Gilded Age Creator Reveals Season 3, Recounting Opera Wars

Leave it to Julian Fellowes, the man who made a career out of exploiting the aristocracy, to wring a season of narrative tension out of two dueling operas. That’s what Golden Age creator did so during the second run of his HBO series, which chronicled a heavily fictionalized war between the old-money-backed Academy of Music and the new-money alternative, the Metropolitan Opera. (The name recognition alone should give you an idea of ​​how that ended.) But for the Emmy-winning screenwriter Downton AbbeyThe debate over opera’s allegiances is ultimately symbolic. “These newcomers were behemoths,” he says. “They demolished everything in their path. In many ways, it was the preamble to the 21st century, the American century.”

“The War of the Operas” is not an obvious scenario for an expensive historical drama. What was your argument?

I’m always looking for real things, no matter what the era, to give you an idea of ​​what the characters would talk about at breakfast. Someone said to me, “Oh, you know all about the opera wars?” It seemed so incredible that the old guard, with the Academy of Music, would try to push these people out – these Vanderbilts and Rockefellers – when they could have easily built them new boxes. I like that desperate confidence that they could defend the past against the future.

It’s such a lavish spectacle. What’s the most unexpected expense?

Period dramas are always expensive, but I make a point of avoiding pieces I don’t regulate.Laughs.) I don’t really spend a lot of time on budgets. I write them out and if they say, “We can’t afford the ball,” I think of another way to do it. Suddenly, we’re sitting down for dinner.

How many unfilmed balls are in your drafts?

Certainly, some things have fallen by the wayside. I like to have half a dozen scenes in the season that really take you into a kind of wonderland. I like the feeling, when you watch an episode, that you feel like you’ve been a part of something.

But, in the first draft, do you write big?

What I would say to new writers is, “Don’t worry about that. Write the ball. Write the battle.” Let other people worry about whether they can shoot it or not. If for whatever reason, which may be perfectly legitimate, they can’t find another way to get the same narrative moment and create the same tension in a different environment.

You’re back in production now. What can you tell us about season 3?

The Gilded Age was very diverse. There were all these great companies and banks, before there were even rules governing them. It was a real mess. What I like to point out is that behind the ballrooms and the clothes and the carriages, these giant men with these huge egos were doing things. They didn’t share the sentimental vision of our generation. We like to spend about half our day crying because everyone is having a really bad time. There’s…