Robyn Talks with David Remnick

Summary

The New Yorker Radio Hour

Episode: Robyn Talks with David Remnick
Date: December 7, 2018
Host: David Remnick
Guests: Robyn (Swedish pop star), Amanda Petrusich (music writer), BH Barry (fight director, Metropolitan Opera)

---

Episode Overview

This episode’s central feature is an in-depth conversation between David Remnick and the Swedish singer-songwriter Robyn, marking her return after an eight-year hiatus with her album Honey. The episode explores Robyn’s musical journey, creative process, experiences with grief and depression, and her reflections on the music industry and self-expression. Subsequent segments feature Amanda Petrusich on 2018’s best pop music and a vivid look behind the scenes at how violence is choreographed for the opera stage.

---

Robyn: Returning to the Spotlight

[00:13 – 14:42]

Introduction: Robyn’s Legacy and Absence

• David Remnick introduces Robyn as a “cutting edge” figure in pop, famous for eschewing typical hit-making collaborators, and hails her as an “indie pop star” (00:13).
• Notes her popularity and critical acclaim, but highlights her eight-year break following Body Talk (2010), occasioned by personal loss and depression.

Being Back on Tour

[02:01]

• Question: What's it like being back in the spotlight and touring after so long?
• Robyn:

  “It’s nice. I’m enjoying myself. Maybe in a way, I’m in a different place than I was last time…I really enjoy my downtime. I really enjoy being in the studio. I really enjoy having my own time, basically.”
  (02:01)

Early Influences and Teenage Songwriting

[02:28 – 03:46]

• Remnick asks about Robyn’s early musical influences.
• Robyn cites Michael Jackson (“Off the Wall”, “Thriller”) and Prince (the “Batman” soundtrack), and calls TLC her biggest teenage influence:

  “They were young women … quite tough and strong and still girly and cute and fun. If you would have asked me, you know, as a 15 year old, I would have said TLC.”
  (02:51)

Looking Back on Early Work

[04:01]

• Robyn reflects on her early songs:

  “A lot of willpower, a lot of like, energy. Sometimes…I can understand where I was trying to move in a different direction, but maybe really didn’t know how. It took me a long time until I actually created the environment where I felt like I could make music that was more on my own terms.”
  (04:01)

The “My Truth” Album and Artistic Resolve

[04:46 – 05:25]

• Remnick brings up her 1999 album My Truth not being released in the US because of an abortion song.
• Robyn:

  “I was more kind of amazed of how narrow minded the label...was not here in Sweden, but in America. I’m happy that I wrote the song and that I kind of stuck by it.”
  (05:25)

Writing Process and the Role of the Unconscious

[06:14]

• Robyn:

  “Writing continuously, like having a routine is really important... but some ideas just show up when they’re ready...they come from the unconsciousness, like, you know, a deeper place that’s harder to get to by thinking.”
  (06:19)

Withdrawal, Grief, and Personal Change

[07:09 – 09:42]

• Remnick discusses Robyn’s public absence and personal tragedies.
• Robyn shares how songwriting reflected overlapping losses:

  “It started out as a love song, and then it became about, you know, my friend that had passed away, and then the relationship I was in kind of fell apart, and then it became more about that, you know. So it was like this ongoing thing of, like, where my experiences were just changing all the time, and I didn’t know how to put all of that into the lyrics.”
  (07:58)

• Robyn needed time to process emotions before she could finish these songs.

Psychoanalysis and Creativity

[09:42 – 11:10]

• Instead of just therapy, Robyn undertook years of psychoanalysis.
• Robyn:

  “The commitment of going to psychoanalysis is a big one...I can kind of see how you never really know when it’s going to start making sense. You just kind of have to commit anyway.”
  (10:15)

Deconstructing “Honey”

[11:10 – 13:02]

• Music clip of ‘Honey’ plays.
• Robyn discusses her compositional process:

  “I was working with this Casio synthesizer for a long time...it was really just about the beat for me for like a year or so...We had this idea of making this gooey, soft production that was still relating to, you know, club music.”
  (11:53)

• They created a moving “sauce” sample to capture the feeling of club music.

Sex, Image, and Self-Presentation

[13:02 – 14:36]

• Remnick observes that Robyn avoids hyper-sexualized pop imagery.
• Robyn:

  “I think that for me it was always...very, like, important or I just felt like I needed to kind of protect myself...I like things to be layered. I like things to be complicated and complex...if you’re allowing things to be, you know, somehow complicated, you can be as sexy as you want, you know.”
  (13:33)

---

Notable Quotes

• “The force of her conviction continues to hold together what often seems impossible, musically or otherwise. Maximum sadness felt as the bedrock of absolute joy.” — Gia Tolentino, quoted by Remnick on Robyn (01:36)
• “You never really know when it’s going to start making sense. You just kind of have to commit anyway.” — Robyn on psychoanalysis (10:15)
• “If you’re allowing things to be, you know, somehow complicated, you can be as sexy as you want.” — Robyn (14:06)

---

Timestamps & Important Segments

• 00:13: Remnick’s introduction to Robyn’s career
• 02:01: Robyn reflects on returning to the stage
• 02:51: Robyn on early musical influences
• 04:01: Looking back at early songwriting
• 05:25: On My Truth and artistic integrity
• 06:19: Robyn describing her songwriting process
• 07:58: On overlapping personal tragedy and music
• 10:15: The impact of psychoanalysis on life and art
• 11:33: Music clip — 'Honey'
• 11:53: Breaking down “Honey”’s sonic elements
• 13:33: Robyn on themes of love, sex, and her public image
• 14:36: Interview concludes

---

Additional Segments

Best Pop Music of 2018 with Amanda Petrusich

[15:25 – 22:55]

• Amanda Petrusich discusses top pop releases and notable radio hits:
  • Ariana Grande (“Thank U, Next”): Overcoming tragedy, emotional evolution.

    “She remains.” – Amanda Petrusich (18:05)

  • Rosalía (“Malamente”): Flamenco meets pop; addresses jealousy, desire, and their dark sides.

    “A record about desire when desire goes wrong...” – Amanda Petrusich (19:13)

  • Nathan Bowles (“Now If You Remember”): Appalachian-inspired avant-garde banjo music.

    “Kind of Appalachian trance music.” – Amanda Petrusich (22:37)

Behind the Scenes: Choreographing Violence at the Metropolitan Opera

[24:12 – 32:39]

• Fight director BH Barry shares insights into staging violence at the opera.
  • On stage violence vs. real violence:

    “If you get too real, the audience gets scared...We look for the representation of reality.” – BH Barry (30:07)

  • Philosophical perspective:

    “If I thought for one moment somebody picked up a knife to stab somebody, but had an image of something that I created and they stopped, I would feel wonderful.” – BH Barry (31:45)

---

Episode Highlights & Memorable Moments

• Robyn’s willingness to discuss abortion in her music, refusing to water down her experience for commercial gain (“I’m happy that I wrote the song and that I kind of stuck by it.” 05:25)
• Deep dive into her creative process and need to withdraw after loss — showing her vulnerability and complexity as an artist.
• Amanda Petrusich’s celebration of music as solace and strength in a tumultuous year.
• Behind-the-curtain insights into the surprisingly delicate and philosophical art of staging violence.

---

Conclusion

This episode artfully weaves together Robyn’s personal and artistic resurgence, a celebration of 2018’s pop music resilience, and the hidden complexities behind opera’s most violent scenes. It’s a compelling listen for anyone interested in creativity, the emotional intricacies behind art, and the stories that shape our cultural landscape.

Transcript

[New Yorker Radio Hour Announcer]

From one World Trade center in Manhattan, this is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co production of the New Yorker and WNYC Studios.

[David Remnick]

Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. For the past 25 years, starting when she was all of 14 years old, the singer Robyn has been on the cutting edge of pop music. Her sound is sparse, complex, ahead of the trends, and she always seems like she's writing from a few years into the future. For most of those 25 years making music, Robin has avoided the big hit making producers who somehow put their own stamp on an artist. Instead, she's become almost an oxymoron, an indie pop star. And while she's respected, even frankly adored by so many critics, she's also genuinely popular, with the top 10 singles and multiple Grammy nominations to prove it. Robyn was born Robyn Carlsson in Sweden, where she still lives, and her last album, Body Talk, came out in 2010. But for most of the intervening years, Robyn has been pretty much out of public view. Following a breakup and a close friend's death, she slipped into a depression serious enough that she had trouble getting out of bed sometimes or leaving the house. She eventually started recording again and recently released an album called Honey. The New Yorker's Gia Tolentino said of it. The force of her conviction continues to hold together what often seems impossible, musically or otherwise. Maximum sadness felt as the bedrock of absolute joy. Robyn talked with me from her office in Sweden last week. Robin, this is your first album in eight years. Is it strange to be back in the limelight after all that time you're touring and it's. It's been a long time for touring, too. What's it like being back out in the hot lights?

[Robyn]

It's nice. I'm enjoying myself. Maybe in a way, I'm in a different place than I was last time I released an album, in the sense that I'm maybe not as, like. How can I put it? Not as, like, willing maybe to work as hard. I really enjoy my downtime. I really enjoy being in the studio. I really enjoy having. Having my own time, basically.

[David Remnick]

You wrote your first song when you were 11 years old, which is pretty darn early. What were you listening to? What singers? What music was meaning the most to you? You signed with a record company at 14, so a lot of music must have been coming at you, shaping this young voice, this young singer, this young composer. I wonder what was most important.

[Robyn]

I loved Michael Jackson. I listened to off the Wall and Thriller a lot. I think I heard my first Prince Album when I was about 8. It was the Batman soundtrack and I loved it. I still do actually. I think it's underrated. I mean, I think TOC made maybe the biggest impression on me as a teenager because they were young women and they were, you know, quite tough and like strong and still girly and cute and fun. I think they were, they were probably the, the group. If you would have asked me, you know, as a 15 year old, I would have said TLC.

[David Remnick]

And when you listen to that, those early songs of yours, early music, and it's now quite a while ago, it's almost 20 years ago. What are you hearing in the Young, young Robin?

[Robyn]

I think I'm hearing, you know, a lot of like, will, a lot of willpower, a lot of like, energy. Sometimes I feel like I can understand where I was trying to move in a different direction, but maybe really didn't know how. And it took me a long time until I actually created the environment where I felt like I could make music that was more on my own terms. But I think the fact that I was writing still gave me like an outlet.

[David Remnick]

When you were just 18, you released my Truth. And though your first album was released in the United States, this one was not. What happened?

[Robyn]

Well, I just don't think that the label that I worked with at the time got it. You know, it wasn't a commercial album.

[David Remnick]

But you were writing about your experience in abortion. And that's something that most American pop stars certainly wouldn't touch at the time. And not only did you sing about it, you refused to make any changes in order to reach some imagined big audience. That seems a pretty tough thing to do. No. What was, what was that episode like for you?

[Robyn]

Well, I don't think it was a tough decision. I was more kind of amazed of like how narrow minded the label I was with at the time was not here in Sweden, but in America. I think that song became an issue. That wasn't a big deal for me, actually. I'm happy that I wrote the song and that I kind of stuck by it. So.

[David Remnick]

What'S your process like as a writer of songs?

[Robyn]

I think writing continuously, like having a routine is really important, at least for me. But then I really believe also that some ideas, they just show up when they're ready. You might have to like get the engine like going and warm it up for a long time. But like one and once it's like ready, once you're like in the, in the zone, it's easier for those ideas to show up and I don't know where that comes from. I mean, I'm not superstitious in that way. I wouldn't say that I think they come from God because I don't feel like I believe in God, but I believe in that they come from the unconsciousness, like, you know, a deeper place that's harder to get to by thinking.

[David Remnick]

Well, something equally mysterious happened after Body Talk came out. After they came out, you were a huge success, a big star, five albums. And then suddenly you went, at least where the public was concerned, silent. Are you able to talk about what happened and why you withdrew from your public life?

[Robyn]

Well, I mean, I was ready to make an album in 2014. I was preparing to go back into the studio. And then I think for a lot of people, life was just unexpected. Things happened.

[David Remnick]

And you experienced some real losses at that time.

[Robyn]

Yeah, exactly. A friend of mine died, and I was in a relationship that ended around the same time. I felt like the things that I was trying to or the things that I was writing about were quite, you know, layered and complex. They weren't quick. Like Missing you is a really good example. I wrote the melody and, like, the. The beginning of the lyrics in 2014, in July, and Christian died just right after that. And my friend. And I really didn't know how to finish those lyrics at that point because it started out as a. As a love song, and then it became about, you know, my friend that had passed away, and then the relationship I was in kind of fell apart, and then it became more about that, you know. So it was like this ongoing thing of, like, where my experiences were just changing all the time, and I didn't know how to put all of that into the lyrics. So I just kind of left the song. I worked on other things, even though it was slow and it took time and. But I was, you know, I was preparing. I was exploring myself, I guess, in order to be able to put words on all those experiences. Eventually.

[David Remnick]

You did something that's pretty unusual in the modern world. A lot of people go see a therapist to deal with depression or loss or heartbreak or whatever it might be. You went into it in a way that in the modern world doesn't happen very much anymore. You went several times a week into real. What I guess is some traditional psychoanalysis. I wonder what was the effects on your life and what was the effects on your work of that. Of that psychoanalytical work that you were doing?

[Robyn]

I started it way before I started making this album, like, years before, but it wasn't until all these things happened in my life where I really felt like it started to kind of give, like, real results, you know, I think the therapy definitely had an effect on my music. But I also think that, you know, these things that happen in my life basically also changed my therapy. It was like, you know, it's like it works both ways, I think. But the commitment of going to psychoanalysis is a big one. You have to kind of. You have to do it for some years. And I guess looking back at it now, I can kind of see how you never really know when it's going to start making sense. You just kind of have to commit anyway.

[David Remnick]

I'd like to break down, if you don't mind, the musical elements of Honey. So let's start by listening to a clip of that.

[Music Clip / Singer]

I got your honey, baby Every color.

[Robyn]

And every taste every breath it whispers.

[Music Clip / Singer]

Your name is like a.

[Robyn]

Whisper.

[David Remnick]

Can you describe the writing of that? The figuring out of the melody and the part that you're singing?

[Robyn]

So I was working with this Casio synthesizer for a long time time. And I was making songs on this. These chords that me and Marcus, who. Who plays in my band. And it was really just about the beat for me for like a year or so.

[David Remnick]

And you're playing around with kind of club music background here, right?

[Robyn]

That was what I was doing, but it sounded like something else. We had this, like, idea of making this, like, gooey kind of soft production that was still relating to, you know, club music. And Joseph decided to like, make his own sample. So there's. We called it like the sauce. It's processed through, you know, lots of things to make it kind of feel like it's moving. And I think to me that's really what club music is about.

[David Remnick]

So I want to ask a question that's more about pop music in general. Pop music, dance music. A lot of it is associated with sex, with hyper sexualized imagery. A lot of it for years and years. And you've somehow avoided that. You sing about love and sex, but you don't sexualize or over sexualize your own image or who you are in these songs. And that seems a kind of magic trick too. Is it something you think about a lot?

[Robyn]

I actually don't. I wish I maybe thought about it more. I think that for me it was always, like, when I was younger, very, like, important or I just felt like I needed to kind of protect myself. I think today it's much easier to, you know, have pink hair and at the same time call yourself a feminist. I think when I was growing up, being a feminist was like, you know, being a tomboy was or felt liberating to me, and I think I was. So I don't think that I, like, gave myself space enough to be a sensual person as an artist until way later. And I like things to be layered. I like things to be complicated and complex. And I think if you're allowing things to be, you know, somehow complicated, you can be as sexy as you want, you know.

[David Remnick]

Robin, thank you so much.

[Robyn]

Thank you. Thanks for talking to me.

[David Remnick]

All the best to you. And good, good luck in everything.

[Robyn]

Yeah, you too. Thank you. Bye.

[David Remnick]

Robin's album Honey came out in the fall. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. More to come.

[Music Clip / Singer]

No, you're not gonna get what you.

[Robyn]

Need.

[Music Clip / Singer]

Baby, I have what you want Come get your honey.

[David Remnick]

Aaron Sorkin is probably best known for the West Wing, and he won an Academy Award for a screenplay for the Social Network, the movie about Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg. But Sorkin's roots are on the stage in live theater, and he's adapted Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird. The show opens on Broadway this month. And I'll talk with Sorkin next week on the New Yorker Radio Hour. Well, it is that time of year again, and the lists are coming fast and furious. And thank God I've got Amanda Petrasich here to guide us through the year in pop music. Amanda, what's the best thing you've been hearing all year? What just blew your mind?

[Amanda Petrusich]

For me, the big kind of pop music story of 2018 was Ariana Grande. She was the first woman in three years to have a single debut at number one on the Hot 100. But what's really remarkable, I think about her and about her kind of journey and story this year is, you know, she endured this extraordinary tragedy. There was a bombing at a concert she gave in Manchester in the United Kingdom in 2017, you know, 23 people dead. She returned home. Her ex boyfriend and former collaborator, the rapper Mac Miller, passed away of an accidental overdose. She became engaged to SNL's Pete Davidson. And then that engagement was called off. And throughout all of this, she released a record sort of in the midst of all this turmoil in her life called Sweetener. And the record is sort of it's a beautiful pop record and I think just kind of inspiring and lovely in its embrace of, you know, the idea of survival and sort of remaining. And, you know, she's 25 years old and the kind of way in which she sort of approaches the things she's endured, I just find incredible. I mean, I thank God at that age. I would have been collapsed by all of that. I would have been just totally destroyed by those events. But she released a single just a few weeks ago called Thank U Next. I don't know if you have had a chance. I have heard it. It's a kind of kiss off to Pete Davidson. I suppose you kind of, you know, at least for me.

[David Remnick]

Who would kiss off Pete Davidson?

[Amanda Petrusich]

Imagine that.

[David Remnick]

It's kind of unbeliev.

[Amanda Petrusich]

I know, I know. But she released the single Thank U Next that you would have assumed would have been this kind of malevolent. You know, I'm moving on. The title seems to suggest as much. But what's incredible about it is that the chorus has this line, and I will keep this clean for the airwaves. I don't want to work blue. But it's basically, I'm so grateful for my ex. And I just think, who is grateful for their ex? Again, at 25, I certainly did not have the generosity of spirit. Neither at 35 did I have the generosity of spirit to be grateful for my exes. But she is. She remains.

[David Remnick]

That's something to think on. Yeah, that is something to think on. Let's hear it.

[Music Clip / Singer]

Thought I end up with shine but it wasn't a match Wrote some songs about Ricky Now I listen and laugh Even almost got married and for be I'm so thankful Wish I could say thank you to Malcolm Cuz he was an angel One taught me love One taught me patience and one taught me pain Now I'm so amazing that's not what I see look what I got look at what you taught me.

[Amanda Petrusich]

I'm.

[David Remnick]

Tempted to say it but I'll say it. Thank you. Next. What have we got?

[BH Barry]

Next.

[David Remnick]

What else is on your mind and what else is on the list?

[Amanda Petrusich]

I hope that phrase really works its way into your editing vernacular.

[David Remnick]

I don't think that's gonna be a good song.

[Amanda Petrusich]

Papers flying off the desk.

[David Remnick]

I don't think they'd appreciate it.

[Amanda Petrusich]

Well, my favorite pop single of 2018 was Malumente by the Catalonian singer Rosalia. Her second album is based loosely on an anonymous 13th century poem about the psychic perils of jealousy. So she sort of had me there. A record about desire when desire goes wrong. And particularly the kind of ramifications for women when love turns ugly. So the title translates to badly and the song itself mixes these kind of traditional flamenco rhythms with elements of pop and reggaeton and hip hop. And R and B. SHE SINGS IN SPANISH but the lyrics are really spooky, really foreboding, really dark, which for me was in line with, you know, much of 2018, where you're just thinking, God, what awful and terrifying thing lurks around the next corner? And I feel like this song really sort of captured that feeling. It's this sort of cascading series of bad portents, you know, a broken light voice on the stairs. A dream about a bridge.

[David Remnick]

Stop. You're cheering me up.

[Music Clip / Singer]

You're cheering me up.

[Amanda Petrusich]

Happy holidays. So why don't we listen to a little bit of Rosalia's malimente?

[David Remnick]

Oh, I've heard this.

[Amanda Petrusich]

It's cool.

[David Remnick]

I have heard this.

[Amanda Petrusich]

She's cool to have a big year next year.

[David Remnick]

Well, most top 10 lists are, you know, 10, but, you know, in the age of diminishing expectations or shortened attention spans, here's our final one. The final big hit of 2018 from.

[Amanda Petrusich]

Amanda is see now you have built me up. And it is what I'm about to play is in fact not a big hit, but a little under the radar gem, which I figured out. We've got, you know, we've got two.

[David Remnick]

If you say it's a big hit, it's a big hit.

[Amanda Petrusich]

Okay. I declare this the jam of 2018. This is by a banjo player named Nathan Bowles. Did I lose you at banjo play?

[David Remnick]

I'm right there with you.

[Amanda Petrusich]

You're with me. The album is called plainly mistaken. He is a North Carolina based musician known primarily for his drumming, but every once in a while will release one of these extraordinary banjo records. And he is equally informed by sort of traditional Appalachian song, kind of old time mountain music, but also a sort of avant garde New York City experimental kind of drone, minimalist thing. So it hits all my walls in that way. It's of Roscoe Hul meets John Cale. And one of my favorite songs from this record is called now if you remember.

[Nathan Bowles]

Now if you remember, we were talking about God and you. Now if you remember, we were talking about God and you. So just lie and close your eyes. Listen to a la la God kind.

[David Remnick]

Of Appalachian trance music.

[Amanda Petrusich]

Yeah, exactly.

[David Remnick]

Love that.

[Amanda Petrusich]

Yeah, it's beautiful.

[David Remnick]

Well, happy holidays to you and happy holidays to everyone. This is at least the beginning of a revelatory list from Amanda, who I think we'll probably write a longer list online.

[Amanda Petrusich]

I will, absolutely.

[David Remnick]

Amanda Petrusich, music writer extraordinary for the New Yorker. Thanks so much.

[Amanda Petrusich]

Thank you, David.

[David Remnick]

Amanda Petrosich with three of her favorites this year. Ariana Grande's sweetener, Rosalia's Malamente, and Nathan Bowles, whose album is called Plainly Mistaken. In the operatic canon, there is no shortage of tragic death. By any measure, one of the most awful is the murder of Desdemona by her husband, Othello. The themes of Verdi's opera, like the Shakespeare play it's based on, remain sadly, all too contemporary. Racism, power, jealousy, how resentment leads to bitterness and appalling violence. A production of Othello is at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. And while the show is in rehearsal, the New Yorker's David Cortava got a look behind the scenes at how violence makes its way to the opera stage.

[BH Barry]

Into the bowels of the men.

[David Remnick]

BH Barry is a fight director at the Metropolitan Opera. Who knew such a job existed? But if somebody is attacking somebody else while somehow singing at top volume, BH Barry has work to do. And to see how it's all done, he took David Cortavo way, way down under the big stage.

[BH Barry]

There are people still trying to get out of here from two years ago. The maze is just incredible out here.

[David Cortava]

BH Barry is one of the leading fight directors in the world. He's a kind of master of a lot of different kinds of violence. Huge barroom brawls, intimate knife fights, stranglings, slaps, beheadings, fist fights, a pogrom and Fiddler on the Roof. But he's not a bruiser, he's not a barroom brawler. He's a very elegant looking gentleman in his 70s. He has a bouncy tuft of silver hair. He seems like an old timey action movie star, like an Errol Flynn or a Douglas Fairbanks. And like those people, he is very good with a sword.

[BH Barry]

You want to do that again? Normally, whenever there's action in a play that involves actors, I'm asked to come in to protect them, to build a choreographed scene in which they won't get hurt. And so that's part of the job. The other part of the job is as a fight director is being able to teach. Because a lot of people can't do this stuff. And a lot of opera singers are not necessarily physical people. Because to be an opera singer, you really have to work incredibly hard on training your voice. It's a total life. It's not like an actor who can go away and drink and get in the pub and have fun and do this stuff. These guys, it's a delicate instrument. They're thoroughbreds. These are the best in the world. So teaching is a vital part of fight Directing. So point at your targets. Point, point, point, point, point. Now, as you do it, look at me the whole time. Think of down. Right. You know when you're singing those high notes. Yeah, there you go. Down. That's as good. Now think of looking at your watch. You look at your watch when you do the left hand because you watch. Perfect. Back again. There. There. Look at your watch.

[Robyn]

There.

[BH Barry]

Look at your watch. Close your eyes. There. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Good eyes. Yeah, perfect.

[David Cortava]

Are the skills that your actors learn on stage transferable? In other words, if one of these opera guys went out to a bar and got into a brawl.

[BH Barry]

No, no, no. There was an actor, I think, Michael Redfern, and got into a fight in the bar, and I'd been teaching him fights and whatever. This guy came at him and he blocked it and he pulled the punch. And the guy looked down and went, jesus. And ran out the bar because he thought that Michael could actually hurt him. And Michael just pulled. No, no, no, no, no. Don't even go there. Do not try this at home. It's theater. It's make believe.

[David Cortava]

What is the scene we're about to observe?

[BH Barry]

There's a. In the play, and also in the opera is the moment when Michael Cassio, who is the lieutenant to Othello, gets drunk and gets into a fight with one of the captains of the guard. Within that, there are lots of things that happen. Michael Cassio has a group of people that move with him. Their job is to try and get him out of there before he does some real damage and they don't succeed. That's where the director part comes in. But looking at the story and how I can move it forward, also, I look at the actors in the fight, and I often will say to them, what would be missing if your character didn't fight? And then that answer will give me what I need to do to choreograph Jadi. What I'm trying to do, I'm trying to create now is the thing that we couldn't do before when we were working on the initiative, which was your guy's involvement with Cassio. I never knew what that was. You came in with him and then you're fighting him. Chris was saying something. You had a point yesterday, and I wanted to kind of. I was like, why am I not stopping him right here? Right? And I think the answer to that question is he is the captain of the guard. He is the person who you came in and you. And you thought he was going to maybe one or two of you thinking he gets like this when he drinks? Or maybe that apprehension when he drinks can be there early on? No. Yes, actually, can we do that move from Swipe up Chris. Swipe up Chris. But he doesn't even need to swipe. I mean, come in and just look at him there and you move away from it. Yeah. It says something about the character and it says something about your position in the role of his guard. We have to give him an enormous degree of importance because he has to lose all that when Ottero comes.

[David Cortava]

I would imagine some scenes require realism and others a bit of theatricality.

[BH Barry]

Yeah. You have to be careful because if you get too real, the audience gets scared. For the performers, the fine line between being theatrical and being real is very fine. And so I think that we don't look for reality in theatre. We look for the representation of reality. And if we're pushed too far in that direction, we're moved out of the theater into something entirely different. So that kind of helps a little bit, huh? All right. Right shoulder, head. Left shoulder.

[David Remnick]

Shoulder.

[BH Barry]

Good. See that? That's a moment in which the sword went near to the performer and we went, whoa. That was the reality moment. And that's. We have to take that out because otherwise the audience would think we've only got hit. Good.

[Amanda Petrusich]

Can we do that one more time.

[BH Barry]

And not have Chris die?

[David Remnick]

But he's going to my shoulder and my head.

[BH Barry]

I mean, it's.

[David Cortava]

Have you been in any real fights?

[BH Barry]

No, not since I was 13. I put a kid in hospital and that was it. I never lost my temper since I walked out. I walk out, I think. I don't know what I would do if I did hit somebody.

[David Cortava]

Are there any real world examples of violence that have informed your work on stage?

[BH Barry]

Oh, God, the world is so full of violence. I don't know. I feel unsaid. Yeah, boy, that was a moment. I don't want this violent stuff to be hanging around. It's stupid. People beating the crap out of each other. You know, talk and it works. But just fighting is wrong. Wrong shooting. God, I don't know. But I am. In a way, it makes me feel better that I've said something. And violence, you can say something about not violence. If I thought for one moment somebody picked up a knife to stab somebody, but had an image of something that I created and they stopped, I would feel wonderful. That would be tremendous.

[David Remnick]

BH Barry, a fight director at the Metropolitan Opera. He talked with David Cortavo of the New Yorker. The Mets production of Verdi's Artello opened this week and that's it. We're done for now. I hope you enjoyed the show and I hope you'll join us next week.

[New Yorker Radio Hour Announcer]

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Alexis Quadrado. Our team includes Alex Barron, Emily Bottin, Ave Carrillo, Rhiannon Corby, Jill Duboff, Karen Frillman, Kal Aliya, David Krasnow, Louie Mitchell, Sarah Nix and Steven Valentino, with help from Emily Mann and Jessica Henderson. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Turina Endowment Fund.