WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Story Behind the Song: A Young Conductor and Her Love of Opera

Episode Date: May 12, 2026

Join Lilly Faye Kraemer as she interviews Stephanie Childress, a British Conductor, and her experience conducting Verdi's opera, "Le Traviata," in Helinski, Finland. 

Welcome to Story Behind the Song on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm your host, Lily Fay Kramer. And today I am joined by Stephanie Childress, a world-renowned conductor who is currently in Finland conducting Verde's La Traviata. Fun fact about Stephanie is she's only 26. Anyway, welcome Stephanie to Story Behind the Song. Thanks for having me, Lily Faye. Not 26 forever.

No, but right now you are. Enjoying it for now. Awesome. So first, La Traviata is an Italian traviate means to mislead or to lead astray. How do you interpret the title of the piece and what effect do you think it has on the actual opera? Well, I mean, the title basically in Italian means the fallen one. And obviously because it's a feminine ending, it does imply the fallen woman. and what's interesting about this title is that it was in itself quite divisive when it first came to the stage in Venice, I think around 1853 it was premiered.

And Venice at the time was sort of quite a Venice has gone through a lot of different interesting periods when the Medici family was kind of ruling Venice, gosh, I'm going to get all my days wrong probably, but, you know, let's say 17th century. It was very well known for the carnivals and for being a city of kind of looser morals, even though the Catholic influence was very, very great. But Venice, as a city, went through a lot of different changes to do, particularly with censorship, since it was very strong in the 19th century. So when Birdie was writing this opera and when it ended up being premiered,

and the idea of portraying a fallen woman, essentially a prostitute on stage in a theatre in an opera house, no less, was deemed pretty scandalous. In a way, you know, it's to do with the higher echelons of society. So she is kind of, let's say, a kept woman, someone who would have been kept by men of very, very wealthy means, let's say, courtisans, as there were many, many back in the day.

It's funny because the opera itself is based on a book by Alexandre Dumas, a fantastic book, which I recommend. It's not Alexandre Dumas who wrote, you know, the Count of Monte Cristo and the Three Musketeers, actually his son, who was a very talented author in his own rights and had his own relationship, very tempestuous relationship with the courtesan, end up writing a book about it loosely on his experiences. It's definitely not autobiographical, but it's loosely based on his experiences.

And the fact that she, as the heroine in Atraviatta, the opera, you know, they die at the end. So long and short of it is that that's what the title's about, and essentially that's what the story is about. And in a way, the title of the opera is even more revelatory than the title of the book. The book is called La Demo Camilla, which is just the lady with the camellias. It's a very elegant title. But La Traviata, the fallen woman, well, she does fall in the end because she actually passes away, dies of tuberculosis. So in a way, not only is she the fallen woman in the sense that she has supposedly fallen because of the morals of the day.

But she does actually die at the end. I think it's very revealing having a title that encapsulates all of those things in basically one word. So that's a very long answer. But there we go. That's a great answer. So it's based on the play by Alexandre du Mufis. It was first a book, I think. The book.

And then it was made into a play. That's right. Okay. In French, there's like the word Mison Abime. Would you say it's a story within a story, but touching with real life and, um, Verdi's actual life? Definitely. I mean, Verdi himself was, he was not with, he was not keeping a woman, so to speak,

but he ended up being a widower at a pretty young age. And he ended up living the rest of his life after he was widowed with a very successful soprano. And they, I believe they, I don't think they ever married. I might be wrong with that. But in any case, you know, definitely at the start of. the relationship they could not get married because he was a widower. In a way, there are some parallels.

I do think that for me, I draw more parallels between obviously the book and the story and the opera that he eventually wrote rather than necessarily his own personal life. But it's interesting because when this scandal erupted in Venice at the premiere, with obviously the thematic and, you know, the themes being discussed, the question of the composer's own moral compass did come up because it was very well known that he was living with a woman outside of wedlock. So that does play a small part in at least understanding why it was so badly received at the premiere. Obviously now it's like one of the most celebrated operas in the history of the repertoire. Awesome. So I was doing some research and Verde uses a lot of different rhythms within the opera like the waltz. the can can the polka

some critics have said that those were more progressive rhythms to have in an opera what do you think it's interesting I think that in a way people really overlook dance rhythms in Verdi in general I mean he's representing

in all of his operas so many very interesting snippets of life and this one in particular because it would have been closer to his time he was writing about a subject that was just, you know, closer proximity to the time he was living in than something like Rigoletto or Nabucco,

and Aida, which deals like with the Egyptians and stuff. So I think particularly in this opera, it is very pertinent that he takes these dance rhythms. And actually, you see it later on. I mean, for me, one of the most fantastic productions I ever saw was at his last opera, Falstaff, which was done in Ex-Oprovence at the festival, done by a amazing director

called Barry Kosky, Australian director, I believe. He seemed to have found, I mean, Falstaff is obviously based on the character, Falstaff that we know of in Shakespeare's plays, but Barry Kosky was able to pull out all of these dance rhythms and actually get the singers to kind of embody them when they were singing. And especially on some of the musical interviews, like he would have, there'd be a lot of physical movement, actually,

which you don't often associate necessarily with opera. You're like, well, these guys need to stand and sing and do their stuff. But I definitely think that dance rhythm is something that I want people to pick up and appreciate more in Birdie's music, and especially how he weaves them together. At the start in the prelude, you have obviously this gorgeous, painful, very emotive moment where violence come in. Half the violence basically come in very soft.

and then suddenly the rest of the orchestra comes in and they come in a very standard like pump chum chum pump pump pump pump pump and on top of that which is obviously a very sort of standard strict rhythm you have this gorgeous melody that comes back in in the top strings and the violin and for me it's that juxtaposition of kind of

the groundedness of the dance rhythm that's in the bass and then this beautiful lyric melody that sort of just floats on top. And in a way, they don't really have anything to do with each other, but because he's putting them together, it's kind of like if you wanted to dig deeper and be a bit more philosophical about it, you know, the stability of that grounded rhythm

is kind of like, let's say, the constraints of society, you know, marching everyone forward and saying, you must go this way, and you must do it this way. And then the soaring violet line at the top is kind of this heartbreaking plea for free. freedom or for air that, you know, Violetta, the principal or the heroine has, trying to live out the rest of her life. She knows she's going to die, but live out this love that she has for Alfredo, which is kind

of the heart of the story. So would you say the upper strings with their melodies kind of represent Violetta while the bass represents like society? Even though she is sick, she still has to continue and move on with her life? Yeah, I mean, she's sick and she doesn't, she wants to stop everything and she does in the second act. They escape to the countryside together and she leaves her world of balls and the aristocracy behind to be with Alfredo for a moment. But reality intrudes and that's definitely that grounded base rhythm. What do you have to say about in Act 3, the Adagio del Pasado when it changes to a major key?

How did you interpret that and how do you think it relates to the rest of the tragedy? Well, that the whole aria is just so heartbreaking. It's basically just her singing accompanied by pizocato. Well, there's a pizcato bass and then the strings sort of quietly echoed the initial downbeat pizcacartos of the basses and cellos. It's really moving. And then there is a major moment. I'm conducting it like in two hours. So this is good for me to think about.

You know, it's every human being when faced with adversity or maybe one faced with moments of deep shadows and deep doubts. You know, there is, I don't know if there's always hope, but I don't think you get doubt without having hope at the same time. And I think that's what the Italian specifically, Bairdi, and I know Mozart's not Italian, but when he was writing with an Italian libretti, So they're so good at this treading this fine line between two contrasting emotions.

And because they're sort of treading that fine line, it heightens the intensity of both. You can slip in from one to the other very easily. And it makes for some very, very moving music. And that's also the use of the minor and the major keys, if you know, want to be very prosaic and very kind of, you know, basic about it. but that's kind of also how it works. It's very easy to slip in and out of one or the other. I think that's a very good reflection of kind of human nature

and all the duality of emotions, but the strong pull we can have from one extreme to the other. For sure. What's your favorite aria or section of the opera and why do you like to conduct it so much? Oh, at the end of Act 2, there is Germant, so Alfredo's, father comes to their country estate and basically persuades Fioletta through various means to abandon

Alfredo. And she decides that she will for various reasons. And then Jean-Mont has a confrontation with his son Alfredo and he sings this absolutely gorgeous aria. And we have two castes, so they alternate one every night. But both of our Germonts are these amazing bass baritones with these amazing bass baritones, and every time they sing this aria. which is basically the father pleading with his son for him to come back into the folds of the family and to give up this woman and to give up this life

that he is leading of living in sin, I guess. But it's the most beautiful aura and it's all every night I get to hear it sung by two incredible artists. So, yeah, it really nearly brings a tear to my eye. So Jean-Mont's act two aria, it would be would be one of my faves right now. So on a more technical side, what does a typical rehearsal

look like for you? Well, now, thankfully, we don't rehearse anymore because the shows have started. We had 12 shows, so it's a long period. But what did the rehearsals look like? Well, we'd basically rehearsed from,

you know, kind of 10 to 1230 and then 130 to 4-ish on most days. and the way that it normally works in opera houses, so I'm currently working at the Finnish National Opera House in Helsinki. The way things normally work is that as a conductor, you come in at the beginning and you have, let's say, two days of musical rehearsals,

and then you start staging rehearsals with the director or the revival director, whichever is the case. And the difficult thing is that obviously it's very nice getting to know everyone the first two days of musical rehearsals, but then when you put the show together with the director, you realize that sometimes maybe the singers need a bit more time on this passage because they're like throwing a vase at someone or like they need to run from one end of the stage to the other. And so the way I like to work is, you know, I have my two musical rehearsals at the beginning where we just go through the music. I make sure everyone sort of knows their part or I correct people if they need to brush up on something.

The big thing is always pronunciation, really pronouncing the Italian well and things like that. So I pick up on that and I have a good team around me of repetitive to pick up on things like that. But then the way I like to work is that during the staging rehearsals, you know, I won't be passive. I'll be very active in trying to keep shaping the music according to the stage directions that we're using in that moment. Because for me, you know, opera is just a marriage of music and music and words

and you can't have one without the other. And I think it's silly for some conductors to kind of come in. and to say like this is the way it's going to go from day one without understanding the production and how the production itself changes and evolves. The whole thing is a very kind of evolving, has to be an evolving kind of process. Yeah, we had ample rehearsal time. We had about three weeks, which is quite a lot. And we started, we've already done two shows. So I get to spend a lot of time in Helsinki, which is actually really nice. That's so amazing. How do you not get tired of the opera? just tell yourself the story over and over again while the show's going?

Well, every time I feel like I find something new in the score. You know, this is also my first time doing the piece. And I mean, I also have sort of other projects like this coming weekend. I'm going to Zurich and doing kind of totally different music with a chamber orchestra, no singers. I've been doing a percussion concerto. You know, so it's battle sort of definitely give me even more variety. but I don't know.

I think when you're dealing with great works of art, as I think La Traviata is, definitely the music in La Chaviatta is absolutely glorious. I kind of feel like it's a golden opportunity for me to just keep getting to know the score as much as I can. You will always find something new, and you will always find something that surprises you. And I think for me that's the best thing about working in art

and with great works of art is that if you're just open to, you know, if you're curious and if you're open to letting the work kind of speak to you, then it'll tell you lots of really amazing, interesting things every time. So I don't think I'll be tired of it. You can't be tired of it. You don't have a choice. That's also a very good in fact of it. Well, awesome. That's all the time we have today. I'm Lily Fay Kramer on Story Behind the Song and I've been joined by Stephanie Childress. Stephanie, thank you so much for joining me. My pleasure, Lily Fay. Thank you. And you are listening to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I've been your host, Lily Fay Kramer, on Story Behind the Song.