He
has two loves: the baton and the voice. Two forms of expression of
the same personality. José Cura says that he used to want to be a
maestro, but had to sing to sustain his family. Now it is not quite
so true: the Maestro José also sustains the family, and Cura did
not stop being a tenor. Today, in the Teatro San Carlos in Lisbon,
he will sing some arias from opera but the main course of the
evening is the 9th Symphony of Beethoven, conducted by
this artist in search of joy. The same work, the 9th,
the most emblematic of the ‘genius,’ as the maestro without fear
states.
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José
Cura (44) traveled to Argentina to attend the golden anniversary of
his parents (the celebration is on Saturday 7 July in Rosario, his
hometown). He is accompanied by his wife, Silvia, and their three
children: José (19), Yazmín (14) and Nicolás (11). The visit, at
first a secret, was quickly divulged and the family plan was
subsequently interrupted by five performances of Samson et Dalila
(by Camille Saint-Saëns) in the Teatro Coliseo, with the artistic
support of the Teatro Colón, and in Rosario with the festival of the
50 years of the Monument to the Flag and a chamber concert in
commemoration of the 25th anniversary of Mozarteum, (8
July) where he will present the world premier of the
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I was always very stubborn. Like young children, each time they get
up in the morning it is not important to them what happened the
previous day, just that they are going to play again. I believe I
am like that. I was always convinced I had something to say, I was
prepared to say it, and was going to keep on saying it until I
finally found someone who would listen to what I had to say and then
this person would pass it on to others. It is being eternally young
beyond all mistakes and objections. It causes one to want to
continue forward with the same thing.
He can't be the same man, can he?
By Michael Church
Published: 12 April 2007
That was Cura's launch: overnight he was awarded a big recording contract, and hailed as the "fourth tenor" and as a new operatic sex symbol, and his meteoric career began. Now he is back in that role: the production is physically the same, but since both he and director Elijah Moshinsky have changed in the intervening time, it will also reflect that.
"Then I was a naive young kid trying to fit into the shoes of a tormented and complicated adult," says Cura. "Now I am closer to that character." Is his voice changing? "A lot. It's getting darker and darker, to a point where some people think it's moving beyond the tenor range. Certain characters I cannot do now, not because I can't [sing the role], but because the colour of the voice wouldn't portray the psychology."
And although he still exudes the lazy pantherish charm that made his first interviewers go down like ninepins, he's taken drastic steps to obliterate that original image. "All that stuff about the sonny-boy sex symbol, those stories about the fourth tenor - it was sending out the wrong signals, and I was getting shot at with the wrong weapons. I grew very unhappy with how I was being sold, so I dismissed my agent and set up my own company to organise my work.
"I'm 44, and I started my career when I was 14 - I've worked very hard to become a serious musician and a finished artist, and now we've cleaned away the garbage. Now I am accepted as serious artist."
He globetrots as a conductor as well as singer, he's staging his own touring production of Pagliacci in Croatia, and he has had a new CD and two DVDs out in the past three months: point made, point taken.
20 April (www.royalopera.org; 020-7304 4000)
STANDARD:
Mr. Cura, you have different approaches to music. You have studied
piano and composition, started conducting at 15 and only much later
began to sing. Is it sometimes difficult to switch between these
approaches? 
With
his performances in Samson et Dalila presented by the
Teatro Colón, José Cura gave ample evidence to the Argentine public
of why his name is where it is in the world of opera. Nevertheless,
and not to lose the habit of being pleasantly surprised, an
important moment still remains on his agenda before the tenor
returns to Europe. It is a question this time of the world premiere
of his Sonnets, based on the poems of Pablo Neruda, that take
place tomorrow in the program for the Mozarteum of Rosario, which is
celebrating its Silver Anniversary with a concert by José Cura and
pianist Eduardo Delgado in the Foundation Astengo. The two,
acquainted through the CD of Argentine music Anhelo,
will offer a chamber recital, including songs from the recording,
works for solo piano, and the pieces composed by Cura.
Applauded
by the critics for his interpretations of Giuseppe
Verdi’s “Otello” and Saint-Saens’ “Samson”, Cura is
also recognized for being the first artist to have
sung and conducted the same work simultaneously as
well as being the first to combine vocal with
symphonic performances in the same concert.
When
José Cura came down punctually to the lobby to give us his final
interview before returning to Europe, I thought it was gracious of
him not to have canceled after the effort of the previous night’s
concert when he sang while suffering from an untimely cold (for a
singer, a cold is always untimely). Besides, it was a very cold 9
July (Rosarinos hardly remember when it was really cold) and many
expected snow. I will never forget when it snowed in Rosario a
few days before my entire family was involved in a car accident and
we saw the snow on the windows of the hospital, recalled the
Rosarino musician (singer, director, composer) who now lives in
Madrid but works in capital cities around the world. 
I
never impose it. I propose. Those who like the proposal accept it,
those who do not, don’t. I conduct a lot and in very important
locales such as the Vienna Opera and when you direct the Wiener, you
conduct one of the significant orchestras in the world, the same is
true in London with the London Symphony. There is never this sort
of question because when one stands in front of the orchestra for
the first three minutes the musicians see the tenor but then no
longer, because to move forward without a professional musician
[standing on the podium] would not be possible. The preconception
comes from the press, which does not understand and uses tenor as a
bad word. To say someone is a tenor is like saying that she is a
woman rather than a feminist, like referring to a stupid individual
with no rights.
“The
oldest images I retain of
Rosario,” he recalls, “are the
first two or three days of
primary school. I do not know
if that was in the LaSalle or
San José School, because after
three days my parents withdrew
me to enroll me into a new
school, one that had just opened
by the brothers of Saint Patrick
of Ireland. We were the first
class. There were barely two
rooms and a patio. My class was
also the first class to
graduate. Today it is a great
school, one of the biggest in
Rosario. The last time I was in
Argentina, in 1999, I visited
the school, I met with the
students and I encountered a
couple of my former companions.
So there is where I begin my
memories of Rosario, in the
little school of St Patrick. In
reality so many years have
passed…and it is only now when I
return that I perceive this
passing of time.” The imaginary
route soon pass by his old house
near the river and the second
one in the first residential
district of Rosario. Almost
immediately, and understanding
the strong connection that joins
them, music arrived and, of
course, with it the beginning of
the history whose future
chapters would cause him to do
nothing less than conquer the
world. “Music always formed
part of my family. My father
played piano well enough. I
have a very clear image of when,
as a boy, I watched him, seated
at the piano, playing Chopin and
Liszt. Then he tried to imprint
on me his own story as a boy,
sending me to study piano with a
teacher in the neighborhood.
But the initiative did not
work.” After a few months, the
teacher dismissed his young
student with a brief note sent
to his parents, in which he
explained, sadly, that it would
be best to wait for a time when
an interest [in music] developed
in José that had, to that
moment, not been demonstrated,
and at the same time he
recommended looking for a hobby
that appealed to the young man,
because musical sensitivity did
not seem strong in him. “It was
probably true at that time, and
the best example was that, from
that moment, I began to devote
myself to rugby.”
But
when did he discover his
extraordinary vocation in music
and what was that cause that
permanently awoke his
sensibilities? Oddly and
without warning, that event was
the result of an examination to
enter secondary school. “I was
there with one of my best
friends. He played his guitar,
the Beatles were fashionable,
and he created a lot of
interest. I learned to play
immediately and the experience
awoke the calling that had been
sleeping within me.” This was
the friend who gave him his
first set of tools. Soon, his
father contacted Ernesto Bitteti
(an old family friend), and
Bitteti recommended a professor
with whom to study seriously.
That began the history with the
guitar. “With my exuberant and
extroverted personality, I was
like a time bomb. I learned to
play well enough, although
always somewhat hampered by my
very large hands…the things were
causing me quite a lot of work
but I managed to have good
results. The guitar, though,
very quickly made me feel small,
not in a technical sense but in
the fact of it being a very
introverted instrument. For
that reason, I entered the
Conservatory in Rosario to study
conducting and composition.”
“One
of the characteristics of
classical music is that it is
one of the few forms of art that
remains, between one person and
another, a single thing: to the
work of art itself. We interpret
that work live, without networks
and without lies. That artisan
concept is probably the most
important aspect of music and,
in my opinion, why it continues
to work, although as a spectacle
it may be a little
anachronistic. It is an art of
skin and bone, fact with flood,
sweat and tears, and for that
reason it is an expression that
stays alive. It is my hope that
all people, at least once in
their lives, are touched by this
sensation, so powerful and so
extraordinary.”
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Regarding
the opera that he has come here to
sing, “Stiffelio”—the same one in
which he made his London debut in
1995—Cura feels obliged to defend
himself against some of the reviews
of the production that have recently
been published. The critics have
made note of the extraordinary vocal
power of the principal singers, Cura
(the Protestant pastor Stiffelio),
the North American soprano Sondra
Radvanovsky (Lina, his adulterous
wife) and the Italian baritone
Roberto Frontali (her father).
Internationally
renowned opera star José Cura spent two days in Devon over the May Bank
Holiday, holding a masterclass with 12 talented young singers.
Jose
Cura, tenor and maestro— the two jobs are combined in a single
spectacular. José Cura won fame as a tenor and now wants to become
known as a conductor. Proof is in the concert this Friday, The
proof is in concert this Friday, Teatro San Carlos, in Lisbon. 
Although
he has not sung in France for over six years—for reasons he can’t
explain—he is driven to share his knowledge with the next
generation.
“I
am not the Pope, I do not teach dogma, I merely transmit my
experiences. The beauty and the success of a voice is somewhat
subjective but there is nothing subjective about a human’s
commitment, both artistically and professionally. It is something I
take very seriously and it has become my cause," he commented.
After
an eight year absence, the Rosarino tenor José Cura
returns to Buenos Aires in a concert version of Camille
Saint-Saens’ opera Samson and Dalila, which will
be presented tomorrow at the Coliseo as part of the
Colón’s season. Recognized as one of the great voices of
today on the international scene, José Cura is a very
unusual artist who, besides singing, conducts
orchestras, composes, and also has recently started to
make incursions into stage management/directing.
In the fifteen years of
his successful international career, José Cura has frequented
not only the most prestigious halls and theaters in the
classical music world (Met, Covent Garden, LaScala, Opera
National in Paris, Staatsoper in Vienna, Hamburg and Zurich, and
the Deutsche Oper in Berlin among others) but has also been
present on remote stages, has visited countries far removed from
the traditional circuit, has conquered exotic audiences as to
opera and untiringly carried the art of music and theater to
inconceivable corners of the world. At his side sing the most
glamorous divas and direct the most celebrated conductors.
Parallel to his intense activity in the theater (as conductor,
singer and régisseur), he exploits his ample qualities as
communicator and showman with surprising ease, offering recitals
and shows—some of them on outdoor stages in front of thousands
of people—in which he combines singing with orchestral
conducting (in an original format he himself calls ‘half and
half’), something that has earned him both the criticism from
the most conservative sectors of the music media and the
admiration of his fans, as well as an unusual popularity for an
artist in the classical genre.
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