Meet OPERA San Antonio's Resident Conductor Andres Cladera

By: OPERA San Antonio

Andres Cladera is an indispensable member of the creative team that will bring Fantastic Mr. Fox to life. Leading the small orchestra of seven musicians is just one of the tasks that fall under the responsibility of this talented young conductor, a native of Uruguay. Andres is also in charge of coordinating a smooth flow between the orchestra and the singers from second to second and oversees the entire musical dimension of the opera.

As OPERA San Antonio's Resident Conductor, Cladera is especially thrilled to be taking part in the company's debut production. Fantastic Mr. Fox retells Roald Dahl's story about a crafty fox who outsmarts a band of greedy humans in order to safeguard his family and animal friends.

"This will be a brand-new production, with very colorful visuals designed by the illustrator Emily Carew Woodard. They're so imaginative and have a special connection to the atmosphere of the original book. There's a lot of attention to detail visually, along with an incredible cast of singers."

Cladera says all this complements the beautiful details of the music by Tobias Picker. "The score we're performing is the chamber version for seven players total: violin, viola, cello, clarinet (doubling bass clarinet), bassoon, piano and percussion. This creates a level of intimacy and a certain level of playfulness with the individual colors of the orchestra. And the performance space allows the singers to make a closer connection to the audience."

Before recently moving to Denver to take up a position as director of the music school at the Swallow Hill Center, Cladera co-founded and served as artistic director of The Microscopic Opera Company in Pittsburgh, together with our stage director, Erica Olden. At Microscopic, Cladera developed a reputation for his persuasive approach to contemporary opera. The list of new operas he introduced at the company in just a five-year period is astonishing and includes the work of opera composers like Jake Heggie, Lee Hoiby, Jonathan Kupper, and Katrazyna Brochoka.

Cladera said, "I've conducted three of Tobias's operas by now and am passionate about them. He really has a great understanding of drama and of how music works at the core to describe the emotions his characters are feeling. So many composers try to do that but don't succeed. Tobias has a great understanding of the human voice, how it works in an expressive way. And the colors he's able to create in the orchestration are absolutely incredible."

Cladera understands singers so well because he's been one himself for so long. He had his very first experience with opera as a seven-year-old boy, when he started singing in a children's chorus in Uruguay and appeared in professional productions. He could have followed the path of a concert pianist, having won several major international competitions, but chose to concentrate on the podium instead.