couldn't wait to leave when it was done.
LJR: A theme. Mm-hmm.
JM: Cause I, at that point, I was in my early thirties, so even though I was a graduate student, I was surrounded by a lot of people who were younger than me. That was the first time that I considered myself an older person in opera. Obviously opera is an old person thing. And when from college, everyone was my age. When I went to the opera in New York, everyone was older than me. And then when I went here, all of a sudden everyone was younger than me. And that dynamic felt artificial to me. And I wanted, when it was done, I was done and I was happy to go. I did make many friends. I met my future husband there. And so again, I look back at that time and it's all great, but I know that I was sick of it and I wanted to go.
LJR: Yeah. Because even though you were taking this conducting degree, you had already been a conductor. So when you said that you'd been at the company in New York, you were as you were in a role as a conductor.
JM: Yeah.
LJR: And working through all of those operas. So you were almost in a different phase as many of your colleagues I would imagine.
JM: Exactly. For me, the benefit was having a way to connect to the music scene [LJR: Right.] in Bay Area. And then after I graduated, I got an email to be a assistant conductor at Opera San Jose. And then in there the assistant conductor conducts performances. So I accepted and I went there and when I saw what the company was and the theater that they performed at and the orchestra that they had, I was, you know, blown away. And I was like, this is the most amazing place. This is my place. I want to work here. And from 2007, I worked there as much as I could. I created the audition system that we have today. I just found many ways to be useful. It's, it was a nice dynamic of, of knowing that as valuable as something is to you, you can be as valuable to. And you don't get that kind of balance a lot. Some…there are places that I work in which I get a lot of value and, you know, they could replace me tomorrow and they would, they would go on fine. [LJR: Mm-hmm.] And at other places that you're like, I'm doing all this for you and I'm getting nothing out of it. There's that dynamic as well. But to be in a place that needs you as much as you need it is a really great environment for me. And so I threw myself into that. And at 2014, I finally became the music director there. At that same time, through our mutual friend John Churchwell, I started working at San Francisco Opera, which was a great world class opera company that was the best education of all the educations, at least practically [LJR: mm-hmm] about what it meant to work in opera and something that I needed. Because to take over a musical organization like Opera San Jose, you need to have some experience with what is larger than that and beyond that, to have some idea of where to take it and what to expect from it. And those two places really became my home musically, and I was very lucky to become music director there because a typical musician is someone who's traveling in places. [LJR: Mm-hmm.] Goes from here to there and stays in hotels and whatever. And that would've been a very big obstacle to have a family and to be settled and that fortunately was not the case. I was able to live in one place and plan my year to a certain degree, however I wanted it, and to spend time a lot with my friends and my family.
LJR: Was the family always in the cards for you?
JM: In many ways, I'm a late bloomer as the fact, you know, I have a kid now. I had one at 45. Which is also the age that my dad had one, which is..
LJR: Me too, actually.
JM: Well, not just one: Me, the one, the only.
LJR: The one.
JM: It's hard not to draw parallels when events happen that seem similar to events in the past. And so you gotta be mindful that that was a thing. But at the same time, my path to 45 and having a child is different than a path for him, especially because for most of my life, I’d ruled out the idea of having kids because it didn't seem like something that could be accommodated with not only being a gay guy, but also the possibly parapatetic life of a musician traveling around doing stuff like that.
LJR: Yeah. So Joe, I am lucky because I have had a little taste of being inside the opera world, so I understand what a conductor does and I understand what a music director does, but kind for those who don't: You now have both roles in different places and one and the same as well, I guess. But tell me: What does a conductor do and what does that whole life cycle look like for a conductor, like when you're first hired by a company and, and kind of timeframes and all those things. And then also kind of contrast that with what a music director does.
JM: So strictly speaking, the conductor is, the person who at least is specifically in opera, I guess.
LJR: Yeah, opera.
JM: I mean, symphony is slightly different. The time scales are different and stuff like that. But an opera conductor in a place like San Francisco or San Jose, the conductor arrives about a month before the opening night. And he or she, or they conducts rehearsals with the piano and with the singers, with props in a room for the rehearsals. They don't rehearse with the set and they don't rehearse with the orchestra. And so during that three week period, or the conductor spends every day in a room with a pianist, with the assistant conductor who sits there and takes notes and does different tasks, and the director, the stage managers, the cast, the crew. It is different, different schedules. But San Jose, for example, a week and a half before opening the orchestra arrives and the conductor will have a few rehearsals with just the orchestra and then the things will move onto the stage at the last week or so. This is true everywhere. You will finally see the set on the stage, and you will see the orchestra in the pit after you have the final piano dress, which is the end of the piano. The piano dress is often with costumes on the stage, piano playing in the pit. The whole opera is rehearse back to forward or run. And then the orchestra arrives and you'll have something called a sitzprobe where the singers will sit on the stage and they will sing through the whole opera back to front.
LJR: With the orchestra.
JM: Correct. And then after that, you will have a dress rehearsal mostly, but if it's a complicated work or a long work, these or new. These things will be a little different. Sometimes you'll have something called a vandleprobe, which is you're kind of walking around on the stage, but you're not necessarily in your costumes. But it all leads to a dress rehearsal, a final dress rehearsal, which is the whole performance run, start to end with no stop, usually in front of a select audience. And then about four weeks after the first rehearsal, you'll have opening. And a series of performances. San Francisco and San Jose both do about five or six performances. Except for the Met that is like the longest run you would get outside of a festival environment. Usually companies do between two and four performances.
A music director does that, but they are the musical authority of an institution. They are linked with an institution. They have a say in what the casting is, in what the titles are, and who the directors are. They audition the orchestra, and the people involved, they appoint people to the orchestra. So music director is a conductor who's also manages the musical aspects of an organization. And a gigging musician gets offered a title or place and they accept. Not the music director gets to choose what, in my case, what operas I want to do, who I'd like to invite to conduct other operas. And there's a lot of donor events that you go to, a lot of budget meetings that you go to, a lot of things outside specifically conducting, but kind of managing director of an organization that is part of your portfolio of what a, a music director does.
LJR: And at any point in those earlier, I want to be in opera, I wanna be a conductor, because that's what, when you found out there was such a thing as a conductor, that's what you wanted to be. Did you also aspire to this music director position, or did you not know it was there or you…
JM: No, no, no. I did.
LJR: Okay.
JM: That, that was, is in fact what I wanted more than being a conductor
LJR: Ah-hah.
JM: Because I like agency and I like to choose things and I like to know what I'm gonna do this year and next year. The gigging aspect is for me is a source of anxiety. And titles, the specific titles of operas are I important to me. I would rather conduct Don Carlos in San Jose than the Barber of Seville at the Met, for example. To have that element of it's not so much control, it's released from anxiety. From being able to know what I'm going to do and with whom. And not only being able to, but having agency in, in making that happen is something that is it becomes more important to my mental and emotional wellbeing.
LJR: Yeah. Yeah. And right, because you aren't out there gigging anymore and flying here to there and kind of on these other people's schedules, like you're doing it, thus, the ability to have that family life that you didn't think was possible.
So how has that, because you mentioned you became a father at 45, That means you have a little, little, and that changes anybody.
JM: I call myself a young father.
LJR: I mean, You're a young father. Nice, nice. So how does that change your perspective of the opera world or your role in it or maybe even musical selections? Who knows? How has that changed things?
JM. Um I wonder
LJR: Is Hansel and Gretel on…
JM: It's funny that we did Hansel and Gretel and he came to see it. That was the first opera
LJR: Awesome.
JM: A gingerbread onesie we put him on and, So yeah, obviously, I mean that that, that's one of my most favorite, favorite operas as it is.
LJR: Mm-hmm.
JM: I don't know if it's changed. I mean, it's obviously made me feel grateful for my arrangement because also sometimes, you know, the grass is always greener and you think, Well, I'm always here. I'd love actually go traveling again and, Cause I mean it's, you can't not travel. I was in Santa Fe, I was in Miami, I was in New York. I mean, you go a lot to see other companies and other people and other singers and stuff like that. And so you go there and you, you see what it's like and how nice it would be, Oh, I'd love to work in Miami for a month. That sounds like a great plan. I'd love to go to Hawaii Opera; that sounds like a plan. But it has made me more grateful to be here. I mean, during Covid when everything was shut down, to have that kind of intense long residency with your child is something I didn't anticipate. And I very much appreciate it. Cause I'm not a child person, and I didn't think of myself as a child person. And my idea was like, well, when he's like five and starts talking, I'll swoop in and I'll take it from there. But I'm not a baby person. I am a baby person. I guess it's,
LJR: Well, they start talking before five, so that's a nice surprise.
JM: It’s true. I didn't know that. I didn’t know that. And they started like it. Well, I mean, I guess in Max's case it was maybe two and a half. Two and a half it kind of started, and obviously it's not gonna stop anytime soon. But I, you know, he sees me play the piano and he sits and plays the piano and I speak with some of my friends and they are really into putting their children through some kind of musical education stuff like that. Not me. And I mean, I think there's no way to avoid it. I mean, I'd love for him to be conversant about opera and arts, but that sounds like a great thing to have as your second thing that…But not as your, I'd love for him to do something totally different than what I do because then he would have, he would have the knowledge and the appreciation of the things that I have without having to sacrifice himself to do it firsthand and that, that will be a great second skill to have on top of whatever it is that he is destined to be.
LJR: Yeah, for sure. I'm sure he will soak it up. There's no way not to. And did you say your husband's also in the arts?
JM: He was, he up until Covid, he was a stage director and we worked at San Francisco and when Covid came, he had a dress rehearsal at Utah Opera for Barber of Seville, and they canceled it after the dress rehearsal. And that was the end. And he was concerned about, you know, he's a lot, he's 35, I am 47…8. And not that I would've chosen a different path, but even if I wanted to, I, my period is a little…I'm, I'm committed to what I am and who I am, but he wanted to keep that option open. And he went to advertising school. In June he went to Cannes; he won an award at the Cannes advertising festival, and that kind of solidified the change. He’s in an environment in which he feels extremely valued and appreciated, and probably that dynamic of being as valuable to something, as something is valuable to him. And I imagine that that is the direction that he is going to go from now on, and I am absolutely thrilled for that. They tell you if there's anything that you can do other than going to the arts, do it.
LJR: Yes. But it does sound as though it has been, for you, the path that you knew…It's interesting you just said that you, you're committed to what I am and who I am, and you've been this for a very long time in your soul. And to find that that has worked and has afforded you this, also, this feeling of being as valuable as the experience is of value to you is quite astounding and kudos to you for sticking it out, even though there are times that you wanted probably to be like, Oh, I've done this so much. And I'm not really, I don't love that feeling, but you've seen it through and it's pretty, pretty cool.
JM: Thank you. I mean, it is a big part of my identity and it's tricky because I mean, I think a lot of people's jobs and careers carries a lot of the burden of defining them. It's tough because I think there's a l a lot more transitioning going on in second careers and stuff like that, that people have, and they, and they need to be open to that, and they need to be able to see themselves in all kinds of different roles and ways in order to find happiness. That really is an important thing. And I lament that I don't, I mean…I really can't imagine what else I would do. And it's such a central part of my self-conception. And when Jimmy switched over, I mean, we've talked about that a lot. Because when you do that, you really give institutions, other people, things, a say, a veto over your life and over your options and the consequences that you will, you will allow those limitations to be placed and you have committed yourself to something that isn't entirely in your control. So long as those things, if they're in tension but they don't break, that's fine. But as a rule, you, you shouldn't put yourself in a position in which your self concept and your happiness is in something you can't control. I don't endorse that either. I don't recommend that, but I don't think I understood. And I always knew that being a musician was, comically difficult, not as difficult as being an actor, but up there, up there, and I often have conversations in my head with my younger self, and I think my, if my younger self, if I went to myself at Dartmouth, if I went to myself at any point and I was like, Okay, Joe, here I am. This is what I'm doing. I'm 48 years old. This is my life. My younger self would be like, he must be the happiest person in the world. I can't believe…I can't. This is so great. I don't have to worry for the next 20 years if that's where I'm gonna end up at at 48. And I remind myself that a lot. Cause it's…You lose that perspective. [LJR: Yeah.] So you focus you very easily on things that you don't have or that you are missing or that you feel that you deserve. And on one hand you don't wanna lose that either, because you don't wanna be static. You don't want to settle. But keeping those different perspectives balanced is really a daily, sometimes I don't know, I think challenge is overstating it, but a daily exercise.
And so when people ask, you know, How are you, you know, it's, you, it …it’s hard to answer in a way that isn't facile, but not yet. if you take too long. Then they're like, Oh my God, I shouldn't have asked it. [LJRL Right.] That kind of assessment is you, It really is something that you have to work through and synthesize in a way that puts you in the best position. And of course when you're a parent, then you're like, All I have to start modeling positive behavior. I have to show and demonstrate how you navigate the vicissitudes of happiness and disappointment.
LJR: Yeah, it doesn't have to be positive. It just has to be authentic, right?
JM: It doesn't have to be positive, it has to be auth, which doesn't have to be positive but has to be authentic?
LJR: It has to be authentic, what you're, what you're putting out there as a model. You know, you said you have to model positivity. Well, is it really positivity or you need to model authenticity?
JM: Well…
LJR: Maybe some days it's just positivity. I get it. I get it.
JM: What you wanna be like, you two can cope, you two can find the silver lining.
LJR: Right, Right.
JM: To this whole experience. And and a lot of it is as I, I, I feel as, as, as I get older, cuz you think, well, I'm going to discover this truth. I'm going to learn this thing and that is going to help me put life in context. And as I get older, I feel that that real wisdom or that valuable wisdom is not gained by learning something new, necessarily. But by recognizing the truth of something that you already know. And I feel like most of the things we need to know, we've known for a very long time. But we, we haven't understood the implications of what it is, what it means to know that and to recognize the consequences that that knowledge should lead you to. There's no other thing that you don't know that if you knew like, Oh, well, how come it took me so long to know that. You know these things. You just have to recognize the truth of what it means to know these things. Don't look under the rock for something that's gonna get you out of this dynamic.
LJR: Wow. Okay. So if you need to do a pivot, Joe, I think you're just gonna pivot into like life guru, because that is really, really deep stuff. Right on. Right. We know particularly at this stage in our lives.
JM: Yes.
LJR: There's so much that we know and we just need to reflect on that, that okay, we've known it all along. What are we, what's obfuscating that? Right? What can we shed to get to this thing that is probably the key to our recognition of this is pretty good, or this is the, the next direction I need to go.
JM: Sometimes I find myself repeating cliches, not…saying them in earnest, and then be like, Oh my God, that's a cliche. And I, I mean, of course, that’s why it’s a cliché. The saying this prevented me from seeing the actualness that that’s why it’s a cliché. All the things you know you’ve always known; they’re all clichés but let the cliché block you from understanding what it means to know.
LJR: Right. Well it seems as though you have your head on straight and now you get to impart that to somebody little and it’s exciting. And we will just see where your life takes you and all the good things that you get to create and we’re just so happy that you’ve shared this with us today. Thank you so much for being a part of it.
JM: My pleasure.
LJR: That was Maestro Joseph Marcheso, a world-class conductor most recognized for his affiliation with Opera San José, where he has served as Music Director since 2014. He has also been a member of the conducting staff at San Francisco Opera and boasts an extensive and impressive repertoire of over 60 operas. Though he still travels to many of the world’s opera houses, he lives in Berkeley, California, with his husband and their young son. Find out more about his latest musical adventures at josephmarcheso.com. Of course, you can find a lot of other adventures—from research trips to the arctic to navigating unexpected diagnoses—at RoadsTakenShow.com, where the full archive of all of our shows resides. Whatever your taste for adventure, there's something for you there each week with me, Leslie Jennings Rowley, on Roads Taken.