Washington Marathon

I’ve often been fascinated by and admired ordinary people who train their bodies and minds to survive the extraordinary demands of a marathon. So when Washington National Opera offered me the opportunity to lead their 2025 production of Francesca Zambello’s Porgy and Bess, culminating in eight days of unmitigated endurance conducting, I was excited to sign on!  

I had already been working with a personal trainer for over a year, but once we had the DC challenge in our sights – about four months before the start of rehearsals – we started to intensify our sessions, targeting the core, upper back and shoulder strength that operatic conductors are well advised to build and preserve, alongside the capacity for short intense bursts of cardio.  After all, in contrast to concert conducting, it’s not uncommon for “operatic athletes” to be in the pit for over 3 hours per performance!

Over time, I found myself really enjoying the workouts, up to 3 per week with my South Africa-based trainer, and came to understand that elevated fitness is more of an ongoing process and series of lifestyle choices than a state of being. Once I got into the rhythm, training just became part of my routine and proved to be a great way to programme breaks from score study and stave off the slow death of sitting at a desk!

The Porgy performance marathon itself, now just a week behind me, was genuinely daunting: 10 performances of Gerswhin’s lengthy three-act masterpiece in 8 days, with alternating casts, 1 day off and 2 days with matinee and evening performances back to back. Like any other endurance athlete, from a physical standpoint, I focussed on warm up, warm down, nutrition, hydration and replenishment of vitamins and minerals, but thankfully, working with the wonderful cast, chorus and crew at WNO and performing for its warmly responsive audiences was incredibly rewarding, so that psychological momentum was always guaranteed.  The hardest juncture was just before the midway point with four performances and the only free day behind me with six to go, but I was so grateful that waiting for me at the finish line was an incredible support team of colleagues and sponsors from my orchestra in Charlotte. It was great to have that additional motivation at the end!

Having had this extraordinary artistic experience, I don’t plan on attempting anything similar in the foreseeable future, but I will always treasure the memory of a magical summer in DC where I added one of the greatest American operas to my repertoire, tested my limits to the extreme and lived to tell the tale!