Cage was commissioned by Heinz-Klaus Metzger and Rainer Riehn, the artistic directors of the Frankfurt Opera, to create Europeras 1 & 2 (1985–87) with the assistance of Andrew Culver. This took Cage's theatrical multimedia involvements—his circus principle—into the opera house itself. At the time of this interview only the first two Europeras had been produced, but Cage became so fascinated with the medium that Europeras 3 & 4 (1990) and Europera 5 (1991) followed, but these were less elaborate and could be done in concert performance. Cage told Joan Retallack in 1992 that at first the only operas he admired were Mozart's Don Giovanni and Debussy's Pelléas. Then, through spending time at the Frankfurt Opera, he heard Verdi's Falstaff, saw Schoenberg's Moses and Aron, described Bizet's Carmen as “another nice one,” but found Wagner “hopeless” and always disliked vibrato.

Interview

By permission of the John Cage Trust and Anthony Cheevers

AC What are Europeras about?

JC The opera is an extension to all the elements of theater of the separation that has long existed between dance and music in my work with Merce Cunningham. It's extended to include the lighting, the properties, and costumes. Nothing has anything to do with anything else, following the Oriental belief that everything is related to everything else. All of this was done by chance operations, and I must say I enjoyed the result. When the fire came in November two days before the performance, we lost only about 20 percent of the properties we needed. The Schauspiel, which was not burned, was used a month later. It opened in December and has been going off and on ever since. Now it's coming to Purchase, near White Plains, where there's this Pepsico Summerfare.

AC Since all the elements are determined by chance operations, does this mean each performance is different?

JC No. It could in some respects—the way a Beethoven piece is different from one performance to another. You see, when you have things like dance, with the possibility of collision, just to be on the safe side you have to have things more or less fixed. Music is much freer than the other arts because it doesn't bump into itself.

AC So for practical reasons you must have fixed gestures.