Quotable Cura

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“I make a rough plan for the staging (of a recital), but the details depend on the reaction of the audience, which is my partner. When you tell the one you love that you love her, you don't always think about what you will do next, do you?” (Daily Yomiuri - Japan; Jan 31, 2002 )

“I know they’ll say ‘Aha! The photographs by the tenor.’ But I don’t mind so long as people look at them with their eyes open.” (About the House Spring 2001 / Patrick O’Connor)

“If the performer is the lion who hunts, then the critic can choose to be either the hyena who picks at the carcass that has been caught, or he can be the wind that helps the lion keep upwind and hunt successfully.” (Opera Now, Nov/Dec 2000 / Antonio Couling)

“Singing Otello in London, it's like singing Tango to an Argentinian!” (Audiostreet, April 2001 / Catherine Pate)

“Take flowers. [A] man and a woman are the same in every situation - political, commercial, etc. But when a man and a woman are alone, flowers make all the difference.” (offering advice on dating, Evening Standard, 6 Jan 2003)

“That's as if you would spit a meal, which your best friend has lovingly prepared for you but which you don't like, back out onto the plate.” (on booing a performer, Hamburg Welt, 25 Feb 2003)

JC laughs during photo shoot for interview session

“You can sing very loud, but if you do not sing deep and dark and accent the proper words, then the whole psychological impact of Samson gets lost. It is the same in Otello...It is one thing to sing all the notes with great volume, but if you don’t have the proper color, then you lose that extra ingredient that makes the character believable.” (Lyric Opera News, Fall 2003)

“There are people who have been disappointed that I don't use more of a big sound in this part, but that is simply not what Otello is about. You just have to look at the score.” (About the House Spring 2001 / Patrick O'Connor)

“Yes, I am a diva on stage. Every artist must be. But at home I am a normal man. I am a husband, lover and father of three. ...” (The Times, Oct 12, 1999, Joanna Pitman)

“There are two ways to arrive at the top of a hill. You can be put there by a helicopter, and whoosh! The first wind that comes along whips you down. Or you can arrive at the top by yourself, making muscles as you go along, so that when you get there you are strong. That doesn't mean you are invulnerable, but at least you are stronger.” (Irish Times, May 2, 1996)

“Nobody expects a writer to say that your performance was all lovely and wonderful every time, but also we have a right not to expect that writers use artists to take out their own frustrations. Critics have a responsibility, because as such they should know what they are talking about and so be able to interpret what they see in the performance and tell other people about it in an engaging way. This is an intelligent critic. But there are many who are not, and it is the unintelligent writing that kills the audiences, that puts a prejudice in their head before they come, or stops them coming altogether.” (Audiostreet, April 2001 / Catherine Pate)

"I am a shark and I am excited by blood." (La Razón, July 2006/Gema Pajares)

“Once [Calaf] seemed to me to be a one-dimensional person but the music of Puccini is immense and it redeems him.” (L'Arena, 29 May 2003)

“…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.” (Bomb, Winter 2000 / Eduardo Machado)

“…If there is one musical experience I will always recall as the most extremely emotional of my life—as it was the first time I was really awakened passionately to classical music—it was when I performed Bach’s St Matthew Passion in 1984. I can remember now exactly how much I wept.” (on his first significant classical musical experience The Lady, March/April 2001)

“I think that God was always surveying and controlling my life and saying, “You’re going to be a singer even if you don’t want to be a singer. It will take time to convince you, but you’re going to be a singer.” (Opera News, Oct 99 / Rebecca Paller)

“It’s bad for a singer to think only about singing. It kills the voice and deprives it of all charisma and in addition narrows one’s sense of perception in general. One has to work against that.” (Kurier, 13 Feb 2004)

“Somebody called God decided to give me all these gifts. It is my obligation to use them. It is just a way of earning my life. It is not my life. My profession has plenty of pressure but I know that is not my life. If everything finished tomorrow, I wouldn’t die.” (Sunday Independent, 11 Feb 98 / Brighid McLaughlin)

“The family base is so important. It’s the only way to keep yourself sane as a human being. I mean, this life is very—no, it’s absolutely—crazy. When you come off from a performance where there’s a standing ovation…and then you go home and have to change the baby’s nappies, you learn to say. ‘OK, the opera was fine, but this is fine, too.’ That helps me keep my feet on the ground.” (Classic FM, Nov 1999 / Paul Richardson)

“The reaction of the house does not depend on the audience but on the artist.” (Poland)

“Those that don’t want to listen to the truth said that the incident was that of a capricious divo. That’s not true. It was a valiant reaction against something that is happening inside that theatre, something bad that has to be stopped.” (La Nacion, 3 Jan 2001 / Silvia Pisani)

“After Manon Lescaut, every opera is a lullaby for the tenor!” (Gramophone August 1998)

"I would not say “good luck,” because I don’t believe in luck. I believe in being prepared. Luck is to be in the middle of the desert dying of thirst and all of a sudden having a short shower on your head. That is good luck! But if you don’t have a glass to gather the water, you lose the water. The glass has to be prepared." (Classical Singer, January 2006, C Necula)

JC during Polish press conference JC poses for photo for British article JC during press conference in Poland

“To watch my wife become more and more beautiful and to see my children grow.” (on his hopes for 2001, La Capital on line, 9 Jan 2001)

“Turandot is a work that opens new horizons to the vocalist.” (L'Arena, July 2003)

“Whatever stories may say about me, they won't be able to say I have no guts.” (New Standard, Sept 99 / Mary Campbell)

“When you are 20 years old physical beauty attracts you more than the personality. Everyone grows up. When you are 40, your point of view is different. I'm a happy father of three. My wife is a wonderful person. I'm more interested in one's soul now.” (Przeglad, 9 Sept 2002, translated by Iwona)

“…What looks like a risk for the audience, because it's the first time they see it, is a studied risk for the artist on stage. You never do on stage what you didn't try before. One thing is to take risk, another to be stupid.” (Electronic Telegraph April 2001 / Paul Gent)

“Boheme is a story of every day--you can do it in jeans. But if I am going to do Aida, I want a pyramid and an elephant. I don't want to do Aida with a tank. This is not modernism; this is ridiculism. It is not a word, I know. But it sounds good.” (Vogue, Sep 1999 / Rhoda Keonig)

“I am in the fortunate position of being able to assure you that I am slowly losing my hair and that I have also gained some weight. This enables me to hope that my critics will start to think, well, he may not look as sexy as before, but maybe he is now a musician who is to be taken seriously.” (Rundschau, May 2001 / Tom Fuchs and Manfred Muller)

“I am the son of a father whose family came from Lebanon and a mother who is Italian-Spanish... but my heart is all Argentine.” (Alface-voadora)

“I approach a role through the drama. I study the libretto, analyzing the character, and then I look at the music, trying to discover why the composer has used, for instance, a particular chord. Then I put it all together.” (BBC Magazine, June 1998)

“I sang the f*****g 'C'.” (translated from Kurier, Jan 26, 2001, in reference to Madrid Il Trov)

"I'm like a racing animal. You can use it to do many things, but the moment it's in the track, it's happy. I can sing concerts, pop music, do a movie, whatever. But the animal in me feels complete, satisfied and fulfilled onstage." (USA Today, 11 Dec 1998, David Patrick Stearns)

"I began to love all types of music because my mother was wise enough to introduce me to them, almost like a DJ. She made me understand that there is only good and bad music in the world. All other labels are immaterial. She moved from Beethoven to Frank Sinatra without remorse." (Chicago Sun-Times, 1 Feb 2004, Debra Pickett)

"A singer is not somebody with a crystal bird in the larynx, so [that] you can push a button and all of a sudden the voice comes out!" (Classical Singer, January 2006, C Necula)
"No matter how much love and courage you put into a performance it can still turn out badly. Then the head that rolls is yours." (La Razón, July 2006/Gema Pajares)
“He is a toad from a different swamp." (El Periodico, February 2006, Marta Cervera, on the character of Otello)

JC emphatic in Prague during interview 2004

Last Updated: Sunday, October 26, 2008