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Cura Speaks |
Carpe Diem!
Seen and Heard
Jim Pritchard
The biography on the
tenor’s own informative web site
JoseCura.com,
begins by saying how he is ‘World-famous for his intense and original
interpretations of opera characters, notably Verdi's Otello and
Saint-Saëns' Samson, as well as for his unconventional and innovative
concert performances, José Cura is the first artist to have sung and
conducted simultaneously (both in concert and on recordings) and the
first to combine singing with symphonic works in a “half and half”
concert format. He also made operatic history when he first conducted
Cavalleria rusticana and then stepped on stage after intermission
to sing Canio in Pagliacci at the Hamburg Opera in 2003.’
This might already seem enough for one person - star tenor and conductor
- but add to this that he is also a composer, an opera director, set
designer and photographer and the mind begins to boggle. Then do not
forget he is also visiting professor of voice at the Royal Academy of
Music in London as well as being associated with the British Youth Opera
and New Devon Opera and in fact you begin to wonder what the person is
like behind these achievements and commitments. So during his rehearsals
for his first Calaf at Covent Garden in their revival of Turandot
it was wonderful to meet such an out-going, self-effacing, humorous and
knowledgeable person. Our talk ranged from José Cura’s earliest memories
to his future plans and dwelt on those moments that otherwise have been
highlights of his career and the 46 years of his life so far.
How did his career in music begin?
That I don’t know and we cannot even ask my father who died about a
year ago now. I remember he used to say to me ‘Ok you want to be a
musician well that’s fine … but what are you going to do for work?’
I do not recall many years of my life when I have not been on stage. I
began when I was about 12 and that’s 33 years now so my memories of
being on stage are more than my memories off. I sang only as an amateur
– chorus singer, pop music, spirituals in octets, some jazz singing and
other things like that. It was a way of expressing myself that I did in
parallel to my studies at the Conservatoire in Buenos Aires and that was
in composing and conducting. For some reason I don’t recall why that was
my vocation; all I remember is when I was 15 I said to my father ‘I want
to be a conductor’. Fate is what moves you to one thing or another and
when I had almost finished my studies one of my teachers said to me that
I had better start learning how to sing properly. I wondered why as I
did not want to be a singer. He said that it is the same way that
understanding all the instruments I could play, such as violin, flute
and trombone, helps with being a good conductor so by studying singing I
could become an even better one. So I started to learn proper singing
and not just the ‘poppy’ singing I was doing and one thing lead to
another and here I am.
I wondered what made him move to Europe in 1991.
For me I find everything comes because of some reason and at that
time in Argentina we were at the end of a military dictatorship and it
was the first years of the new democracy and to live in my country then
was really an adventure. We had a child and I had four jobs and my wife
had two jobs and even then we did not have enough money at the end of
the each month. We took the risk and decided to go to Europe to see what
might happen for me. If nothing happens then we could always come back.
Of course we didn’t have the money to buy the tickets so we sold out
little apartment and I remember that they gave me for it what I am now
getting for one night’s fee as a first tenor – so life is funny in a way
– but it was a very tiny apartment of course and not that my fee is so
big! (Laughs) We came first to Verona and we’d met someone on the
plane coming over who helped us so we started to pull a few strings,
worked in restaurants and hospitals, managed to cope and eventually it
happened for me.
His first Calaf was in Verona in 2003; it is an open-air
auditorium that he has sung in a number of times over the years and I
asked what it was like for him to sing there.
It is an amazing place to sing when you sing out, though it is in
the intimate moments when you feel the handicap of the place because you
have to sing loud. You do not shout but must be loud, so no matter what
you want to say you lose the subtleties. There is no problem with the
big moments such as with the ‘vinceròs’ and things like that and you can
feel the 16,000 people roaring at the end of the aria; so then it is an
amazing feeling.
Why had it taken him a while to sing Calaf which along with Dick
Johnson, Otello, Samson and others has now become one of his signature
roles?
Yes it was 15 years after my international career began and it was
always because I refused to sing such a one-dimensional character but
then of course I surrendered because of the incredible beauty of the
music. The next step was to find something in his personality for me –
not necessarily positive because he has a lot of negative sides – so I
can sing that and it is a change from the usual hero on stage and
therefore a nice challenge.
Calaf is not really interesting, in the sense of the psychological
analysis of his character and his development through the opera. He is
the same character from the beginning to the end. He knows he is going
to win her, he’s arrogant and a bastard in every sense. He does not care
about love and actually he does not mention the word throughout the
whole libretto : he talks about power, about domination, about money and
so could be any of our politicians nowadays!
In this revival I have added, because that is part of my style, more
physicality to the role particularly in the last duet. That last duet is
almost a Freudian moment of possession and Turandot surrenders to him
not only psychologically but sexually. So we are trying to do a bit more
here in a stylised way and I am lucky that I also have a very athletic
soprano. Iréne Theorin, though of course we cannot have sex on stage but
we try to picture that and this is the main addition to the staging we
have done.
Had he any views on the various completions of the ending of
Turandot?
I’ve sung two alternative endings. One is the original Alfano ending
which is even tougher harmonically with a more evolved musical style
that is closer to Schoenberg and similar composers – remember Alfano
lived in that period too. The traditional one that we do here is the
second Alfano version, a little more rounded in the corners, not Puccini
of course but more acceptable according to the previous music heard in
the opera.
I have also done the ending without the last duet when there is the
death of Liu and the curtains close and that is the end. If that happens
your character is less of a bastard and it is more biographical because
of what happened to Puccini. Everyone knows that Liu is the alter
ego of the Manfredi girl and Turandot is the alter ego of
Elvira, Puccini’s wife, and that’s just what Puccini did when Doria
Manfredi committed suicide: he just went to Brussels to die and so more
or less ended his life in Turandot. So if we carry on and do the
traditional ending, then we have a really disgusting character who only
10 bars on from killing the only person he really loved, turns around
and continues his social climbing - someone who would sell his own
mother to achieve what he wants.
He has sung Calaf in 2007 in Shanghai and I asked what it had
been like to perform Turandot in China.
I remember doing a press conference and saying ‘I’m coming to China
to tell the Chinese how to be Chinese’. But of course Calaf in the plot
to the opera is a foreigner himself so that helps and is not so bad.
Also the production was not like the one we are doing now where we try
to be authentic. Here that is okay because maybe apart from some Chinese
in the audience no one will know what mistakes we are making and if some
things are not Chinese but occidental. In China everybody would notice
what was wrong, so it was a very modern production and very wise in the
sense that my character was somebody travelling through time and
arriving in an old China - and being modern himself he set about
convincing everyone to drop their old traditions and to move forward
into the modern world. So the message was very interesting and they
reacted well.
We sang in a gigantic auditorium though the acoustics were very good.
China certainly knows more about our music than we know about theirs and
if only because of that, they deserve our respect though the thing I
remember most – which is shocking for us – is that they eat during the
performance. When I asked about this they said it was what they do every
day and nobody saw a problem with it. So if you can cope with the fact
that you might raise your head during an aria and see someone eating in
the first row because it is normal for them to do so, then the rest is
fine.
I asked now Calaf compares to some of the other roles he has
become famous for.
Well there is nobody so one-dimensional though Pinkerton, for
instance, is an even worse character for me. Despite it happening in
another time period Pinkerton with his paedophilia and sexual tourism is
much worse than Calaf’s greediness. Another famous bastard, a big one
Italian style, is the Duke in Rigoletto and another who is one
but is also a great character to portray is Stiffelio. He is a hypocrite
and someone who proclaims peace and love and yet can hate to the point
of wanting to kill his wife. It is a case of ‘do what I say not what I
do.’ Stiffelio is very interesting psychologically and that is something
I like; it was my debut role here at Covent Garden in 1995.
I wondered what his thoughts then, were on Otello.
Otello is a very complicated issue because if you do just what is
written and forget the centuries of tradition, then Otello is the
bastard of all the bastards. He is the biggest because he is somebody
who was a Muslim who became a Christian for political convenience and he
is now engaged in killing Muslims himself. He is a professional killer
and there is nothing heroic or noble in his behaviour. In the context of
modern fundamentalism this is a problem. Otello is a very complicated
character and now after singing the role for a number of years, I am
getting more and more to the point where, apart from the ending when he
is a little bit pitiful, l for the rest of the time I make him very
disgusting which is not always what traditional people want to see in
this opera. They come to see the poor black guy who has been cheated and
who suffers and forget all the other things that must be dealt with
also.
I have done Otello in some weird situations and once in Zürich was in a
spaceship where I was Captain Kirk and Iago was Mr Spock, but in that
production you could ignore the ridiculous surroundings and it was very
well acted. I was lucky to have tremendous colleagues including Ruggero
Raimondi and Daniela Dessì and so we were able altogether to create a
great atmosphere with the thing to make it one of my most daring Otellos.
He has a lot of options for things to keep him busy; conducting,
composing, set design, directing, teaching not forgetting the singing,
so I wondered how he balances his working life.
Well I don’t think I balance it at all and I just do not stop. My day
starts at 7 in the morning and finishes at midnight but it is never a
chore and is great fun. To distract myself from the singing day, I can
sit down and draw some sketches for a production I want to do and that
is a good thing. Doing one thing all the time would end up suffocating
me, but I have 3, 4, 5 things I might be working on and that for me
creates a real distraction, and is a good thing.
In 2007 I enjoyed creating my show La commedia è finita in
Croatia and there is information about it on my website and I have not
long ago directed Un ballo in maschera in Cologne, I was the
director and set designer for that, and it was good. I didn’t sing in
that of course but sometimes I will sing, sometimes not, so in 2010 when
I am directing a new Samson et Delilah in Karlsruhe for the
opening of the season I will be designing that and singing in some of
the performances. So it is all part of the same thing and its not that I
do one thing one day and something entirely different the next: here one
thing is enriching the other. Of course it is a lot of work and needs a
lot of energy. I am glad God gave me this body and my energy and I know
it is not something everybody could cope with because it really can be
exhausting.
I asked if he had a particularly style when he directs.
My way of directing is the same way I am when on stage. My
concentration is on the acting technique and really understanding the
subtext of what we are doing. This has been the feature of my career as
I believe people come to the opera house to see good acting. If you want
to hear good singing these days you can stay at home and put on a CD
but if you come to the theatre you want to see good acting and if they
do not get it, we will lose our public. There is no way they are just
coming to listen as in previous times when there was no other way to
hear music.
How had all his work with young performers come to be centred in
England?
It’s amazing how everything is happening in Great Britain. They all
asked and I love to do it. I am a father of three and my eldest son is
living and studying in London and is a young, up-and-coming actor but
more than that it is the responsibility of my generation to nurture the
new generations. So in a humble way I try to pass on my experience and
my training and to draw them into my little revolution of trying to be a
believable actor, even if it means sacrificing a sound to an overall
result. My contribution is purely artistical and I give as much time as
I can. It is great to be involved with three English organisations -
something as an Argentinian I never expected. (Laughs)
My theory is when I give a masterclass, the people attending will
already be young professionals with a high level of education. I will
not be teaching them singing as I cannot in a few hours or even one or
two weeks teach somebody how to sing. The only thing is if I hear
something dangerous or ugly, then I can give them some advice about how
to try another way and tell them to discuss it with their teacher. In
the short term it is possible to do more damage than help. I get them to
discover their characters and to discover their psychology and
understand why the voice on a certain note should sound a certain way to
convey the meaning of the text and what that character feels in that
moment.
I am pleased to say that in 99% of the cases, by putting aside
complicated technical issues, almost without realising it they will
sing better. They often say ‘I’ve never sung this aria so easily’. They
may have worried before about the aria but now they have the psychology
of the character and trust the composer, so the job is done.
Did he himself have a mentor?
For me my biggest mentor is my own wife who next year will have been
with me 30 years. That is a lot of patience for someone married to
somebody like me. Other people along the way gave me help but I never
had a sort of godfather throughout my career because I repeat the only
one who has been there from the beginning - in the good times, in the
bad times and the more-or-less times - was my wife.
I referred to his published book of photographs and asked if he
still has time for both photography and composing.
My hobby is to take photos and I never thought about doing a book,
but there was a Swiss editor who had seen some of my pictures and said
could we do a book of them. My reaction was ‘I don’t think people need a
book of photographs by Cura’ but he persuaded me and he was right
because they are good pictures and I am pleased I can give the
opportunity to people to try and see what I see. It’s selling pretty
well.
I don’t compose big things any more because I do not have the time and
any way I will have the rest of my life to write music: orchestration
particularly, takes a huge amount of time. What I do a lot now is to
write song cycles because that takes less time. Last year in Italy I had
the première of my song cycle based on Pablo Neruda’s poems and it was a
great success. I was very pleased because I was worried. When you are a
singer, people can complain but ultimately the responsibility for the
music is not yours but when you sing your own compositions it is tricky.
You are not sure what is going to happen as it is a very risky thing to
do. Now in January 2009, I will record this cycle of seven songs and
parallel with the recording will release the vocal piano scores.
The last big thing I wrote was a Requiem for the victims of the
Falklands War in 1984 when I was about 22. One day I might rewrite it
completely or I may even leave it like it is with its innocent naivety
of someone young.
Will he be back to Covent Garden soon and what is he most
looking forward to in his busy schedule?
This is my
last signed contract here now with
Turandot and I hope we can discuss other things for the
future, but if not I’ve been singing here since understudying Carreras
in 1994 and making my debut in 1995 so in 2009 that will be 15 years and
that is a lot of time.
In February I will go to Bologna to conduct La Rondine and this
is something very new and we are still discussing it now. It is because
Italy has it own financial difficulties and the opera is suffering and
they have had to reschedule the whole season. Two big productions in
February have been cancelled and because I was going to be there at the
end of January for masterclasses they have asked me if I wanted to
continue the masterclasses with performances of La Rondine done
with students and I like this idea very much. It is not confirmed yet
and I’ll have to work like hell since rehearsals would start in a couple
of weeks now and I am still to open the score – or even receive it.
Although it is always traumatic for a theatre to cancel productions due
to lack of money, to substitute this with something using young people
is a daring thing and takes a lot of courage.
In March I’m also particularly looking forward to my return to the
Metropolitan Opera, simply because my debut there in 1999 was in
Cavalleria rusticana when Domingo sang Pagliacci. Now I’m
going back to do them both myself and that will be exactly 10 years
after I first sang there.
I think I look forward to everything, everyday – it’s my way … carpe
diem!
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