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Before I got to do this, had the honor of doing this for a living full time, writing
opera, living in the opera world, I had moved to San Francisco and I was very new and I
didn't really know anybody but I had a background in music. I wasn't in music at all and I was-
a job opened up at the San Francisco Opera in the PR marketing department as a writer
for the company, and my friend, Elena Park, brought me in on that level and she wanted
to hire me and she said, "Okay. You need to meet Lotfi and -- because you're going to
be writing for him. You're going to be doing speeches and reports and articles and press
releases and interviews, all kinds of stuff. You're going to be working very closely with
him." So I had heard about him as this incredible impresario and this powerful, charismatic
person and I was a little afraid, and I met him and he made me feel so welcome with this
magnetic personality and this charm and this humor and yet there was a deep seriousness
and- but there was this passion and joy for it too. And he was so eager to welcome a new
member to his team and so he really embraced me and welcomed me to that family right away,
and so my impression was this really remarkable man. I'd never met anybody like that where
from the moment you meet him you get a sense of someone who has ideas going all the time,
who has a lot that he's working on and creating, but he's very present and focused on you because
I think he always -- One of the things -- I think of Lotfi as one of the great consummate
impresarios that the world has ever known because not only is he a great director, actor,
singer with all that experience. He's also a great leader, able to do all of those things
very well and also able to zero in on an individual and recognize their personality and what they
might bring to the table. He's -- I think that's partly the director in him too, being
able to bring something out of someone that maybe they don't even know they have, and
I think I got that impression from him right away certainly from reputation and then meeting
the man in person. And then as I worked with him it was all confirmed a hundred times over
what a great, powerful personality and what a great, generous man he was in terms of wanting
to bring more people to the table to create more excitement, more ideas, bold adventures.
I was saying -- I always thought of him as not only a leader but an explorer. He --
With that magnetic personality and charisma he would bring people to him, all these people
with ideas on every side, administrative, creative, artistic, everything, and then he'd
say, "Okay. Now we're going to go on an adventure," and he would bring with him donors, the board
of directors, other companies, creative artists, singers, composers, everybody. It was a really
remarkable time.I think Lotfi always had a really special appreciation for composers.
When I was working in -- on his staff as the writer for the company at first he didn't
know -- he knew I had a background in music. He didn't know I was a composer but as time
went by, and it didn't take much time, I was -- I started writing for a lot of the people
that came through. At one time he joked. He said, "I'm going to start charging you a commission
for all the singers that are coming through the opera house that you're writing songs
for," and he -- but he like I said he keeps his eyes and ears open. He's amazing that
way, unlike anybody else I've ever encountered, and the atmosphere in the opera house was
always tremendously exciting. One of his big accomplishments was to have the leadership
and the vision and the ideas and the energy to take that company out of the opera house
for an entire season in to two venues that were not known for doing opera, the Orpheum
and the Civic Auditorium, create exciting atmospheres, do unusual and standard rep in
bold productions and then -- and not lose really anybody in terms of subscribers or
support and then bring everybody back in to a renovated, seismically refitted opera house.
That was tremendous, and so the energy level was very exciting from that. That was 1996,
'97. In '98 we had the world premiere of A Streetcar Named Desire. Right? And he had
already approached me about doing Dead Man Walking so I was already composer in residence.
They had had great success with The Dangerous Liaisons in '94 so there was a real excitement
around the opera house about this kind of- again this sense of adventure and exploration,
bringing the great tradition of opera and taking it the next step, bringing every element
that we have and moving it forward another step and surrounding every project with tremendous
talent. So Pacific Visions was really exciting because it was reaching out to all of Asia
and throughout the Pacific and throughout -- and then through -- and by turn throughout
the world to bring talent and opera to a greater audience. That was always another mission
of Lotfi's too and I believe still is. His motto was always opera is for everybody and
he made sure that not only did we bring everybody in to the opera house or give them an opportunity
to come in to the opera house but to take opera in every possible form to the public,
to communities, to schools, to senior groups, to shopping malls, to everywhere, and he was
the face for that. He was the energy, the mind and the voice for all of that, and it
really did generate tremendous excitement and controversy, which was actually very good.
That's very healthy to have some controversy involved too, he -- a very, very smart man
about all of that, but the honor of being part of that not only on his staff but then
to be his composer in residence, to create this world premiere was mind blowing. I couldn't
quite believe it. I felt very, very fortunate that in terms of timing I landed in his family
and his camp and that he embraced me and welcomed me and saw something in me that I don't even
think I knew I had myself and certainly most other people didn't and was willing to give
me an opportunity to take it to another level. It was a really amazing time. I can't believe
it's already been 11 years -- 11 or 12 years. That's incredible, but his -- he created Ð
he-- Lotfi has created an operatic legacy that will endure in terms of talent, in terms
of vision, in terms of administrative innovation. Everything from the surtitles to the renovated
opera house to enlarging the rep and to the singers and directors and conductors and talent
he nurtured all the way along to his own personal vision as a director. There is just nobody
like him. The impact of surtitles I don't think you can even begin to measure because
now there- it's standard everywhere around the world. Anywhere you go, in any country,
in any language you're going find surtitles and what it did is opened up the entire world
of opera to an audience that had stayed away because they thought well, I don't understand
the language. We live in a very fast-moving world where people have many options and even
their lives are dominated by sound bites whether it be on the news or on Twitter or whatever.
We're talking about really short sound bites that people can quote and live by, and the
fact that they don't have time or the attention span in general to prepare or the fact that
we live in such a fast-paced world to go to the opera house and be assured not only are
you going to a place of reflection and it's your emotional gymnasium so you're going to
have- your emotions are going to have a chance to work out but you're going to a place where
you don't have to worry about understanding. You can relax because not only will you get
the music but you're not going to have to worry about what every single word means.
It's going to come to you because of Lotfi's innovation. It's a tremendous gift to get.
Again it's another huge part of the legacy of Lotfi Mansouri. The other thing- amazing
thing about Lotfi is he himself is a living legacy. He brings to us a golden age of opera
with great, great legendary talent that he worked with directly, and he paid that forward.
He made sure that people got the stories and were told- and knew who these people were
and what they were capable of doing 'cause he worked one on one with them and could bring
that to a whole new generation of singers and conductors and directors, and it's just
remarkable. It's terribly moving.With a strong hand but also with tremendous empathy. He
-- because Lotfi was a performer himself, an actor and then a singer and then a director,
he has- and an administrator, he has perspective from every single part of the business and
he can bring that to whatever part of the business he needs to. I think it's one of
the reasons he was so incredibly successful at fundraising, so incredibly successful at
working with the board of directors, listening to them, bringing his ideas while taking their
ideas to the table. It's a lot like our President, President Obama, listening to everyone and
then making your decision, but he had that strong will and that strong personality and
presence but he -- as a singer himself and a performer on stage he knows what great pressure
is on those performers. So he can come at it from their point of view, and I think he
was able to do that with so many different levels of the opera world and that's another
thing that makes Lotfi very, very rare in that world is this sense of empathy and yet
strength because he knows what they're capable of so he can charm them in to pushing themselves
that much further or he can push them based on reading their personality and what they
are capable of at that moment. He's just -- I think his background in psychology too has
a lot to do with that. I can't think of anybody else quite like that, but I think one of the
reasons people gravitated so strongly and still do to Lotfi is he's a performer. He
knows how to present all of it and I think people really appreciated and enjoyed that,
enjoyed the controversy of it too.When Lotfi commissioned me to write Dead Man Walking
it was going out on a huge limb. I was an unknown as a composer and certainly unknown
as an opera composer 'cause I'd never written one, unproven on all levels in that regard.
I could write for singers. That was proven. There were a lot of famous singers doing my
work at that point, but when he gave me that tremendous gift of that commission there was
a lot at stake but he was willing to take that chance again because he saw something
that nobody else really saw, and he made sure that the environment was completely supportive
and safe for me. He gave me a residency, which meant that my health care was taken care of,
I was basically on a salary for two and a half years, and my job was to write an opera,
and he matched me up with Terrence McNally, one of the great gifts anyone's given me.
He gave me a cast that included Susan Graham, Frederica von Stade, John Packard, all these
wonderful people. He gave me Patrick Summers as a music director, which was again one of
the great gifts of my life, Joe Mantello as our initial director, unbelievable team. And
I was taken care of and in a way because I was here in San Francisco and surrounded by
this loving company that I had come to know so well because of Lotfi I was really protected.
I didn't know at that point that it was a very controversial commission. I was protected.
All I got was the support, tremendous support on all levels. It wasn't until much later
that I found out that it was a very bold, daring thing that he did, but again because
of his vision and because of that sense of nurture and care that he put in to every level
the piece had the best chance possible to succeed. He knew that with a world premiere
you have to give it- you have to do it at the highest level on every single platform
because if you don't there's no chance it's going to succeed. If you do that there's a
chance it will succeed and that's what he gave us was the best possible chance to succeed
because he surrounded us with incredible talent, incredible ideas, and a nurturing environment
to be creative, and that's what it takes. I remember this one really funny story when
I had become close with wonderful Renee Fleming and at that point when I wasn't sure if I
would be a musician still, if I would be privileged to be in music, I would still- I illustrated
children's books for a while on my own. I didn't put any of them out for publication
but I did a lot of illustrations and I did a lot of drawings for Renee, and I was at
lunch or something with Renee and Lotfi and Renee said, "Did you know that Jake also writes
music and he does illustrations?" and he said, "I'm coming to find that Jake is like an onion.
I keep peeling off more and more layers and there's more and more there." It was a very,
very sweet story, but probably my favorite story with Lotfi was when at a party he said
to me, "So you're writing all these art songs. They're getting performed by all these singers.
Have you ever thought about writing an opera?" and I looked at him and said, "No" and I said,
"But who wouldn't be intrigued and challenged by that?" And he goes, "Well, we should
talk about that." And the next day I got a call in my office and I brought my pad, ready
to write the next press release, and he said, "Let's put the pad down and let's talk about
your opera," and that was the beginning of Dead Man Walking and that was all the way
back at the end of 1995. I had only worked with the company for a year and a half so
just a tremendous, tremendous man, impresario, visionary, explorer, leader, nobody like him.When
you have ideas and you're a visionary and you're as -- he's so passionate about the
art form that his battle was always to push it to the next level; let's not stagnate;
let's not stay the same; let's take everything from the past but let's take everything that's
going on now and bring opera in to the future whether it's kicking and screaming and step
by step explore; let's try something; let's try opera in the Civic Auditorium instead
of shutting down for a year; let's try putting the orchestra behind and doing opera in the
round and creating new productions for that space to keep the audience excited, to keep
the art form lively; let's do unusual productions; let's do standard rep with real visionary
directors and unusual casting, exciting casting; let's bring Anna Netrebko for her American
opera debut; let's bring Valery Gergiev for his American debut; let's -- In 1994, my
first year with the company, his idea was let's do seven new productions this year with
one designer. Let's try it. It -- let's -- what have we got to lose? We'll try it.
We'll do it at the highest level possible and then next year we'll look forward to something
else but it's always been looking to the future, always, always, always, and that's a battle
every single year 'cause there are a lot of people who feel only comfortable with the
status quo and we see that politically. We see it everywhere. Lotfi was never happy with
the status quo, always had to be let's take the next step, let's try it, let's move forward,
let's go.That bold adventure where he led everybody out of the opera house for a year.
I don't know that there's another leader who could have handled it quite the way he did,
and I was working in the PR marketing department at that time so I was sort of privy to conversations
on every level, administrative, the board, the staff, on every level. He had to move
all the offices to new offices. He had to move the entire company in to new locations
and find venues that would work for these things, not only for productions of operas
but for events, parties, celebrations, festivals, all the stuff that goes along, and he really
was the captain of that ship and took everything out. There was a lot of doom and gloom. There
were a lot of naysayers who said it would be -- you can't close down for a year, you
can't -- it would be the end of the company, and so what he did was he used every resource
to make it the most imaginative, creative, adventurous thing for everybody involved,
and I think succeeded so beautifully, and going back in to the opera house he made sure
that the entire community was involved. They had an open house and an opera fair before
going back in, and it was -- the entire community was welcome. There were tours through the
opera house. You could watch performances going on. There was a booth with a lot of
famous divas where you could have them sign your book, all kinds of stuff. There was face
painting. There was food. There was all kinds of stuff going on. It was such a celebration
and it felt like a city-wide celebration. I think the opera has always been important
to San Francisco and it's had great leaders, and Lotfi really took the mantle and upheld
the standard of great leadership with the San Francisco Opera on so many levels. He
was faced with enormous challenges. I think the year after he started was when the earthquake
happened and threatened to shut things down and he moved everything to a new venue right
away so that nothing stopped. The show must go on has always been his motto and he has
been a prince at keeping that going, and he got us through a very tough time and I don't
think the San Francisco Opera, certainly the opera house and perhaps the company, would
be the shining jewel that it still is today and will be through the future if it hadn't
been for Lotfi's leadership. And he really just confronted the naysayers and said, "We
have to do it. We have to try. We have to go," always his motto, go. Opera is for everybody.
Let's take it out in to the community and then bring everybody with us back in to the
opera house, and he did it.