Calendar 2008		Otello in Szeged Thanks to Zsuzsanna for the translation from Muzsika!
Samson et Dalila Teatro Communale Bologne  3 , 6, 8 June Website
Edgar   Teatro Regio Turin  25, 27, 29 June 2, 4, 6 July Website
Turandot   Opernhaus Zurich  10, 12 July Website
Concert Festival de Toledo  17 July Website
Concerts Tuscan Sun Festival Cortona  4, 7 August Website
Samson et Dalila Festival Internacional Santander 27, 29 August Website
Fanciulla del west ROH London 16, 19, 22, 24, 26, 29 September Website

 

 

 

Lethal kiss

 

Verdi: Otello – National Theatre of Szeged [Hungary]

11. and 12. April 2008

Tibor Tallián

appeared in Muzsika [Music], issue of June 2008

 

translated by Zsuzsanna

(extracts)

 

Why does a performer of the calibre of José Cura come to Szeged to sing? […] There is something to discover in the East. People from Szeged are not afraid of their own shadows. They know that Szeged has such a unique small-town/big city flair that it catches every visitor and world stars too, I suppose. They possess a beautiful theatre, good orchestra and stable, strong company [...] so it is obvious to demand place in the inner circle of European opera houses. Let’s just remember the successful co-operation between Nice and Szeged in Faust broadcasted by Mezzo Television. […]

[…] In 1991 Cura travelled to Italy to make himself train. It was a great adventure with elemental success. As if this action would have inspired Cura to put the adventure into the leading principle of his professional life. He terrified the singing teachers and conservative critics when he plunged into the conquest of the roles of tenor in the spirit of adventure in the least recommended manner. He sang Otello the first time at the age of 34 and it was not more than two years after his first Cavaradossi. Further on, the heterogeneity of his activity, his regular conducting and recently artistic photography also reveal something about his love of adventure. Is he a Domingo-protégé? The teachers of beginner Cura obviously recognised the prospective relationship of his voice and dark, velvety timbre, its full depth and pitch that was capable of blossoming brightly on the top to the performance style of the charismatic singer in his prime. […] Domingo’s faultless singing technique, heavenly cantilena, wonderful phrases, his balance of the dramatic expression and classical stylistic sense can’t be taught and learned or copied. But Cura proved to be worthy of his great predecessor considering the unconditional control on his own abilities, his audibly unreserved emotional-vocal devotion and the way he keeps the balance of his technical-artistic discipline and economy. There is no doubt: it feels good to listen to his singing and it is a pleasure to notice that the voice itself is only an adorned servant in the service of communication. This communication can only be realized in the singing voice in accordance with the written and unwritten golden rules of the great Latin or rather Mediterranean traditions (as Callas was Greek). This is true in the case of the role of Otello as well.

Well, yes: why does he do Otello ten years after his debut in Torino, which was succeeded by several dozen repetitions and accompanied by word-wide acclamation? […] Even if the artist’s ambition of self-realization that adventures in many directions can bring José Cura to the bank of Tisza river [to Szeged]; why doesn’t he give an aria evening or choose a less tormented role of soul and body than the Moor’s character? Adding to the unparalleled risk of Otello: the question is whether the theatre would capable of presenting two other proper protagonists as Desdemona and Jago without whom it would be impossible to play a great Otello. While I was watching the strapping-springy, youthful figure of the tenor, who did not spare himself for a single moment and sacrificed himself in every second on the performance of 11^th April; perhaps I found the answers to these questions. I think his purpose was precisely to test himself and his colleagues. Almost chamber staged circumstances and a company of whom he could suppose maximum co-operational willingness; a new direction what he can master and transform it and also something from the attitude of the Maestro (since he regularly conducts): saying I will take you with me for one or two evenings where I am at home.

I have known from my kind informant that only a moderate success crowned the daring venture. [a remark from the translator who was also attend in the theatre: this information was wrong, since huge success and standing ovation granted Cura’s first night and the whole performance on 9^th April]. But I believed and did not believe my informant after the course of the second evening. I believe him, as I wasn’t fascinated by his first appearance: since “Esultate” sounded securely and powerfully, but rather incidentally. It did not stroke into the semi-darkness of the typical Italian operatic introduction like a thunderbolt. But I do not believe it, since the desired conditions of weight were already settled by the time of Otello’s returning. In the love duet Cura even managed to swing the performance into the sphere of timeless with his gentle-virile vocalism and stage presence what was free of all kind of poses and allures of a tenor. But in this action he was not alone. Though Szilvia Rálik’s voice doesn’t convey an ideal Desdemona, […] there is no doubt about her musicality and receptivity. Beside Otello her tone begins to blossom, the intensity of her singing increases, her acting becomes more substantial. It was she who put the vocal crown to the finale of the third Act with her shining-saturated voice that easily cut through the whole ensemble. She did it as it needed. […]

 

Cura also had a catalysing effect on Zoltán Kelemen’s Jago. […] Like a hunter who is only excited by the shooting of a capital stag, Jago’s wickedness can also obtain its meaning and shape from a real Otello. The physicality of Otello’s personality – and thus the actor’s physique who plays it – contributes to a very great extent to the authenticity of Otello. The unbearable final scene of the third Act can be ruined not only in Jago’s but in Otello’s point of view as well, if Otello – would be a tenor. By surprise Cura’s physically genuine radiation pulled out Zoltán Kelemen from his almost amateur stage reserved attitude that choked his Luna to low flame [in Il Trovatore]. But at the same time I was delighted to see that his previous helplessness on the stage did not turn into a ham grimacing with which many former famous Jagos got used to frighten the more sensitive-nerved spectators in the Credo. I do not hesitate to praise Zoltán Kelemen’s slim-solid, accurate and equalised Jago which is unavoidable in the character as a stunningly, promisingly good achievement – not only in relation of the county of Csongrád. What a pleasure!

And how was José Cura singing starting from there, as far as I followed him some paragraphs above, from the beginning of the second Act? I am tempted to answer this: I don’t know, I don’t remember, I don’t care for it. I am not sure whether José Cura sang or he was on the stage at all. Because Otello himself was present on the stage. In other words, I don’t know, how I could know if Otello is like this. I was fascinated and shivered to notice somebody who found himself in the turmoil of self-doubtfulness. It is terrible: the male, the hero realizes it suddenly: maybe he is even not he; he is not a male and not a hero. The doubt takes shape in the external form of jealousy. This is such a mental illness as the imagined cancer which drives many people to suicide. This led Otello into this situation too, but in an indirect way – on the altar of illness he sacrifices his anima, Desdemona first, then himself. His shockingly obvious stage presence practically obscured Cura’s professionalism of the best sense of the word: I only realized this quality during the performance on the next day [with the other singers]. At that time I could analyse how precisely the Argentinean went through the prescribed situations of the direction on the one hand, and how many [things] he added to it from his own – from the experiences of other performances – on the other hand. I can say only one thing: he strangled Desdemona with his kiss!

And of course, he sang outstandingly. He sang – and he did not allow any temptation which is endangered to Otellos: to forget the score. Yet his singing sounded like a speaking, a mental manifestation. I think this very concretely and not in a figurative sense; Cura goes as far as he can but no further considering the rhythmic freedom of declamation, the quasi-prosaic thickness of the notes and the dissolution of the cultivated singing voice into speech sound. This exemplary interpretation was a holistic experience [….].  Tamás Pál conducted the orchestra playing in heated form in the first night with tempi of grandseigneur and the deep understanding of the Things. […]

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