Marco Nistico

Marco Nisticò has been named as General Director of Opera on the James effective June 1, 2019. Italian-born baritone Marco Nisticò embodies an impressive combination of beautiful tone, exquisite artistry, and superior stagecraft, which has delighted audiences throughout North America, South America, and Europe.

It was late March, a few weeks into the pandemic. Those were some of the most stressful days I’ve experienced. I would walk on the Point of Honor trail every day, to cleanse my brain, to breathe some fresh air. One day, while walking, I remembered that a good friend of mine, a singer, had performed a song cycle composed by a friend. The songs were based on poems about love, written by children. I called my friend and we talked about her experience. An idea began to formulate in my mind: why not talk to children in our own community and invite them to write poems about what they were going through during the pandemic? To explore what they were feeling, how they were faring?

It seemed that in this strange, scary moment, we had the chance to make art that gave voice to the deepest thoughts of members of our society we seldom hear from directly, and who have so much to say about their world: kids.

That was the germ of the idea: a video song cycle, which could eventually lead to a live performance, onstage, after the pandemic was over.

But how could a performing arts organization like ours, an opera company, make such an idea into a reality?

The answer was: collaboration.

I had just recently met Nick and Rox of The Listening, whose motto is: “If you had a room full of people willing to listen to you, what would you say?” What could be a more perfect fit for our two organizations?

We talked. They seemed kind, smart, enthusiastic. And we immediately got to work. Just a few days later Rox sent me the first poem. The poem, by Faelyn Moats, was called Life These Days, and it was so moving, so honest, so direct. It perfectly captured the anxiety and strangeness, but also the beauty and emotional turmoil, of the moment we were all experiencing.

But how to turn this into a song, and that song into a piece of something larger: a series of musical portraits that would form a mosaic, representing the experiences of young people going through an extraordinary period in our history?

Again, through collaboration.

I’ve worked in the field of opera for a long time, and know it to be a warm, generous, and creative community, ready to take on any challenge. Over that time, I’ve met and worked with a lot of singers, composers, and musicians. It wasn’t hard to come up with a wish list of composers who might be able to work with the young poets from The Listening. My main priorities were that they should be thoughtful, empathetic, engaged.

I approached Kamala Sankaram, an Indian American composer whose work I admire greatly, and whom I like and respect immensely, first. We introduced her to Faelyn via Zoom. They talked. And talked. The two of them hit it off. And this was part of the point. It wasn’t just about putting words to music and creating a polished product, but about facilitating conversations and creating connections.

Read the Washington Post Article on "Life These Days"

I believe strongly that through these connections and conversations, something beautiful and meaningful can emerge. The power of music is amplified by the words and voices of people from our community. The heartfelt words of our young poets can be amplified by coming in contact with other art forms: music, composition, the voice raised in song.

And the thing is, this is what opera is all about. At its core, it is born out of the intersection of different art forms: singing, playing, poetry, acting, sound design, directing. And what lies behind all of those elements is people. Everyone brings what they know, and who they are, to the table. At its best, opera represents collaboration and shared vision in its purest sense. And you don’t need a giant opera house or a big budget to see that magic, to be, in the words of Lin Manuel Miranda, in the room where it happens. Even if that room is on Zoom.

I’ve been moved to see the connections forming between our young poets, the staff of the Listening, and the composers. And to listen in on some of the conversations, to hear them talk about words, music, ideas, style. Together they’re creating beauty that we can all enjoy and that bring new ideas into this world. There’s nothing better than that.

Of course, digital content can never replace live performance and no digital human connection can replace the excitement of working together in real time, real space. Our final goal is to have a live performance of all the songs, on a stage (ideally the stage of the Academy Centre of the Arts), all together: poets, composers, singers, musicians… When that happens, the collaboration will have come full circle.

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Our Values: Using Collaboration in COMMUNITY