“He’s
probably flirting with some bird,” said Barra O Tuama, impatiently
redialing one of his tenors’ telephone numbers.
“Are all opera
tenors like that?” I asked indifferently.
“Some,” huffed O
Tuama, Ireland’s opera impresario, a Homburg hat perched squarely on his
head.
“So what is José
Cura like?”
“Bring your
passport and a pound to Turin and you’ll find out. It’s as simple as
this,” said O Tuama, who possesses a crisp and astringent view of the
opera world he loves. “I saw him in Stiffelio at Covent Garden.
Christ, he’s unbelievable. On top of that he’s a decent sort, down to
earth compared to the others.”
Compared to
Pavarotti? I was entirely unprepared for O Tuama’s answer.
“Oh him.
Pavarotti has no personality, that’s why they’re trotting him around
these huge galas. The whole opera world has become a circus with the
‘three tenors’ business. Now Cura is picking up a lot of dates that the
big boys are missing and he’s better than them all put together.
“Well, go home and
read Cura’s reviews and tell me tomorrow if you’re going.”
That night I
stayed in bed surrounded by a pile of cuttings and a bottle of Grand
Cru.
I’ve always had a
very lopsided view of opera. You find very few people in shabby coats
and net bags at the opera. And the overwhelming majority of people have
never seen an opera because they cannot afford it. As far as I’m
concerned opera has always attracted ageing yuppies throwing roast
pheasant down their throats.
Cura’s
well-documented earthiness and lack of formality appealed to me
already. Casually, I flicked through the cuttings: “the next Placido
Domingo,” wrote the Times critic after Cura’s debut in
Stiffelio. “The Fourth Tenor,” said the Daily Mail.
Opera buff Rodney
Milnes was overwhelmed not only by Cura’s voice but by Cura’s daring.
“I have not seen as much tenor rump on the Covent garden stage since
Peter Hoffmann accidentally exposed himself in Parsifal.”
“What made last
night particularly thrilling,” observed Alexander Waugh in the Evening Standard, “was the debut performance of Argentinian tenor,
José Cura, in the title role. Are we being introduced here to another
‘super-tenor’ for the next generation?”
I booked the next
flight to Turin. Our arrival in Italy, so late in the evening was a
shattering experience. The taxi nosed its way through Turin like a
beetle in a firework display. Eventually we arrived at the Hotel
Astoria, a charming old hotel with a Sicilian night porter you couldn’t
invent. He was sprawled on a banquette in the bar in tracksuit bottoms,
flicking through Italy’s porn channels and muttering “Bella, bella”
under his breath. His good trousers were carefully hanging on a coat
stand.
Nearby, we ate a
meal of such bulk and Italian splendour that I began to feel liverish
and out of sorts. “Tomorrow is a busy day,” said O Tuama. “Cura has
invited us to lunch.”
We found him
living in warren-like seclusion on Via Settembrini. Laughter met us at
the door, with the odor of good cooking. Wearing jeans and a denim
shirt, Cura was relaxed in his stocking feet. The table was laden with
tomatoes, Mozarella cheese, mineral water and bread.
“Ah,” he said,
shaking me mock gravely by the hand. “How is Brighid?”
With his wide
glittering smile and olive black-brown eyes as large licorice wheels, I
guessed he had been breaking hearts for most of his 33 years.
“This is my fourth
performance in one week,” he said tickling my ribs with the ferruled end
of a wooden spoon. “And I am tired. I need someone like you right
now.”
“Of course, you
are tired and tormented,” I added melodramatically.
“Yes, tormented.
Turin is dark, I live a monkish existence here. There is no light. Now
what can I give you, Brighid?” he asked, spreading out his hands
expansively. “Just name it and it’s yours.”
I stared at his
kindly face, his six-foot stature. But then I thought of the proud
Donegal blood pouring through my veins and stopped myself. Not for me I
thought, non nobis, domine, forcing my thoughts back to opera. I
was cynically convinced that the witty jests of Cura were part of his
stock in trade. They were the patter of the conjuror, intent on his
‘now you see me, now you don’t’.
“His teacher,”
said O Tuama uncorking a bottle of Barbera d’ Asti, “the maestro Horacio
Amauri, said that José’s voice is something which only comes into the
world once every 20 or 30 years, and he’s right. Wait until you hear
him tonight.”
José is now used
to strong praise. It’s hard to believe that six years ago he was
determined to follow a career as a conductor and a composer. Born in
December 1962 in Rosario, Argentina, Cura saw his singing ambitions
guillotined at 21 by incorrect teaching which damaged his voice. But
fate intervened and another tenor’s failure to arrive for an opera saw
Cura take the reins. So bewitching was his performance that he was
encouraged to return to singing. Now he is feted across Europe and
pursues a punishing schedule which includes his first visit to Ireland
on Thursday.
He is keen to be
his own man. Everything in him is focused on purpose, like a man who
has determined to beat down a brick wall with the crown of his head.
“Someone said once that I’m like a tiger, I move through the audience
stalking, but then I put my nails out, and get ready to fight, argh,
argh,” he said.
Behind his talk of
tenors, his childhood books (AJ Cronin, Morris West), Argentinian folk
music and his doughty fight to bring opera to the masses, I caught a
glimpse of real character, someone kind and energetic.
And you were
kicked out of the Savoy Hotel in London, I laughed.
“Yes, all because
I was not wearing a tie. I don’t like formality; I don’t allow it
around me. I go with my jeans and my Argentinian poncho. I think
people have had enough of plastic opera singers. That does not mean
that I am not serious.” You soon realize that Cura is not in favour of
the usual attachments to stardom. He shuns limousines in favour of the
bus, chooses jeans over diner suits. The idea of sophisticated in full
evening rig-out drinking champagne appalls the man.
O Tuama shoveled
and swallowed bashfully while Cura served me some tomato salad and wiped
his dish with torn bread and drowned it with a draught of mineral
water. With his mouth full of pasta and grinning, José said: “Leave me
alone with Brighid.”
Sadly, O Tuama was
determined to stay.
After I had
bombarded him with questions, Cura grabbed my arm. “Now, tell me about
you,” he said, his beard bristling and his eyes kindling happily. “I am
feeling mighty good,” I said, avoiding his eyes. O Tuama gave a tiny
grunt of amusement. Outside on the veranda, we laughed and joked. The
force of friendship seemed to flash into something almost visible and
then sink back into the natural current of an Italian afternoon.
O Tuama turned a
blind eye to the flirtation; he was much more interested in returning to
Ireland with Cura’s contract. Signed. I sat patiently at the end of
the room knowing that there was business to discuss. After lunch, José
spread himself in the corner of the room, just beside the low table
covered in posters of his forthcoming concert in the National Concert
Hall, sponsored by New Ireland Assurance. I listened to their solemn
proposals with interest.
After a while, the
only sound in the room was that of turning paper. O Tuama handed him
his contract. José sat back on the sofa, gave a small exasperated smile
and put the contract down. “Later, Barra, later. I cannot concentrate
right now.” O Tuama egged him back to business.
“Can Butterfly
be cut?”
“Not elegantly,”
said José.
They discussed his
concert until they had picked detail clean. José made a face of
exasperation. There had been enough business in one day. We left him
to rest.
That evening,
donning my best clothes, I made my way down to the opera house with O
Tuama. Sitting and watching Cura’s powerful performance in Il Cosaro,
I wondered how on earth his vocal chords could take so much four nights
running. His presence on stage was simply extraordinary. He had a
shrewd dramatic intelligence, which he used to add convincing dignity.
His voice, ardent and heroic, took the house by storm.
After the standing
ovation, O Tuama and I trundled back to his dressing room, which was
bare to the point of austerity. The floor was littered with mangled
socks, shoes and a bowl of oranges took precedence on his dressing
table.
“How is my Irish
woman?” laughed Cura. Theatrical blood dripped from his lip and covered
his chest. I could see he was exhausted. Cura suddenly stiffened.
“The Italians want an Italian tenor. I am Argentinian. They don’t like
that.”
O Tuama pointed a
sausage-like finger at Cura. “But it was a splendid night. The best.
The audience was riveted.”
After pizza in a
local trattoria we trudged back to the hotel on weary feet. O Tuama,
his tongue hanging out like a pink flag, trotted soberly ahead of us.
As we strolled towards the Astoria, I realized that something very
peculiar and unprecedented was happening. Night had fallen like a
camera shutter; already the walls of Turin had grown cold and
forbidding.
“Marry me,” joked
Cura.
“Nope.” I said.
It was a safe bet because José is already married. We both laughed.
As the ancient
lift of the Astoria creaked its way upwards, I laughed aloud. I hadn’t
laughed so much in years.
We’ve
heard it before, haven’t we? The new Pavarotti. The new Domingo. The
best since Caruso. The greatest thing since sliced bread. Every so
often a tenor nobody has ever heard of glows, twinkles, lights up the
operatic skies. Some last, some don’t. Most can’t seem to stand the
heat generated by their own burst of stardom.
It
has been, on the whole, a very focused career, perhaps because he knew
which roles would suit him pretty much from the beginning. “Verdi and
Puccini,” he says without hesitation. “Dramatic roles, not only in the
sense of quantity of sound, because everybody thinks ‘ah, dramatic is to
shout’ but it’s to do with the intensity of the opera. I need to be
intense on stage. There’s no point in putting me there just to sing
beautiful notes. I can’t. I get absolutely bored—that’s why I try to
refuse operas where I cannot really act, suffer on stage, cry if I have
to cry.”
