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In opera direction a generalising approach means the absolute end.

Article Excerpt
if David Radok happens not to be directing in Sweden, Denmark, France or somewhere else, or not to be staying in his father Alfred Radok's house in Kolodeje in South Bohemia, you will find him in his pleasant attic flat in an old house in the Vinohrady district of Prague. The room, full of old furniture, is personalised by the objects David Radok likes to make out of driftwood, smoothed stones and other materials bearing the traces of time. The director's book of Verdi's La Traviata lies on his desk, half-worked at the beginning of the year, and a red, pearl inlaid electric guitar is propped against the wall.

Is the electric guitar a memento of your rocker beginnings?

I bought it from a guitarist in New York.

Do you play it when you want to relax from opera?

Something like that. Only in this quiet Vinohrady house I can't really go at it at full blast or the neighbours would complain. In Kolodeje it's not a problem.

What do you play?

Just for myself, I'm not very good at it. When I was a small boy I learned to play the guitar, but I didn't stick at it long. Later, when I was already in Sweden, I played the trombone for three years. I even did the entrance exams for the conservatory, but they didn't take me. Luckily.

You mean luckily because you would have missed a career as an opera director?

No, I mean it was lucky for the orchestra I would have had to play in.

Why did you learn the trombone, specifically?

My dad was very worried about my future. Unlike my sisters I didn't do well at school and nothing much interested me, and so dad was naturally worried about how I was going to make a living so as not to end up sweeping the streets. Music was the only thing that I enjoyed. So the conductor Martin Turnovsky advised dad to have me learn trombone.

Okay, but why trombone?

Because traditionally the least number of applicants to the conservatory were in trombone or harp. I ruled out harp straight away, but I had always liked trombone from Dixieland. And as it turned out there really were only four trombone applications to the conservatory. Three got in and the fourth was me.

So your dad's dream of a safe livelihood for his son as trombonist evaporated. Didn't your father try and get you a job in theatre on the side? You were an extra in his production of Trovatore.

Back then it was just a chance for me and my friends for school to make a little easy extra money, but as far as opening up a direct path to opera was concerned, no, it was nothing like that.

Later I discovered from Dad's letters to Czechoslovaka that he had wondered if I had a talent for theatre, but at the time I hadn't shown much sign of it--I tended just to get bad marks at school. Dad knew he was ill, and he had a painful sense of the problems of an exile's life, and on top of that he was worried what would become of me. When you and your parents and sister left Czechoslovakia, you were fourteen. It's a sensitive age, but at the same time an age when kids easily adapt to a new environment ...

Emigration is a complicated thing, but I didn't have any trauma or complex about it either at the time or later. Still, entering a world where you don't have the language and you don't know anyone is difficult in any circumstances. When you are fourteen you cope with it better than the adults. I managed to master Swedish and English relatively quickly and so I found friends and today I'm actually grateful to fate for the experience, which forced me to become independent and find my bearings in the world faster.

You left Czechoslovakia just at the culminating point of the sixties, a period that is today almost glorified for its culture and theatrical life. Did all that leave any trace in you at that age?

Unfortunately not. I was a child and interested in things completely different from culture or political events.

When did the theatre start to attract you?

I couldn't avoid the theatrical environment, since my father was involved in it, and I liked it, because it was full of strange, eccentric people. But I came to be a director by a circuitous route, a set of coincidences, and it absolutely wasn't a goal I consciously set myself. I was an extra in the theatre, and I worked as a stage hand and assistant for the orchestra. I enjoyed carrying the piano in, building benches, straightening the music parts--it was a life free of any responsibility or worries about the future and it suited me pretty well. One day I was asked to become assistant director and I thought, why not? But in fact I had no...