Articles & Interviews 2000

Articles and Interviews 2000

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Make Room on Olympus Sacred Monsters

(excerpts)

M Gurewitsch

NY Times / 28 May 2000

... The epitome of the sacred monster at the moment is surely the Argentine tenor José Cura, 38. So far, New Yorkers have seen him just three times, in a single production, as the Sicilian lothario Turiddu in Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, amid the wreckage of the once picturesque staging by Franco Zeffirelli, woefully led by Carlo Rizzi and partnered by the uncongenial Santuzza of Dolora Zajick. Thanks to Placido Domingo in his capacity as artistic director of the Washington Opera, audiences in the capital have taken Mr. Cura’s measure in two of his signature roles: Saint-Saens’s Samson and Verdi’s Otello.

In the biblical spectacular, he bore the destiny of the despondent Chosen People on heroic shoulders, his prophetic song ringing forth with dark, blazing grandeur. His authority was total. But his last Washington Otello this spring was an altogether more daring affair. Of the British stage idol Edmund Kean, Samuel Coleridge wrote, “To see him act is like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning,” and so it was with Mr. Cura in Verdi’s Shakespearean mode.
While still singing in choirs in the mid-eighties, he devoted himself to composing and conducting. In 1988, he met maestro Horacio Amauri who gave him the definitive basis of his singing technique. José Cura left his native country for Europe in 1991. He lived in Verona Italy for three years and then in January 1995, he moved to Paris where he now resides together with his wife and three children.
Praise or censure? That depends on your point of view. Between lightning flashes fell long spells of pitch dark. On prior occasions in Europe, Mr. Cura had executed the notes with a scrupulousness that had only boosted his tremendous conception of the part. This time, rather than sing the music, he chose to channel the character. Call it extreme music drama, and sway, if you can, whether it unfolded through or in spite of the music. Over the radio or on a recording, it might have sounded grotesque, but it was hair-raising to be there.

Among those who witnessed Mr. Cura’s Washington Otello is Barbara cook, the Broadway star of mid-century who created the roles of Marian the Librarian in “The Music Man” and Cunegonde in “Candide,” and continues to wrap audiences around her finger in cabaret and concert performances. (One prominent London critic has repeatedly placed her artistry on a par with that of Callas.)

Unlike critics, whose professional obligation to endure upward of a hundred evenings of opera a year many has patently come to regret, Ms. Cook has the luxury of attending purely as the spirit moves her. For the last year or so, between engagements of her own, she has traveled as far a field as Madrid, Paris and London to keep up with Mr. Cura’s performances.

Why such devotion? “It’s the total package,” Ms. Cook said recently. “In any era, only a very few people are at the pinnacle. I can’t think of anybody who sings as well, who acts as well, who moves as well. It’s like watching a great baseball player who has this terrific masculine grace. Whatever things might be wrong with José’s performances, he has a concentration that pulls you right into his world.”

This weekend, viewers in more than a hundred countries will be tuning in for their Cura fix in a live telecast of “La Traviata,” spread our over installments on Saturday and Sunday, and shot in what are billed as authentic Paris locations. (Cinema verite meets Masterpiece Theater.) The prima donna is the hitherto unknown Eteri Gvazava, of Siberia, cast, Mr. Cura says, after the sort of talent search that produced Hollywood’s Scarlett O’Hara.

By rights, Verdi’s tragedy of the fallen woman redeemed by suffering is the soprano’s opera, but this time it may be the tenor’s. Not that Alfredo Germont, the romantic but callow bourgeois papa’s boy who woos Violetta from her life of soulless pleasure, is the sort of character one associates with Mr. Cura’s brooding macho presence.

Mr. Cura has admitted as much, adding: “Alfredo has gotten the greatest courtesan in Paris to give up everything for him. There must be a reason.” Americans may decide for themselves in the fall, when the show is expected to appear on PBS; a Teldec CD of the soundtrack, conducted by Zubin Mehta, goes on sale here in July.

To a degree seldom if ever matched in the annals of opera, Mr. Cura – also a composer and conductor – marches to his own drum. On “Verismo,” his latest CD for Erato, he dedicates a whole program to a style of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries commonly thought vulgar and sensationalistic. Acting as his own conductor, he sets out to redefine it as a school of chaste refinement.

In the hit-and-run showstopper, ‘Amor ti vieta,” from Giordano’s dismal “Fedora,” the delicacy of the phrasing (lines taken in a single breath alternating with lines of similar length taken in two) is as unusual as it is natural and discreet. There are discoveries like this to be made throughout. And nowhere will you find Mr. Cura clinging, in self-indulgent spaghetti-tenor fashion, to top notes the composer actually wrote or did not.

On his very best vocal behavior, Mr. Cura here gives the lie to those who have said that he has no technique. What we hear, by contrast, in such daredevil performances as the Washington “Otello” is a self-conscious, highly idiosyncratic technique fraught with peril. How well it will Mr. Cura in the long run remains to be seen. Self-immolation is not actually required of sacred monsters, but longevity is not always their strong suit.

Whatever lies ahead, Mr. Cura has already earned his place as one of the most supremely original performers of the age.

'I don't believe that classical music exists'

Written by Jacek Hawryluk

Translated by Iwona Pomes

'Music can be played in your bathroom as well as in the opera house.'

Jacek Hawryluk: In the 90's some famous operatic singers started to perform in open-air concerts at stadiums. Mozart, Puccini and Verdi wrote music for opera houses. Doesn't it contradict each other?

José Cura: Don't forget that such composers as Mozart, Puccini, Beethoven or Schubert were treated like today's pop stars when they lived. Today they are considered to be inviolable. They wrote music for opera houses for technical reasons. They didn't know such things as microphones, screens, etc. If they lived now, they would write music suitable for open-air concerts.

J. H.: Do you think they would be happy with these huge stadiums?

J. C.: It is not a question of satisfaction. Music is everyone's property. Many people are not able to go to an opera house. It's just one of the ways of making people familiar with classical music.

J. H.: Is there any difference between a theatre and a stadium when it comes to creating music and an atmosphere?

J. C.: The atmosphere doesn't have to be different. A charismatic artist can create it no matter where he or she performs.

J. H.: In June you played a role in widely televised version of " Traviata". This year we celebrate 400^th anniversary of opera. Do you think that broadcasting it on TV will make it more attractive in the XXI century?

J. C.: This is only one alternative. You can play music in your bathroom at home as well as in a big opera house. You can do it for 10 or 10,000 people. This year we celebrate opera's 400^th anniversary. About 50000 of them have been written over the ages, yet how many operas do we know? Maybe 150 or 250.

J. H.: Do you know why so many like listening to tenors?

J. C.: Yes, I do. It's because the romantic roles are always played by tenors. Baritones are associated with negative characters; basses- with old persons.

J. H: What does classical music mean to you?

J. C.: I don't know why people distinguish popular and classical music. For me there are only two sorts of music: the good one and the bad one. Some classical tunes are awful; some pop songs are wonderful and vice versa. John Lennon's songs are no worse than those written by Francis Schubert.

J. H.: Do you think it's normal that Pavarotti and Domingo sing together with pop stars?

J. C.: Everything is all right if we are good. I hate categorizing. My first photographic album will be published soon. If you ask me whether it has anything in common with music, I would say that it does. It's a music of pictures.

J. H.: Why do many singers like cooking?

J. C.: We have creative souls. I hardly know any artist who doesn't cook. I don't have my own formula. I like improvisations.

J. H.: What a pity. You will not give me a recipe.

J. C.: A good cook can prepare something tasty from anything that is in his refrigerator.

José Cura was born in 1962 in Rosario, Argentina. He is a professional singer, conductor, composer and photographer. He is considered to be one of the best young tenors in the world. José Cura and Ewa Małas-Godlewska have recorded a CD called "Era Of Love". They gave a concert in the National Opera on November 15^th.

The original article was published in "Machina" monthly magazine in November, 2000.

A Fright at the Opera

Ciara Dwyer

2000

A day trip to Italy? It's well worth the trouble if José Cura is part of the equation. Confirmed fan Ciara Dwyer had only one grouch

ITALY is a long way to go for a day, but to see José Cura in an opera it's worth the trek.

The Argentinian tenor was singing in Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci. The minute I heard about the concert I booked my ticket. I couldn't afford it, but what the hell, didn't I have a credit card?

I spent hours shouting down the phone to the box office staff at Florence's Teatro Communale. Nobody seemed to speak English. I had no Italian. Still, my Trojan persistence paid off. A day and a half later, I received a fax confirming that my ticket was booked.

At first, I didn't tell a soul that I was going. Too cute to draw the hassle of real-world finances on myself, I knew that my mother would taunt me with Preliminary Tax bill reminders. What cared I for the real world when I was caught up in over-the-top arias?

Ever since I interviewed Cura last July, I am a changed woman. BarraO Tuama, Cura's impresario, thought that I was smitten by José. And indeed I was. But that was just the tip of the iceberg. I became opera-mad.

Back in Dublin I bought every book that exists on opera: Bluff Your Way in Opera; Opera A Beginner's Guide, complete with cartoons of Pavarotti. No tome was too heavy or too expensive. One Sunday afternoon, the sort of day when most couples are romantically sauntering down Dawson Street, I left Hodges Figgis on a high. I had just picked up the last available copy of an encyclopaedia of opera. I looked at the colour photos, found one of Cura in Cavalleria, and that was that. I had to go.

But my opera obsession goes way beyond Cura. Every week I visit the classical section of HMV and buy CDs complete with the librettos. I now spend most Saturday nights sitting up on my bed, headphones on, rocking to the music and reading the librettos in Italian. It is a tricky process but well worth it when you hear some of the lines. In Cavalleria, Turiddu serenades his lover Lola: "If I were to go to paradise and you were not there, I wouldn't stay." I sit in my flannel pyjamas longing for the day that a man will say such things to me.

NOW my life is measured out in Cura concerts: Il Trovatore in Madrid; Otello in Covent Garden; Aida in Athens. I plan to go to the lot. I even joined his fan-club. So of course I was ready to fly to Florence.

It took two flights to get to Florence. I got there at midnight on the Saturday night. The taxi driver from the airport spoke no English, but it didn't matter. I love Italians. The man was only driving the taxi and already I was falling for everything Florentine.

His aftershave wafted around the taxi. Delicious. I spotted his silver identity bracelet and smiled. Driving the taxi looked like something he did in between romancing all those women. It was just a hunch I had.

On the Sunday morning I woke early, worse than a kid on Christmas day. I wondered if Cura was in the country or was he flying in that morning. The anticipation of seeing him on stage was almost too much: that self-assured stride of his; the smile that he flashes at the audience; the muscles in his voice.

The opera was on that afternoon. To distract myself during the long wait I decided to do the tourist trail: Michelangelo's statue of David; market stalls brimful of Florentine scarves. Here was my chance to dress like Sophia Loren. Oddly, I had no interest. My mind was preoccupied. Every 20 minutes I would look at my watch. Would Cura be arriving at the theatre? Would he be warming up with the orchestra? Or would he be doing opera-singer things like gargling with TCP? Florence was wasted on me. I couldn't wait to get to the opera.

At lunch time I went back to my hotel to shower and change. Normally I am thrown together, but this time I had put thought into my clothes. My plan was to be subtle and classy. I had chosen a navy velvet dress, a matching coat and carefully selected earrings. I put my libretto in my bag and headed off.

At the Teatro, the ticket queue was full of well-groomed Italians women with pearl necklaces, men in exquisitely cut suits. I picked up my ticket and made my way in. I was 40 minutes early. I checked out my seat. Had a drink at the bar. Then headed for the loo for the hundredth time that day. The excitement was too much.

Eventually the lights went down. The audience were instructed to turn off their mobiles. The opera was about to begin. The conductor made his entrance and began the overture.

THE music was so beautiful. And I was so happy to be there. I knew that I had done the right thing. I didn't want to be anywhere else in the world. Nothing moves the soul like music. Seconds into the overture, I was crying tears of happiness. The first aria is sung off-stage by Turiddu (Cura's part). The minute I heard the voice, I felt uneasy. It didn't sound like Cura. But maybe that was just because it was coming from off-stage. I dispelled the doubt.

Another few lines and I still didn't recognise Cura's voice. Where was that baritonal quality of his? I was a little worried. But, I told myself, his name was on the poster outside. Of course it was him. I sat back and relaxed. Turiddu wasn't to appear on stage until well into the first act. I knew the opera backwards.

The set was very beautiful. The chorus were busy going to church and creating a village life. It was near the time where Turiddu appears.

On he came. A squat five foot nothing of a man with a pot belly. As he walked, he did so in two parts. His stomach went first and minutes later the rest of his body caught up. He looked like he enjoyed his grub. I could almost see the stretch marks through his white shirt. He had widely-set frog eyes. He looked a little like Ernest Borgnine. He was no José Cura. If you didn't laugh, you'd cry.

IF you have never seen a photo of Cura, you will not understand the full extent of my tragedy. Cura used to be a body builder. When he walks onto the stage, he owns it. As he sings, Cura is full of dramatic feeling. The man is magnificent. A Greek god. So where the hell was he?

The story of Cavalleria Rusticana is that Turiddu is the love object. Two women Santuzza and Lola are clamouring for him. With Cura as the lead, all that would have made sense. But my fat frog-eyed puddin', tottering around the stage, made a mockery of the plot. Oh, yeah, and I think he was balding too.

At the interval, I asked the usher about Cura. It had dawned on me that he might have been sick, that maybe I was watching his stand-in. But to be honest, I was more concerned with my trekking all the way to Florence for a day. Instead of a handsome prince I got to see a pudgy frog. The usher explained that Cura was finished doing the role. I had missed him by a matter of days.

It was spilt milk. What could I do? I sat through the second opera sighing at my folly.

This is not the first time I have travelled just to see a beautiful man on stage. Flying to Florence was a long way to see no José. Maybe next time I'll travel with the fan club.

Heir Apparent

R Hofler

Madison

2000

Rejection can be an awfully sharp kick in the old hindquarters. José Cura’s long-awaited debut at The Metropolitan Opera last September did not produce the kind of critical accolades that signal what many in this tenor-starved world had been praying for: a worthy successor to Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti. Depending on which reports you believe, both those singers are now either near, at, or just over the age of 60. Who to fill their grande pantaloni in the bread-and-butter Italian repertoire of Verdi, Puccini and such verism warhorses as Andrea Chenier, Pagliacci, and Cavalleria Rusticana?

This last opera – about a Sicilian cad named Turiddu who dishonors one woman, Santuzza, and leaves her for another, Lola – served as the vehicle for Cura’s Met debut. While the 37-year-old tenor from Argentina might have disappointed some on that autumn eve, he most definitely delivered a red-hot portrayal for his follow-up three nights later.

Well-wisher backstage told him as much. Out of costume, Cura signed autographs in the greenroom and let it be known that a very influential music critic who wrote one of the more negative reviews about the opening-night gala had not actually attended the performance. At least, that’s what Cura said, dressed now in Levi’s and an untucked shirt.

“You should tell that to him,” he replied to the compliments that came his way. Granted, well-wishers backstage don’t usually make a habit of telling a performer just out of makeup that his pitch was off, but then, Cura’s voice an hour earlier genuinely thrilled. His top rang out; he actually sang and poured wine simultaneously. (Franco Corelli could never handle that!) Maybe he momentarily confused the Turiddu role with that of Dolly Levi – running up and down a long staircase and nearly tripping as he skipped the last three steps to land a little unsteadily downstage – but the guy had breath to spare and enough intense sex appeal to service Santuzza, Lola and the rest of Sicily’s female population, too.

But as for that curmudgeonly critic . . .

“He wrote about things we did [in rehearsals] but changed before opening night,” said Cura. “No one saw him in the audience.” Perhaps. But one thing is for sure: if Cura sings this well pissed off, bad reviews could make him—forget about Domingo—the next Caruso.

But for the moment, no one is forgetting Placido Domingo, least of all Cura. A week before his Met debut, the tenor sat for an interview in an anteroom of the Metropolitan Opera. As at his post performance get-together with his fans, Cura is once again dressed in jeans and a shirt that drapes his large six-foot frame. A former fitness trainer, he swings back and forth between fit and teddy-bearish, as his many publicity photos and CD covers document. A closely cropped beard provides today’s dramatic jawline.

The big news is not so much Cura’s debut in the supporting role of Turiddu, but rather this month’s run of Otello performances in Washington, D.C., where the peripatetic Domingo is artistic director and will conduct the 1887 opera for the first time. Not that he and Verdi’s tormented Moor aren’t old friends. Otello was one of Domingo’s signature roles; he’d sung it more than 200 times before he recently retired the part from his vast repertoire.

Much has been made of these two tenors’ relationship. Cura nabbed a prize at Domingo’s international Operalia competition in 1994. Two years later, Domingo conducted Cura’s one and only Pollione in the Bellini opera Norma, at the L.A. Opera, where Domingo takes over the reins as artistic director next season. He also took control of Cura’s first CD, a collection of Puccini arias. And Domingo was on the bill (starring in Pagliacci) at Cura’s Met debut. But as for really passing the torch, that ceremony takes place on March 1 in America’s capital.

Although Domingo first sang Otello at age 34, many critics wonder if Cura, at 37, is ready for the most challenging role in all the Italian repertoire. “They said the same about [Domingo] when he was young,” says the singer. “It is a social disease.”

When it comes to opera, Cura know his pathology. While musicologists today praise Domingo for a singing technique that has blessed him with a 40-year career (that’s still going), they were not so admiring of him 25 years ago, when many predicted a rapid vocal burnout into premature operatic retirement.

Younger singers, such as Cura, invariably achieve whipping-boy status when compared with a Domingo or Pavarotti, who have enjoyed extraordinarily long careers. No one is more aware of this double standard than Cura, who offers examples of critics’ faulty 20-20 hindsight from the less rarefied world of movie stars.

“Today you hear that there are not Hollywood actors like Rock Hudson or John Wayne,” he begins. “But you have Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman - they are great actors, just different. The same with singers and musicians. The singers aren’t the way they used to be. Well, true, we are the way we should be now. It’s the same thing they said about Domingo when he was 30 or 35. Ask him. He’ll tell you everybody compared him unfavorably to Mario Del Monaco,” Cura says of the late, great Italian tenor of the forties, fifties and sixties.

A great Otello comes along once every generation. Between Del Monaco and Domingo, there was the Canadian tenor Jon Vickers. Whenever anyone assays the role, talk of vocal destruction follows as inevitably as flies swarm to carrion. Why chance irreparable harm to one’s irreplaceable instrument? Maybe Cura should take out career insurance and wait a few years before flushing the next two decades into possible silent oblivion?

JC poses for interview “When I was 22, the same question was posed to me about getting married,” he replies. “ ‘Why don’t you postpone your marriage until you’re 27 or 30?’ Because I felt the necessity of getting married when I was 22.”

Actually, Cura’s performance of Otello in March will not be his first. Three years ago, he substituted for another tenor, his name, Domingo – who fell out of a production in Turin, Italy. Claudio Abbado was conducting the Berlin Philharmonic, a high-profile situation few young tenors could refuse, despite the potential damage to their vocal cords.

For precisely that reason, Cura initially rejected the offer. “I said, ‘Are you crazy? I’m 34 years old, please.’”

Many transcontinental telephone calls later, however, he agreed. As media savvy as Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt, Cura analyzed the situation and came to the conclusion he would perform – but only under very special circumstances. “Apart from getting someone to sing the role, they needed somebody fresh, somebody who is supposed to be the next Otello,” Cura recalls. That decision led to one major stipulation, which essentially barred any advance press. “Don’t announce me as the new Otello,” he told the impresarios in Turin. “Just let me do my job. Promise me that you won’t do a press function. I just sing Otello – nothing more than that.”

Cura says he sang the voice-killing role in a way that was appropriate to his youth, that is, intimately and with great suffering: “Not the general – the hero – but the last 24 hours of someone who used to be a general, who is now breaking to pieces.”

As with his Met debut, the critical notices were all over the operatic map. The Florence newspaper La Nazione blared, “José Cura: A new Otello is born!” Cura fails to mention this review. Once again, negative press most impresses him. “Someone said I had no voice,” he recalls of those first Otello performances. “What was I supposed to do, roar and destroy my voice after the second act?” In the end, Cura played the role as many great actors have. “When Welles and Olivier played it on film, they are sad guys who are going downhill without being able to stop.”

Talk of tenors invariably brings up the Arrogance Factor, a scale on which Cura is supposed to make Donald Trump seem like a humble innkeeper. The opera world abounds with stories that the tenor is victim of the deadly sin. People who look like Cura generally fall prey to such tales: he purposefully leaves his shirt off backstage a tad too long, makes a habit of complaining about his costumes, carries his own wig for the title role in Samson et Dalila. According to Cura, even his wife, Silvia, initially thought him arrogant when they met as teenagers. He was conducting a local church choir at the very unripe age of 16, and Silvia, 15, was auditioning. “She hated me the moment she met me,” Cura remembers. “I told her, ‘I’ll call you.’ It’s a very familiar common expression in our business.” He immediately made a vow. “I’ve never repeated that expression again.”

These days, no one is accusing Cura of repeating himself – or anyone else, for that matter. On his new CD of verism arias, he sings and conducts the orchestra. Even Cura must know he has entered a territory where only angels and fools dare tread.

The usually loquacious tenor turns sheepish when the topic turns to his unique juggling act. “The microphone and the orchestra were in front of me,” he explains carefully, “and I was conducting and singing at the same time.” Cura mentions this as if it involved nothing more than patting one’s head and circling one’s tummy simultaneously. But for those unacquainted with the mechanics of recording and opera performance, this is extremely rare.

“It’s just something I wanted to do,” Cura says. “I wanted to create my own versions of those songs. It’s not about doing something that will be interesting for the market. It’s about me having the pleasure of conducting and singing those pieces.”

Will he repeat the feat?

“Yes . . . who knows?”

JC Poses for interview Just when he tips the scales in one direction, Cura surprises by turning 180 degrees to criticize his own singing technique. Of course, this self-thrashing is tempered by his own comparison to the greatest flawed singer opera has ever known.

“When Maria Callas was singing, everybody said she had three registers to the voice,” Cura begins. “Well, maybe yes, but what about the charisma? Today, they say about me, ‘Yes, Cura, a great singer.’ But the purists say I scoop a note here and there. I say, well, I have been scooping notes all my life. I’m trying to get better, but sometimes that is part of my way of singing. It is my trademark, a certain kind of noise here and there. I will never be a technically spotless singer. I prefer to feel like an actor who has the chance to sing, rather than a singer who is trying to act.”

Joan Sutherland never analyzed her scooping of notes. James McCracken failed to mention his persistent bleat. Franco Corelli ignored his lisp.

Then again, those singers of a rapidly receding era didn’t invoke the name Cindy Crawford to make a point about themselves. “To be silly, take Cindy Crawford, one of the most beautiful faces,” Cura says, pointing a finger at his upper lip. “That characteristic spot here—when she was a kid, it was shameful for her. Who knows? I don’t know Cindy Crawford. But now that she is a major diva, that spot is her trademark.”

In fact, Crawford had wanted to remove that mole when she embarked on her modeling career at age 15. Mama Crawford, however, cautioned it would leave an equally large mark on her face.

“There you are! I was just making a fantasy of mine about Cindy Crawford,” Cura exclaims with a dramatic flourish when given this fan fact. “Now you confirmed my theory!”

JOSÉ CURA

4th and 5th of August 2000
(temple of Jupiter)

Singer, composer and conductor, José Cura is considered as one of the most complete artists of the new generation.

His Lebanese origin: his great-grand father, Chalita El Khouri was born in Knet (north Lebanon) in 1874 and his great grand mother, Teresa Bou Saada was born in Zgharta in 1881. They arrived in Argentina in 1900.

Since his debut in the role of Jan in Bibalo’s Fraulein Julie, his career has taken him to the highest spheres of the international operatic circuit and to the acclaim from critics all over the world.

José Cura was born in Rosario, Santa Fe, Argentina on December 5, 1962. He began his musical formation as a guitarist under the guidance of maestro Juan di Lorenzo. At the age of 15 he debuted as a choral conductor. At 16, still in Rosario, he began studying composition with maestro Carlos Castro and piano with Zulma Cabrera.

In 1982 José Cura entered the School of Arts of the National University of Rosario in order to develop his knowledge of orchestra conducting and composition. The following year, Cura became the assistant to the choir master of the National University of the Rosario Choir. It was the choir master, who was also the head of the conservatory, who convinced Cura to begin studying vocal technique.
While still singing in choirs in the mid-eighties, he devoted himself to composing and conducting. In 1988, he met maestro Horacio Amauri who gave him the definitive basis of his singing technique. José Cura left his native country for Europe in 1991. He lived in Verona Italy for three years and then in January 1995, he moved to Paris where he now resides together with his wife and three children.
In 1992 in Milan, he met tenor Vittorio Terranova, who has been his teacher since then and who helped him to master Italian operatic style. His first professional appearance took place in an open air concert in Genoa in 1991. In February 1992, Cura made his stage debut in Verona as the Father in Henze’s Pollicino . He subsequently appeared in Genoa as Remendado in Carmen and Capitano dei Ballestrieri in Simon Boccanegra. These are the only two "comprimario" roles of his career so far. Jan in Faulein Julie in March 1993 in Trieste, was his first major role. In December 1993 he came to special attention in Turin in Janacek’s Makropulos Case. Ismaele in Nabucco in Genoa in January 1994, was his first role in a standard repertoire opera. After La Forza del Destino in Turin in February 1994, he sang Ruggero in the world première of the third version of Puccini’s La Rondine and in the summer of the same year sang in Martina Franca in Le Villi, Puccini’s first, rarely performed opera.

In September 1994 José Cura won the International Operalia Competition. Soon after, he made his United States debut in Chicago singing Loris Ipanoff in Giordano’s Fedora. After a Gala Concert in the Teatro Colon of Buenos Aires, December 1994, he returned to Italy to sing Paolo il Bello in Zandonai’s Fancesca da Rimini in Palermo and Fedora in Trieste. In June 1995, he made his London debut singing the title role in Stiffelio for the opening night of the Verdi Festival at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. In July 1995, he sang his first Cavaradossi in Tosca at the Puccini Festival of Torre del Lago and in September of the same year he made his debut at the Opera Bastille, singing Ismaele in a new production of Nabucco. After Fedora in London and Mascagni’s very rarely performed Iris for the opening night of the season at the Rome Opera in January 1996. On the 30^th of the same month he sang for the first time the role of Samson in Samson et Dalila at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. For his Los Angeles and San Francisco debuts in 1996, he added two new roles to his repertory, Pollione in Norma and Don José in Carmen.
Following Il Corsaro in Turin and Tosca in London in May 1996, he performed in Melbourne and Sydney the show "The Puccini Spectacular": 250 artists on stage for three hours of music, theatre and fireworks comprising excerpts from the most popular operas of the Italian composer and specially created for his debut in Australia. In December 1996, he recorded the BBC documentary "Great Composers" co-starring Julia Migenes and Leontina Vaduva. The first episode, devoted to Giacomo Puccini, was transmitted in December 1997. On December 22^nd, 1996 the Italian TV RAI transmitted Liliana Cavani’s stage production of Cavalleria Rusticana starring Waltraud Meier and José Cura and conducted by Riccardo Muti. The production was recorded during his debut in the role of Turiddu at the 1996 Ravenna Festival. Three days later his debut in I Pagliacci was transmitted on Eurovision live from Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. José Cura made his debut at the Teatro Alla Scala di Milano with Ponchielli’s La Gioconda, in January 1997. Following his debut in the title of Otello with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Claudio Abbado in May 1997, the important national newspaper La Nazione headlined "José Cura : a new Otello is born" and with this probably best summarized the unanimous praise for the Argentinian tenor’s assumption of this most testing role. In June 1997, José Cura received the Italian Music Critics’ Abbiati award in Italy in the Category of male singer for his performances in Iris in Rome, Cavalleria Rusticana in Ravenna, and Il Corsaro in Turin.
After an enormously successful Gala Concert in Dublin for approximately 5000 people he sang Fedora in Lecce for the 50^th anniversary of Umberto Giordano’s death. On the 22^nd of April 1998 he sang Radames in Aida for the official re-opening of the legendary Teatro Massimo di Palermo .

Recent debuts are : Opera de Marseille with Don Alvaro in La Forza del Destino and Des Grieux in Manon Lascaut at La Scala di Milano.

During his last German tour in July, he did not only sang but, for the first time in the history of modern opera, he also conducted while singing. His recent appearance in Amsterdam’s Prinsengracht Concert in-front of 20.000 people has also been a big TV event with an audience of more than 800.000 following-broadcast the last 22^nd of August.

In coincidence with the release of his recording of Saint-Saens’ Samson et Dalila, he has done his debut in Washington on the 10^th of November 1998 singing the title role of that opera and on the 25^th of December he sang Luigi in Il Tabarro in a TV and radio live broadcast from Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. After La Forza del Destino, Milano Teatro alla Scala, February 1999 and his first Andrea Chenier Zurich, March 1999, he did his home debut in Buenos Aires, Teatro Colon, with Otello and his Metropolitan Opera House debut with Cavalleria Rusticana for the Last Opening Night of the Century on the 27^th of September.

Last summer, he opened the Arena di Verona Festival with a new production of Aida which was live broadcasted on world TV and, for the first time in the history of opera and transmitted on Internet.

Last October he sang Otello for his first time ever in Spain. In December 99, he opened Palermo’s season, also with Otello. In March 2000, a great event is marking his career: Placido Domingo, the last of the greatest Otello, is conducting him in this Verdi opera in Washington.

José Cura

E Machado

Bomb, Winter 2000

I had never been to an opening at the Metropolitan Opera. It seemed surreal to me: A Fellini movie played out on the Upper West Side. Money, money and more money. The opera began . . . beautiful music . . .more money. Then Mr. Cura walked on. Something recognizable at last. He walked like a bull in a china shop. He seemed Latino and Italian all at once – a movie star who sings. A fast-rising tenor with an exceptional voice and an innate acting ability, Cura is what’s known among cognoscenti as a serious musician. The Argentinian tenor began voice lessons at 12 and made his conducting debut at 15 in an open-air choral concert in his hometown of Rosario, Argentina. Cura wanted to be a composer or conductor but it was his voice that won him a scholarship at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires. Today his repertoire includes over 30 operas, including Carmen at the San Francisco Opera; Otello in Madrid; and Cavelleria Rusticana at the Metropolitan Opera, and Samson et Dalila at the Washington Opera. When we met for this interview, we spoke in Spanish. He is a friendly, charismatic man. His wife sat nearby. Then I said, "better switch to English." So here goes . . .

Eduardo Machado: I went to see opening night of the opera and I enjoyed it a great deal. You are a wonderful actor, as well. I wonder what made you decide to do opera?

José Cura: I love what I do, but because I also love other aspects of performing, the music itself, the conducting, teaching, I couldn’t say which is my priority. I mean, in the list of what I love about opera, singing is a complement but not the only thing. But because the laws of opera are what they are, the demands of being a tenor are more important than those other demands. So what I’ve tried to do is to sing as an actor, and to do music as a full musician instead of just singing.

EM: Not only to be a voice.

JC: Yes. Somebody who is used to theatre, like you, would say, "Oh, he is an opera singer but he is acting, he is believing what he is doing." That is what makes the difference.

EM: That’s what made the difference for me. It wasn’t static. I have a bit of a hard time with opera, being from the theatre. José, when people interview me, they ask, "Why theatre?" In opera you cater to a certain kind of audience that isn’t as wide as a salsa audience, which I am sure you could sing. And so I am asking you: Why opera?

JC: It’s like asking a tall athlete, Why basketball and not marathon running? It’s about analyzing your own aptitude so that you can be one of the firsts in your world, rather than being number 20 in another world. The point is, I feel that opera could be done in a different way, and that is exactly the way that you appreciated it the other night.

EM: How much more different would you like to see opera?

JC: I apply all these things to every opera I do. Some reviewers are modern and intelligent, but, unfortunately, there are the ones who stick to what they are used to and say, "Don’t you dare touch." Some reviewers say I’m not such a good singer after all, and that I’m using my acting ability to cover the fact.

EM: They can’t accept that you can be good at both things.

JC: Well . . .

EM: I was taken by the fact that you were so free – in theatre this never happens – within a framework that has already been set up for you by Mr. Zeffirelli. What’s that like? How do you find freedom within that strong framework?

JC: Well, having worked with Franco in the past – even though he was not here – knowing the man, I know he would be happy that somebody is using his own thoughts to create a different atmosphere than what he originally interpreted. He’s not the kind of man to say, "You have to follow the lines."

EM: I worked for him once, I sang "Guantanamera" for the movie The Champ, but I was very young.

JC: His usual way of working is, "Listen, I would like you to enter from this door and exit from the other door. At a certain point I would like you to go to this chair and touch this flower. Show me what you are going to do and how you are going to do it, and I’ll tell you how it looks." A big director would never tell and artist, "Now raise a finger. Now close you eyes." You build together; you know what I am talking about because this is what you do. So my interpreting was not dangerous. This set looks like Sicily. Some may say that it is old-fashioned, but if you’ve ever been in Sicily, it’s just like that. So you can behave within the set the way you would behave as an ordinary man in ordinary Sicily. That makes things easy. If you were to have an ultramodern set where things were moving or happening, you’d have to be in a certain place at a certain moment or you’d get killed, or you’d seem out of place. But in this set you can enjoy an almost natural space because it is complete . . .

EM: World.

JC: It is natural: the church, the stairs, the door . . .

EM: You also conduct. How do you feel when you are being conducted by someone else?

JC: It is the same feeling for actors who also direct movies. When you are in front of the camera it is one thing, and when you are behind the camera it is another. If you are open and flexible enough, you can capitalize on both worlds and make them one, and then you become extremely rich as an artist. When you are in front of the camera, the fact of knowing what the people behind the camera are seeing . . .

EM: It’s the same thing.

JC: It’s the same thing. I know exactly what the conductor is trying to obtain because I can understand every single thing that is happening there – instead of being carried up and down like a puppet.

EM: You strike me as someone who is the opposite of a puppet.

JC: Maybe that is what upsets people, because I am not . . .

EM: A traditionalist.

JC: No, then can’t put me in a box and say, "Hey, tenor, stand up here in front and sing," which is like saying, "Just sing and shut up."

EM: Which, in this country, is something they do – they don’t understand a person having more that one discipline.

JC: Over the last two years, I’ve been devoting myself to photography. I love it. Dealing with photography helps you understand the way the light works when you are on stage – not only knowing how the music is working, but knowing how the light is working on you, and the effect it is producing. It opens a whole new world.

EM: I have a lot of friends who are Broadway singers; they spend a tremendous amount of time worrying about their voices. Do you worry about that? How do you take care of it?

JC: Well, actually, I don’t take care of it at all.

EM: No?

JC: When I say that, I don’t want to sound negligent, what I am saying is that I try to lead a normal life. Of course, if I have a performance I won’t go out barefoot in the snow and challenge destiny, but I’m not a slave to my voice. I eat when I am hungry, and sleep when I am tired, and wash when I am dirty like anybody else. The day of the performance I will try to sleep as much as I can because, as you know, you are in the theatre two hours before the performance and then you stay two hours after the performance getting rid of the makeup and normally, when everybody else is in bed, you are in the middle of your day. So I try to sleep during the day to be rested in the evening; but apart form that, no, nothing special. I’m not a scarf tenor.

EM: America, being a very egocentric country, has made a great deal of the fact that you are going to be at the Met. Is the Met the center of opera, I wonder? What does it really mean for you to debut at the Met?

JC: This is a very interesting question, and I’m going to give you a dangerous answer. There are two ways of seeing the Met. It is the most important theatre in the United States, and saying that, you are almost acknowledging that it is the most important theatre on the American continent. Teatro Colon used to be a great theatre but now, apart from the building, because of the economical situation it is not the great thing that is used to be. Chile, Brazil and Mexico have wonderful houses but they can’t make them work in as efficient a way as they do at the Met, just because they don’t have the money. So, leaving that aside, it is an obvious conclusion that the Met is the greatest opera house on the American continent. After that you have San Francisco, and Chicago, and you have theatres that are pushing very hard like Washington. But the Met is the Met. That doesn’t mean that the Met is more important than Covent Garden or Vienna of La Scala. There are several, five or six, but theatres that are the pinnacles you have to reach – you have to perform there. But the Met is not the only big theatre in the world. I personally suffer the extreme measures of security inside the Met.

EM: This city has become very extreme.

JC: Yes, very extreme in everything. For an artist it is very aggressive. The stage, in our souls and in our innocence, is a place of fantasy. I am an artist, the stage is my place, but to reach the stage I have to ask permission . . .

EM: It’s like that in every American theatre.

JC: I’m not blaming them; they are doing their job of securing the theatre. It’s not their fault that this is a hard country and they have to take care. The fact is that the way of working, the way of being, the way of everyday living in this country is a bit too aggressive. It is this energy that pushes and makes a lot of good things happen. But sometimes, this strength turns into aggression and you have to create defenses against your own idiosyncrasies. Apart from that, artistically the Met is great: the orchestra, the chorus, and the atmosphere. When you are on stage, you can feel the positive energy. It’s not like some other theatres where everyone wants you to break a leg – literally.

EM: In this country, opera is not perceived as an art form – neither is the theatre – for everyday people. But opera is perceived as completely not for everyday people, because of what it costs. At this point in my life, I have begun to think about it. That’s why I just made a movie, because I wanted more people to see what I do. Do you think about that?

JC: I am not an expert in this. The Met, for example, is an enterprise unto itself. They produce their own money through sponsors and tickets sales. They make their own decisions and administrate their own incomes. Not every house is in such a privileged situation. Maybe because of that, the tickets must be more expensive. But I feel that all over the world, slowly, while still having the old, nice, black tie gala evening, we are starting to have lots of other performances that are open to everybody, where tickets are not much more expensive than a cinema ticket. Opera is the most expensive of the live arts to produce. You have at least 100 singers in the chorus, at least 90 musicians in the pit, another 50 to 60 moving everything; I mean you don’t do Aida without moving less than 300 people around. That’s the main stone in the bag. And it doesn’t look like there’s a solution to that. Where there’s a chorus there’s a chorus, you have to have the chorus. And if you are part of the chorus you want to be paid, etcetera . . . the money has to come from somewhere. Some people say that the great burdens of the theatre are the fees of the great artists. Only one or two great artists get a big fee in a production, everybody else is part of the house establishment.

EM: I’ll ask you another political question. Opera seems to be the most open place for people who are Latin, it seems that there is no prejudice having to do with nationality, color, or anything like that.

JC: In opera, the voice is the first thing. That doesn’t mean that the voice should be the most beautiful or the biggest voice in the world, but you need to produce a certain kind of sound to be there on the stage. Then, some directors desire a white, blond performer for a character who is supposed to be blond and white. Maybe if you had a soprano of color playing that part it would seem bizarre – speaking from the "libretto" point of view. But I think that things are now more open in that sense. You don’t have the limitation that you would have in cinema, where, if the character is supposed to be blond, you wouldn’t cast a black woman. Of course, if the character is supposes to be a black person, you won’t be able to cast a blond woman. And, if you are supposed to be Superman, you cannot be fat. Cinema is what it is. Opera is a little more flexible. But the influence of cinema is starting to come into opera, and more and more directors’ want people who can look the character. The first thing you need is a voice, but you must try to have all the other things too. However, creating a character is about believing: If you are performing in the role of a Latin lover, and you aren’t that good looking, you can be a seducer all the same. It’s about trying to deliver the proper energy. It doesn’t have to only be the way you look, that energy can occupy your being if you "believe" in it.

EM: Right, right.

JC: You know, in opera, you go on stage and if your performance is wrong, it is wrong, there’s no way to come back. If you crack a note, you crack a note. It’s like theatre, if you forget the text; there is nothing you can do. This kind of pressure, together with the pressure of health (colds and coughing) tends to be catalyzed, in lots of cases, through eating. A lot of the folklore of the overweight opera singer . . . I have colleagues and friends who are not really thin, they know they need to change for health reasons too, and are making big efforts to lose weight. I had a wonderful surprise yesterday evening. In ’97 I sang with a soprano who was really very overweight. I saw her yesterday and she was another woman; she had lost 20 kilos. And she was feeling good, more secure and more confident on stage. I don’t want to be misunderstood here, I don’t know if in the future I’m going to be fat, or lose my hair, or have a belly – but, it isn’t about that. It is about trying to make the instrument you use for working as good as your nature and you genetics allow you to.

EM: What inspires you?

JC: In what sense?

EM: Artistically.

JC: Commitment. There is nothing more frustrating for me than being on stage interacting with a colleague who is not committed. If you are an actor that is the main thing. An actor is delivering energy and information continuously. And you need someone in front of you, apart from the audience, who will be able to take that energy, filter it and give it back to your colleague. It’s ping-pong. When you send energy to somebody and receive nothing in exchange, after half an hour on stage, you are exhausted, because you are doing all the work. You are projecting and somebody is sucking all of your energy, and what is worse, the audience is receiving nothing because there’s a wall.

EM: What would you like to sing next? What are you going to sing next?

JC: Well, my next opera is Otello. That’s really an opera I love because it has allowed me to create a very deep character. I’ve received heavy criticism from the opera guys for my Otello.

EM. Already. <Laughter>

JC: And great compliments from theater people. I’m happy for that because I want to create the Otello I feel. Otello is not a monk. This is a man who used to be a hero, who used to be a general, who used to be this and that, and now is just a piece of nothing breaking into pieces of nothingness. That’s the Otello I feel. Of course when I played it like this for the first time all the opera buffs said: Oh there’s not enough sound, there’s not enough ‘noise’ there. And all the theater buffs said: Oh, what great acting. The next challenge is to try to fill the gap in between and make everybody happy.

EM: Where are you singing Otello next?

JC: In Madrid, in Palermo, and in Washington next March…

EM: Any anecdotes?

JC: Yeah. When I sang it for the first time—there is this moment on stage when the alarm goes off; he has just been making love to his wife. So my interpretation was, he hears the alarm, grabs his trousers and goes on—half naked. That’s what you’d do in real life. I went out in my trousers, holding them up, and I was nailed. Everybody said that I was trying to show my pectorals.

EM: (laughter) Maybe this time you should come out nude.

JC: No more, I think. I’m getting fat, too, you know?

Screen Test
by Antonia Couling

José Cura talks about the making of La Traviata

Over the weekend of June 3 and 4, 2000, millions of people the world over tuned in to watch Traviata, Love and Death in Paris--a live television relay spread over two evenings of Verdi's tragic opera, from more or less the actual scenic locations in Paris. The main protaganists were soprano Eteri Gvazava in the role of Violetta and tenor José Cura as her lover, Alfredo. By the end of June--barely three weeks after the transmission--a live CD of the performance as well as a disc of highlights became available.

One would think that the singers must have been much more nervous than during a stage performance, but Cura points out that the pressure was not that different. "An opera singer doesn't have a second chance on stage, either. We're not like movie actors who can do their scenes a hundred times until they get it right. We are used to working on stage with the same kind of risk."

So were they aware of the size of the audience? "We were, but technically speaking, in terms of pressure, the results were the same: we went for it and prayed that it was going to be good. When the time came for the actual broadcast, it was the fifth or sixth time we had gone through the whole thing and I actually had a lot of fun. We had been rehearsing for a month and a half, so the cameras had been there all the time. The only 'small' difference was that we knew that millions of people were watching from the other side of the camera."

A fiercely intelligent man, José Cura is renowned for his commitment to the theatrical side of opera. Simply standing and delivering is not for him. He is passionate about this aspect of performance and many who have seen him on stage agree that they have witnessed a great singer/actor in action. Tall and athletic, and blessed with romantic good looks, Cura may have added advantages over other tenors, but it is his total performance which is the key to this man's much deserved place at the top of the new generation's opera pantheon. He gives his all and expects the same from those around him. So was he was aware of any changes he had to make to his acting for the camera?

"I am already quite a dry actor on stage, using only the gestures you need and no more than that. Even on an opera stage, I don't gesticulate as much as a lot of opera singers. The thing here was trying to be as relaxed and as natural as possible with your face, because when you sing you make some strange faces, especially when you sing high notes. So the challenge was to alter the physiology of the face during the high tessituras. Some people mistakenly thought that because we were apparently singing with very little effort--I say 'apparently' because it took a lot of training to do it--we were actually miming to playback. We weren't. That cabaletta in the carriage in Act II is very high, very tense, very difficult and I was fighting to keep my face relaxed all the time."

Another difficulty was the fact that the singers had absolutely no playback of their voices--all they could hear over speakers was the orchestra which was relayed live to them. If you take away the acoustic that an opera house provides, it's very hard indeed to judge how your voice sounds. "It was like singing in the middle of the countryside," laughs Cura. "We had to judge by physical feeling and our instincts as singers. It's like being blind and knowing that you are in front of a fridge and not a door--you touch and feel that it is a fridge and not a door. If you can't hear your voice, but you know what physical feelings your body experiences when you are singing properly, you need to recreate that feeling to know that you are doing things right."

As for the CD, it might seem that the decision to make a recording of a live performance under such extreme conditions was perhaps a little dangerous, especially as both Cura and Eteri Gvazava were making their debuts in this opera, but the technical smoothness of the programme was stunning and both singers can be lauded for their wonderful performances and what they brought to their roles. Gvazava, who is relatively unknown, won the part after a long audition process and Cura praises her as being "the soul of the production". With less and less money being put into making studio recordings of operas, this one of La Traviata is valuable, and will also stand out for other reason. "This recording is precious because of what it is," says Cura. "It is the the soundtrack of the film really. You can hear the glasses, the bottles, the chairs, the birds--it's very live and very interesting."

(Antonia Couling is Deputy Editor of Opera Now and Editor of The Singer magazine.)

Cura appeals to audience's feelings

Mozart, Schubert and Schumann were pop artists of their eras

Interview by Jolanta Fajkowska. Translated by Iwona Pomes.

Originally published in " Wprost" weekly magazine in November, 2000.

Jolanta Fajkowska: What sort of music do you listen to when you come back home after a performance?

J.C.: I listen to silence. That is the best music.

J.F.: Are you fed up with an opera?

J.C.: Not at all! This is my job. I treat it like every other profession. I work fourteen or fifteen hours a day and I need to take a rest at home. When I was a boy I loved The Beatles, Negro spirituals, jazz but not arias.

J. F.: As far as I've heard you always wanted to become a rugby player.

J.C.: No one plays rugby as a professional in Argentina. It doesn't pay well. If I continued playing it I would become a member of Argentinean National Team. Singing became more important for me.

Some twenty kilograms ago I used to practise physical fitness and yoga. In the evenings only theatre counted.

J. F.: Does experience in practising sports help you on stage?

J.C.: Yes, it does. I know how to control my body. It taught me to move in a proper way. I can sing in even a horizontal position. It's very difficult for an opera singer. Some costumes are heavy, but I don't feel it, because my muscles are trained.

J. F.: Although you didn't study acting, you are considered to be one of the best actors in opera. You know how to appeal to an audience.

J.C.: The audience wants to be seduced. They want to be aware that the actor, singer, performer thinks about them. Some people reproach me for my covering my vocal weaknesses with charisma. Maybe this is truth. Someone who can make contact with an audience doesn't have to be a perfect singer.

J. F.: What does the audience admire in your interpretations?

J.C.: They may admire my ability to play a character in a realistic way. I know how to show happiness, suffering, love. Singing is one of the elements of being on stage.

J. F.: You are famous for your unconventional behaviour, like throwing paper airplanes during performance, singing in horizontal position, etc.

J.C.: Everyone plays jokes. I become victim sometimes. I remember one of my performances in “Fedora”. In it's last act I was reading a letter concerning my mother's death. I opened the envelope and I saw a picture of a beautiful naked woman. Imagine yourself with two thousand people staring at me, my partner crying in the corner of the stage and me singing and carrying this picture in my palm. I closed this envelope. I sang the content of this letter from my memory. I've never got to know who played this trick on me.

J. F.: You released a CD on which Plácido Domingo conducted an orchestra. He is said to have called you his successor.

J.C.: Plácido is a great singer, musician and good conductor. He knows the rules of cooperation between a soloist and an orchestra like no others do. He's not a professional conductor, however he knows what a singer feels like on a stage. Working with him is a pleasure. It's an honour for me to be his successor.

J. F.: We saw Verdi's " La Traviata" on TV recently. It was broadcasted live to 125 countries. It was a great challenge.

J.C.: Playing Alfredo was very exciting for me. When you are on stage you see the faces of persons staring at you. When you turn away from an audience, they won't hear what you sing. When you stand in front of a TV camera, you have to play with all your body. The cameras record everything. This was a real live broadcast. Billions of persons saw results of one and half months' rehearsals. We worked fifteen hours each day. We were exhausted on the day of premiére. If there was no make- up, we would look terribly. Beginning of a fourth act was very dark. It was a proof that “ La Traviata” was broadcasted live from Paris.

J. F.: I thought that it was some kind of special effect prepared by Vittorio Storara.

J.C.: One of the lamps broke down at the beginning of this act. We couldn't make a pause to fix it. We sang in the dark. Storaro waited until I started crying in a close- up. He crept in and fixed this lamp. Just imagine yourself crying and seeing somebody crawling and fixing a lamp. When you record a programme, you can make a break to take a rest, to chat and drink coffee. We couldn't do it.

J. F.: Why do you shock an audience with your unconventional clothes so often?

J.C.: I loathe dress-coats and bow-ties. In my opinion wearing this kind of clothes by an artist discourages young people from listening to classical music. I want to prove everyone that this kind of music can be ravishing. I start some of my recitals dressed in a black tie. Then I put it off and I finish singing with jeans and a T- shirt on. Some old people are disgusted, but youngsters like it. Many of them tell me that they always wait for my concerts to see what will happen there. On the other side we cannot forget that such composers as Schubert, Schumann and Mozart were pop artists of their eras. What did Mozart do for living? He played music in king's drawing- room and dining- room. What about Schubert? He used to write his music carrying a beer in his hand in some second- rate inn. In about fifty years songs written by Elton John, Paul McCartney and Lennon will become classical.

The Argentinean who doesn't sing tango

Interview from Rzeczpospolita - Nov 2000

Interview by Jacek Marczyński

translated by Iwona

Jacek Marczyński: Why did you decide to record Seweryn Krajewski, Janusz Stokłosa and Krzesimir Dębski's tunes?

José Cura: It's well written music. It touches emotions and inspires me. I agreed to take part in recording of “ Era Of Love” album just after first listening. I have nice memories from working on this CD.

J.M.: Do you like popular music?

J. C.: I love it! When I was younger I wanted to be a pop singer not a tenor. I don't want to be univocally categorized. I play Otello and I sing pop songs as well. I always do my best for everything to be done well.
J. M.: Why there is no tango in your repertoire?

J. C: The Argentine singers will always be associated with tango by Europeans. Tango is a music of Buenos Aires. I come from Rosario, which is a third biggest city in my country. I try not to forget about my roots. I recorded a CD with Argentine music. These are very melodious songs written by Alberto Ginastera and Guastavino. They were arranged by me. I have always wanted to release this album in order to promote Argentine composers worldwide.

J. M.: You and your fellow- countryman Marcelo Alvarez became famous in Europe quite fast. Does it mean that you have very good teachers in Argentina?

J. C.: I was almost 30 years old when I arrived in Europe in 1991. I became popular fast. I had been well prepared before I left my homeland. We have good music schools and teachers in Argentina. We cultivate traditions of great vocal education. That's because a lot of our teachers come from Italy and France.

J. M.: I've got Le Villi CD. Is this your first recording?

J. C.: Yes, it is. I recorded it in 1994.

J. M.: Is Puccini's music of great importance in your career?

J. C.: Yes, it is. I used to sing a lot of it at the beginning of my career. My first official CD consists of Puccini's arias only. It was released in 1997. I've always dreamt about playing Cavalier des Grieux in Manon Lescaut. It's a difficult role, because tenor should sing it like in La Boheme when the orchestration reminds Wagner's Die Walküre. When Puccicni wrote this opera, he was under Wagner's influence. I hope that Manon Lescaut will be recorded on CD.

J. M.: I suspect, that Otello will be recorded earlier. This is your spectacular role.

J. C.: My début as Otello occured in 1997. I've been singing it since then. I think, that my voice is much more mature than before. Otello is a great figure. He is as complicated as Verdi's other heroes. Verdi could create great figures even if he had poor librettos. Otello is a wonderful literary piece of art written by Shakespeare. Today many persons behave like the main character of this opera still. They can't adapt to today's reality. No wonder that this opera is so popular even now.

J. M.: Do you believe that opera of the XIX century can be attractive for contemporary viewer?

J. C.: Opera is something with future before it, however it has to adapt itself to the rhythm of our times. We are overwhelmed by pictures and sounds. We need something that could thrill us. Let's imagine, that you are a spectator. When you go to an opera house and you feel that there is no energy flowing from the stage, the performance will make no impression on you. I don't think about fireworks or special effects. I try to give this portion of energy to my viewers even if I'm completely alone on stage. It's just like in Samson et Dalila. Opera changes on that score. This should be a theatre that shows how people live: their suffering, struggle and laughter. Today it's more important to put one's feelings into singing than to sing every note properly.

J. M.: You conduct more often now. You will do it in the National Theatre as well. You try to do so many things in your life. Are you sure that singing is so important for you?

J. C.: I've already said that I liked doing different things. I conduct, I compose and I make arrangements. When I was a teenager I directed a choir. We will see what future brings.

Verdi 2001
by Laura Lanchon

LAURA LANCHON: Year 2001 will be the Verdi centenary. What does this celebration mean to you?

JOSÉ CURA: Of course, every anniversary celebration - like the change of millennium we are going through at the moment - could either be relevant or just a commercial way of going about things. I think the Verdi centenary is both. Naturally it's important for us to release a Verdi recital as a tribute to him on the hundredth anniversary of his death. But it's no less important to commemorate the life of a man who brought about such tremendous changes. If you study his output as a whole, between his first operas and his last ones you see the enormous arch of his development stretching across the century, finishing up in an almost revolutionary way with Otello and Falstaff. These are operas in which there's not a single note out of place, the orchestration is utterly perfect, every word in each libretto is great. It's amazing to think that it was the very same man who earlier on wrote Il Corsaro, for example, or Un giorno di regno - nice pieces of music here and there, but of course nothing compared to the later ones. You have to admire the mastery of this great man: how in the beginning he was the result of his time, and how, as his life unfolded, he grew, he analyzed. He didn't just sit at his piano raking in the easy money he could get from writing easy music all his life - he developed, he challenged everybody. And late in life, when the new generations looked down on him and referred to him insultingly as an old man, it was their leader, Arrigo Boito, who wrote the libretto for Otello, and so paid tribute to the man who at the end of the day was a real leader. All these things come to bear on this enormously significant event - we are commemorating a man who changed the history of opera.

LL: What is the importance of Verdi roles in your career? Can you tell us a bit about just a few, like Otello, La forza del destino and Aida?

JC: Well, in my career there are two, three, maybe four key Verdi roles. As you know, I have sung something like ten or twelve of them, but in recent years I have been concentrating on Otello, Forza del destino. I'll doing my first Trovatore in December 2000, I've got a Don Carlo coming up in 2001, because I think these operas enable me to convey something closer to the theatrical sense I want to give my interpretations. How can I explain this? In the early Verdis, for example, you often hear a chorus singing "Let's go": "Andiam', andiam', andiam'" - and they carry on saying this for half an hour! Of course that's because it's a musical form, but it's the death of theatre. When you've got to go, you say "Andiam'!" and off you go - you don't spend half an hour talking about it and never actually going! I am first and foremost a man of the theatre, of action, and a singer as well, so personally I sometimes prefer to make a few sacrifices so I can sing in operas in which the action is credible. Because I am only at ease in that kind of opera, I'm not keen to sing early Verdi. So yes, of course, the Verdi parts that will be part of my career from now to the end of my days as a singer are above all Otello, Forza del destino and Aida. I don't know how I'll feel about Trovatore when I do it, but if I'm happy with it maybe Trovatore will be one of those. But in any case I won't ever be the sort of Verdi singer who takes on the whole Verdi repertoire.

LL: Could you tell me something about how you chose the arias for the recording? Some of them aren't among the most famous, others have very rarely been recorded, if ever.

JC: When selecting the arias for this new album, we considered several possibilities. One aim was of course for me to sing arias that belong to my "everyday" stage repertoire, as it were - so there's Aida, there's Forza del destino, Otello, Don Carlo and Trovatore. And the other arias were included because they're wonderful music - like Ballo in maschera, for example, or Macbeth -, or else because they give a clear picture of Verdi's inventiveness in searching for dramatic ways of saying things, with ideas that go further than his famous "oom-pa-da pa pa oom-pa oom-pa". In I due Foscari, for instance, all of a sudden there is this depiction of a ghost. Some of these arias are of course taken from parts that I would never take in stage performances. I don't think I'll ever sing in Macbeth, for example, but the song is great. I don't think I'll ever sing "I due Foscari" on stage, because it's extremely rarely performed, and I don't see myself in all the aspects of the part.

Then of course there's the question of the order of the arias in the recording, which isn't chronological. One guiding principle was to go for alternations in tension and repose from one aria to the next, while at the same time linking them according to their keys: if we finish an aria in C major, we avoid starting in a key which has absolutely nothing to do it, so we'd choose a related one like A minor or F major, something close so the recording doesn't come over as disjointed. Even if you have gaps of two or three seconds between the arias, you need some kind of continuity in the keys.

Last Updated: Tuesday, June 29, 2010