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An interview with Executive Producer John Goberman

by Dale Brauner
copyright ©2006, Dale Brauner

The PBS program “Live From Lincoln Center” celebrates its 30th anniversary with a two-hour special on May 25, 2006 at 8pm (check local listings). John Goberman, the series’ creator and executive producer, culled the show’s vaults (most of the clips rebroadcast for the first time) to create the one-time-only program. The 12-time Emmy Award winner also sat down with DanceView Times writer Dale Brauner in his office at Lincoln Center one morning in May to discuss the series and ballet’s place in those broadcasts.

John Goberman: I was a cello player; I was playing all over — City Opera, at the Met. I was here. I made half my living doing chamber music. Then I quit and the next day they asked me if I wanted to work with the opera company (New York City Opera). So I did. I was in the administration there for a couple of years. And I thought, “The thing they have to do here is, they’ve got to do broadcasts.” So I set this thing up and that’s why we’re doing it.

DanceView Times: You had specific ideas about how to broadcast the performing arts.

John Goberman: Yes. It seemed to me the essence of what Lincoln Center has is not operas and ballets but performances of operas and ballets. So what we have as a product is performance and that is peculiarly suited to television broadcasts. Because the one thing about television that is unique is that it can take you there. Film and tape can’t. They didn’t film the guy walking on the moon. They broadcast it. It’s that kind of event theory. That’s why I thought it was terribly important for the performers and the audience that this be broadcast live and not interfere with the performance. Not take over, the way television used to, not turn the stage into a studio, but to take the audience and performer in their natural setting and make a window on that setting and broadcast it across the country. 

We sort of bent the technology to fit the performance rather than the other way around.  The conventional way of going about it is the video engineer says, “There’s not enough light, I can’t make my pictures.” So bash, these giant floods of light come on. So I tell the video operator “You know, it’s supposed to look like an opera. Make your pictures.”  And that’s what he did. There’s all a balance here, of course. The idea really was that we’d figure out a way to deal with what the audience was seeing and the environment the performers were operating in and not transform what they were seeing for fodder for the tube. 

DVT: I have to ask this right from the start. People always ask, “Why can’t they rebroadcast “Giselle” or why can’t I purchase a copy of it?”  So why can’t you rebroadcast shows or sell them as DVDs?

John Goberman: There are several reasons. One, because it’s a live broadcast. The idea of it is ephemeral, just like a performance. That’s theory. As a practical matter the costs of clearance — what you’d have to pay everybody — to be able to sell those things is just too great for what the market could bear.  That’s why.

[Note: “Giselle” and “Swan Lake” were available briefly on video and can sometimes be found on ebay]

DVT: Is it a case of not anticipating the video boom and not having those provisions in the initial contracts?

John Goberman: Let’s say that we were today going to take this VHS of “Swan Lake” with Natalia Makarova and Ivan Nagy, or “Giselle” with Makarova and Mikhail Baryshnikov and sell it.  How many do you think we can sell? There was a time when there was a real market here for performances like this. Rights were bought out and contracts were signed with this intent, this was 10, 15 years ago, and I can tell you most of them have not paid their costs back.

DVT: Do you think this show came around at the right time? Broadcasting from Lincoln Center in the 1970s meant having access to some of the biggest stars, such as George Balanchine at the New York City Ballet, Baryshnikov et al at American Ballet Theatre, Beverly Sills at New York City Opera Company, Zubin Mehta at the New York Philharmonic etc…

John Goberman: I think it came about because it had major resident companies. That was part of the idea (behind the show) and part of the reason we’re still here is we have the wealth of offerings that can support a series. It’s not as if we every once and a while have a ballet or an opera but we can look at a year here and find things that, A, are appropriate for broadcast, meaning they aren’t cult items and, B, they weren’t done last year. There’s such a wealth of repertoire here that you can have a broadcast. I don’t know there are many places in the world where you can have a series like this. Another part of it is that it’s produced by Lincoln Center and not by the networks. 

DVT: But you did catch these resident companies at their peak. The 1970s were “The Ballet Boom,” probably never to be repeated. So, you weren’t just selling Lincoln Center but Beverly Sills at Lincoln Center.

John Goberman: I think one thing about the TV set is you can turn it off. You’re not buying something where you own it or paying $100 for a ticket where you’ve got to sit there, bored out of your mind. The one thing about television where the rubber hits the road is that it better be interesting on a consistent basis or people will turn it off. They’ve got a lot more choices now than there used to be. I don’t think we’re “selling” anything to an audience. Over one to three hours, you’re maintaining interest, so your enemy — the remote control here — doesn’t jump into the hand of the bored. That’s why something that might get great critical response in the newspaper, nobody would watch.

DVT: Certainly it’s helped by having household names.

John Goberman: Yes. But they’re household names because they’re great. They’re not great because they’re household names. Baryshnikov is unbelievable. Pavarotti is unbelievable. There are no stars that don’t deliver. 

DVT: In a New York Times article about “Live From Lincoln Center” from 1984, it spoke about how few cable stations there were and how an arts cable channel would be a good idea. But we’ve seen how the Arts & Entertainment channel became A&E and Bravo stopped showing the arts and started broadcasting “West Wing” reruns. Do you think it will ever be possible to have a station devoted to the high arts?

John Goberman: I was the original consultant for ABC Art and also for A&E. I think it’s the difference between profit and non-profit. That’s really what drives all of this. Even when broadcasting was 13 channels there was never a shortage of airtime. If you had a ballet, you could have put it, even 40 years ago, on broadcast television. A UHF channel. The time was always there, but there was no way to pay for it. So the idea that the multitude of channels can all of a sudden create a market for a ballet (on TV) is just foolish. It just doesn’t happen. Any of these commercial undertakings, on regular or cable television, can always make money by putting on a movie at 8pm than a ballet. There’s no question about it.  Only a non-profit undertaking can actually carry this thing  And that’s why it’s on PBS.  It’s a very important part of the identity of PBS at this point. There was a fractionating not of the television audience but the channels.  You used to have the three big networks. When cable came in, they first made a movie channel because that was a big thing. Then there was a news channel. Then a cartoon channel, sports channel, science channel, history channel, documentary channel etc... All the stuff that used to be on PBS was fractionated away by commercial undertakings that could make it.  To make a history program is pretty cheap compared to putting on an opera. The one thing that hasn’t been is performing arts.

DVT: We read in newspapers that the arts don’t seem to be as important part of people’s lives today than they used to be.

John Goberman: That’s true. What we do appeals to a very small portion of the public. It always has and always will. I like to think that we’re going to do a broadcast next week and maybe 1 in a million is going to watch. But that’s important because it’s maybe the only way they’ll ever see “La Boheme” or one of Christopher Wheeldon’s new ballets.

DVT: How much doesn’t it cost to put on a “Live From Lincoln Center” broadcast?

John Goberman: The annual budget is approximately $3 million. Costs vary from show to show, depending on whether it’s opera or theater or orchestra.

DVT: What goes into the planning of a broadcast?

John Goberman: We are operating with the constituents (of Lincoln Center), so we are meeting with the artistic head of the constituents to find out what they’d like to see. So I’ll talk to Peter Martins (artistic director of the New York City Ballet) about what he wants to do and what I want to do. We’ll talk it out and come with something.

DVT: I noticed that when the New York City Ballet is on PBS, it is usually on “Live From Lincoln Center,” whereas American Ballet Theatre has been on the “Dance in America” program. At a Museum of Television & Radio seminar last year, the producers of “Dance in America” and ABT artistic director Kevin McKenzie said that ABT has a relationship with DIA. Are those the arrangements?

John Goberman: No. ABT appears at The Met. Broadcasting from The Met is very expensive. There’s no division.  Certainly if Ballet Theatre were here, we’d be interested in working with them.

DVT: What happens before the actual broadcast? How much research goes into it?

John Goberman: The whole thing is scripted from the word “go.” The directors  watch several tapes of performances of the ballet.  Then it’s rehearsed two to three times. In a sense, the making of the broadcast is as much of a performance as the performance is. The performance is rehearsed, everything is set and then you go on stage. Same with the broadcast. All the camera scripting is all done in advance. Kirk Browning (long-time telecast director) is right now working on the next show, “Light in the Piazza.” Every shot. You change things just like you do on stage.

DVT: But accidents do happen, like when Kevin McKenzie appeared in “Romeo and Juliet” wearing his sweatpants.

John Goberman: Oh, but accidents are so rare. I thought it was kind of stupid. I thought the audience in the hall thought it was stupid, but it’s a live broadcast. That’s terribly important. If I had been sitting there producing a video for a store, I would have been horrified and made them do it again. That takes all of the life out of it.

DVT: In the past, you’ve spoken about how important it is to you that it is live. It made me think about pianist Glenn Gould, who ended up retiring from the stage due to its “non-take two-ness.” He wanted to do the perfect performance and felt you couldn’t do that in a one-off situation on stage.

John Goberman:  I’m not sure what a perfect “Swan Lake” would be. Or a perfect setting of “Swan Lake.”  What you’re looking at is a performance of “Swan Lake.” One of the amazing things about an orchestra playing a symphony, you’ve got about 100 musicians sitting there and not one plays a wrong note.  It’s pretty amazing when you think about it. 

DVT: Well, I was a French Horn player and we probably never get through anything without playing one wrong note.

John Goberman:  Well, you guys have spoiled a lot of performances! If something goes wrong in a performance, does anybody die? Just as long as you don’t spend millions of dollars to put this video tape and make it a DVD on the shelf in a store  That’s why when you start doing that, you starting two and three performances and paying people two and three times what you did before. Every performance has to look the same — the same costume, hair… So you’re really building up a gigantic cost for what?

DVT: I remember at a seminar at the MTR about Balanchine that when you were working on the broadcast of “Coppelia” you came up against the desire to show the dancers in a pleasing manner and Balanchine’s desire to show the choreography.  You said in the seminar that, for broadcast purposes, the dancer was most important. 

John Goberman: That was true.  A choreographer wants to see his choreography. That’s good for the stage. But a broadcast is about performance and those are two different things. Mr. Balanchine was a great artist and we wanted to do what he wanted. So we ended up with a whole lost of wide shots and not much of an audience. An awful lot of dance on television has failed because the choreographer wants to see the choreography. This is dull. At the same time, with something like “Coppelia” there was a lot of detail. After a while you’re into a cult audience and they get all upset about something that most people don’t care about.

DVT: Do you remember any surprises coming about with the broadcasts in terms of casting? For example, Darci Kistler pulled out of the “Swan Lake” performance, with Miranda Weese stepping in.

John Goberman: There has been a couple with people getting sick. We had a Mostly Mozart program where the singer cancelled at 7:30pm for an 8pm broadcast.

DVT: What happened with “La Bayadere,” during which Natalia Makarova performed the first act and Marianna Tcherkassk picked up the lead in the “Shades” act.

John Goberman: Makarova really was sick. So I said, “Listen. The first act is easy. Why don’t you do the first act? It will be a big dramatic thing and we’ll have a substitute.” It was either not do the show or not.  Pavarotti cancelled once.

DVT: How did you pick the items on the 30th anniversary show?

John Goberman: Well, it’s two hours. This is not the best-of. This is a show of highlights. We could have done three or four of these with what’s on the shelf. I thought it would be fun to set it up as if it was a show in itself. We have intermissions. We have an opening, then you have a first act closer, then knock them out in the second act, and then a finale, where we have three to five clips. It’s a balancing act.  How long is too long? You don’t want to step on a performance. You don’t want to have too much music, the dance people will be bored. But then the music people might be bored during “Apollo.” It’s a balancing act. The accelerant is the applause. It should keep you interested.

Photo: Live From Lincoln Center 30th Anniversary: Director Kirk Browning (left) and Executive Producer John Goberman (right) Photo by Stephanie Berger.

Volume 4, No. 20
May 22, 2006
copyright ©2006 Dale Brauner
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