Somogi's teenage decision to replace her hero Jackie Robinson ("I was a wild fan") with idols like Leopold Stokowski has obviously paid off. In a day when women are just breaking through into the male world of conducting, Somogi (pronounced So-mo-jee) last March was named staff conductor of the New York City Opera—the only woman to be hired for such a post with a major American opera company. The very few successful women conductors (Sarah Caldwell, Eve Queler, Antonia Brico) have had to form their own companies to have the opportunity to conduct—and 33-year-old Judith, the youngest of this group, is the only woman currently conducting both opera and symphony orchestras.
Judith's route to the podium began at age 8 when her parents—her father was a telephone repairman—gave her violin lessons. Although these took second fiddle for a long time to her dreams of athletic prowess (after giving up on being a baseball star she aimed to be a gym teacher), Somogi decided as a high school student in Long Island that "music was where my spiritual and personal growth was going to be."
It was, of course—but her chance to conduct was to come a decade after her graduation from Juilliard. After a stint as an assistant musical director for an off-Broadway Gilbert and Sullivan repertory company, the bright, blue-eyed, diminutive (5'3") dynamo was hired by the New York City Opera in 1966—to coach singers and play the piano at rehearsals. Only after three summers assisting young maestro Thomas Schippers at the Spoleto Festival of Two Worlds did she gather up courage to approach Leopold Stokowski for advice. "Conducting is hard," he told her simply. "Yes, I'm just beginning to learn how hard," she replied—and ultimately wound up as one of Stokowski's assistants.
Her big break came with The Mikado for the New York City Opera in March 1974—an assignment she got by convincing opera boss Julius Rudel that "it would be a good thing for the opera world to hire a woman conductor." Light opera led to headier stuff—such as her La Traviata last October, and reviewers praised Somogi for handling the Verdi score with "aplomb and professionalism."
As a "natural pants person," she still hits a snag in deciding what to wear on the podium. "Of course it couldn't be anything dykey, or something preposterous like tails," she jokes, and generally opts for something traditionally feminine and dramatic—such as the low-cut wine-colored gown she wore for her Los Angeles debut.
Living alone today in a West Side Manhattan apartment dominated by a Steinway grand, she entertains her friends with Hungarian recipes (learned from her father) and Sicilian dishes (from her mother). Marriage? "It will take a very unusual man with strong anchors," she says. In any case, her engagement book is inked with professional dates—including one this month to conduct the New York City Opera's long-awaited production of Daughter of the Regiment with Beverly Sills.
As to why Somogi is breaking through the old sexist barrier, she says, "Maybe the only thing that's really changing is the individual woman's feelings of self confidence." Looking back on her baseball days, she adds, "Maybe if the climate had been different when I was 8 I'd have said, 'Okay, I'm going to play professional baseball.' It's a combination of the changing climate and the woman getting in there and saying, 'I can do that too. I can do that, and by God I'm going to try.' "
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