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Campbell also doesn’t shrug away from modernizing or updating traditional operas. “When it works, I think it’s terrific,” he said. “We did ‘Così fan tutte’ here twice set at the Hotel del Coronado in 1913. We built the hotel on our stage. It [the action] took place on the beach. It all made sense, and the audience said, ‘Oh, we know what that is.’ It really worked.”

But in a modernized production of “Carmen” last season, Campbell said, “We had Marina Domashenko appear in the first scene wearing a dress to the knees, a beautiful dress with frills. It was reddish and she had a flower in a garter on her thigh. I received letters from about 10 people who said that they left after Act I because she should be in a long red dress with a flower between her boobs. I answered each of them, and I wrote: ‘Opera is not a fossil. Carmen can be dressed in anything. Just as you accept different interpretations when you go to see a play, you must do the same with opera. Did you hear the singer? It is the story and music that matter. Did you go to see ‘Carmen’ or to hear it?’ A few of the replies that came back said, ‘Oh, I hadn’t thought of it that way.’ ”

As for directors, Campbell looks for directors who respect the score and the artists. “I think it’s silly to engage somebody who may be a great theater director but can’t read a score and doesn’t understand the nuances in the music,” he said, adding that Lotfi Mansouri brought a great knowledge of tradition to “Samson and Delilah” this season.

On the other hand, he believes that Des McAnuff is the right choice for "Wozzeck." "I see it as a drama with music, and I wanted a fresh look," Campbell said. McAnuff, the longtime artistic director of La Jolla Playhouse, is leaving the post this month to steer the Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada. "When I approached him, he told me that he had directed the play, seen the opera at the Met and thought that it was better," Campbell continued. "He has not directed opera singers, but he has directed singers, can read music and is a great guitarist, so I have somebody who has a familiarization with directing people who sing. He’s a deliberate choice because I wanted to look at the work through a theatrical director’s eyes.”

Campbell likes to stay home in San Diego during the company’s opera season from January to May, although he sometimes takes day trips to hear promising singers. In between seasons, he travels to Europe twice a year and to various companies within the United States. “Agents are always telling me whom I should hear. If I like a CD and want to hear a certain singer live, and the singer is singing in a certain place on a particular day, if I can get there, I try,” he said. “There are also singers who write independently who don’t have an agent. If somebody wants to audition for me and they’ve sent me a CD that I think is interesting, they can sing for me.”

Campbell is known for engaging singers before they’re well-known. “By the time they get here, they are established,” he said, citing Renée Fleming who sang in San Diego Opera’s productions of “Eugene Onegin” and “Rusalka” in the mid-1990s. “When she sang here in consecutive years, she was already starting to emerge, but those contracts were made about two years earlier.”

He has already cast the major roles in one opera for 2011, three out of the five operas for 2010, and everything prior to that. “I am competing with the Met, Paris, Chicago or whatever, so we have to get some of these singers early,” he said. “Then I like to repeat singers. If I hire someone, it’s usually because I think we can work together down the road. Richard Leech has been coming here for 15 years. Ferruccio Furlanetto has been singing here on and off for 23.”

A FRIENDLY COMPANY
Agents say that their clients love to sing in San Diego because of the friendly, professional atmosphere. “I started as a singer,” Campbell said. “It all goes back to that. I’ve also been directing for years. I know the profession and I know that our fundamental job is to get the singer to the stage in a way that the singer can do his or her best. That’s why we exist. We don’t exist for our own egos. We exist for their talent. Without them, we don’t exist, so there is an expectation that I have of all staff that they should care about the artists and about what they do. We have great longevity in our staff. About two-thirds have been here more than 12 years. The singers are welcomed by everyone in this company, and they become friends of the company.

“Take Franz Hawlata, for example, who is singing Wozzeck,” Campbell continued. “When I met Franz to discuss the project in Vienna, we’d never met before. As we sat down, he said, ‘I don’t care what it is, I want to come to San Diego. I’ve heard such great things.’ And then I convinced him to sing Wozzeck, and at the last moment, I told him it would be in English, and he said, ‘I don’t sing in English,’ and I said, ‘That’s what will make it special.’ Then when I saw him in Paris, he’d learned the role in English and was committed.

“The word is out that if you come to San Diego, you feel welcome, and it is because I have good people who care.”

are spending, for example, 50 percent on administration and another company is only spending 45 percent, that can encourage you to find out why. Everyone attends the general sessions at the conferences, but then there are special sessions for general directors, development directors, financial directors and marketing people.” While he was chairman, Campbell worked with President and CEO Marc A. Scorca to help the European companies form Opera Europa.

Although still an active member of Opera America, Campbell is focusing more of his attention these days on the West Coast, San Diego Opera and his family.

He has no plans for retirement as long as he remains healthy. “I think the age of 93 sounds about right,” he said. “For me, the future means continuing to keep the company stable, growing our endowment, growing the audience and convincing them to keep trying out what they don’t know, and encouraging others to consider building an arts center to showcase the wonderful variety of arts in San Diego.”

OPERA AMERICA
Campbell strongly believes in helping other companies develop a singer-friendly environment. He also believes that it is a necessity for companies to communicate with each other to learn and improve. While heading the State Opera of South Australia, he became the first foreigner to ever attend an Opera America conference. “They [the board of Opera America] changed the constitution to allow the State Opera to become a member,” he said. When he became San Diego Opera’s general director, he continued his involvement, spent approximately seven years on the board and was then elected chairman, a position he held until about three years ago.

Opera America is the leading service organization for professional opera companies in the United States. Based in New York, it promotes the presentation and appreciation of opera. “The focus is to help each other,” said Campbell. “It’s like a guild, so we exchange information, do annual reports and share data. The institution assists smaller companies in part to apply for grants. If they’re having difficulty forming or managing a board, another general director or executive staff member of Opera America will go to help them. We can talk to each other readily at conferences and go through the Annual Survey of Finances. If you see that you