Versatility Is the Unrecognized Power of the Tenor

Widmar Puhl

20 March 2009

[Computer-assisted Translation // Excerpts]

On March 15, the moment came: Cura sang the leading role in Umberto Giordano's opera Andrea Chenier in a gala performance, and, as he did last year at Cura's Carmen gala, Jacques Delacôte conducted. At the end, there was a standing ovation for the entire company, but especially for Cura. Rightly so—and not just because André Chenier is just about the most difficult role in operatic literature for tenors and for which there is no one else able to sing it.

His first complete (studio) opera recording was Samson et Dalila with Olga Borodina ten years ago.  In autumn 2010, José Cura will bring this opera by Camille Saint-Saens to the Karlsruhe stage when he designs the set, directs and also sings the lead in its premier.  Is this (workload) professional?

Cura: I think the term "professional" is a bit more humble than the term "artist." I say that with all due respect, because being a professional isn't a flaw, not an original sin. It's a humble restriction to the limits that life presents us with: up to such and such a point, I can do something, and I try to master it.. That's very good, no more and no less. An artist, on the other hand, ultimately simply risks more. Only such people make a difference.

José Cura was born in Argentina in 1962 and grew up in a Mediterranean environment: his father was of Lebanese origin, his mother half Italian, half Spanish. Rather than being a nuisance to his fellow citizens as an early bathroom-loving Caruso, he attended the art school at the state university in his hometown of Rosario. He took intensive guitar lessons and certainly didn't just study singing. But versatility is generally under suspicion by many critics.

Cura: Malicious tongues say that I conduct because I can no longer win bouquets as a tenor. But I do different things because they interest me. I'm curious. Besides, my career has gone the other way around. I started as a choir director. I’m trained as a conductor and composer. I’ve also directed smaller pieces. I only started to sing much later.

At 23, José Cura was a scholarship to the Art School of the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires. And after several years in the opera chorus, he wanted more. In 1991 he moved with his family to Europe - first to Verona, then Paris and finally Madrid.. He gave concerts, experimented, and made his debut on quite a few stages.

He is in his element as Otello, as Don José in Carmen, or as Samson, the warrior in love chains. These are roles that portray the man as macho, jealous for no reason or justification, dependent on his hormones and caught in the contradictions of strong feelings.

His voice has gained volume over the years. This allows him to achieve expressiveness even in soft tones. Beautiful examples can be found on the CD Anhelo - yearning - from the year 1998:  here he sings the pure songs of Argentinian composers, many based on texts by Pablo Neruda. In addition there are samples of the composer José Cura.

The Met in New York, the Vienna State Opera, La Scala in Milan, London, Paris, Zurich, Berlin, Stuttgart: Suddenly, everyone wanted him, and he couldn't say no. He traveled the world and sang – including roles he now rejects. He felt similarly to Rolando Villazón during the Anna Netrebko hype, Cura says self-critically.

Cura: That's probably exactly what happened to Rolando. Thankfully, he learned his lesson, recovered, and is back. And that's a good thing, because he has a tremendous talent and a very beautiful voice. Everything happened too quickly with Rolando, and it hurt him.

In 2000, when his record company, Erato, was shut down, José Cura placed all business matters in his wife's hands and reflected on his career.  He became more selective and learned to avoid compromises. He spent time as principal guest conductor of the Sinfonia Varsovia, began giving master classes, continued with his photography, made books and established his own CD label.

Some artists, says Cura, are like crystal vases: radiant, transparent and fragile.

Cura: Others, like me, are more like wooden vessels. They're harder and more resilient. The same thing happened to me as Rolando, but I have a broader back. I'm physically more powerful and apparently more vocally resilient as well. I survived to tell the tale, and now I'm where I am, thankfully.

It's certainly no coincidence that Cura has a female fan club. Understandable, the man with the black curls and graying beard looks really good. And he also trains in the gym. For José Cura, opera is not just a musical discipline, but also an intellectual challenge, theater, and sport. He moves accordingly on stage. He loves the sweating, excessive, drastically living characters, the naked emotions without a safety net, he once said.

The sensual contact with the audience is his drug: something that simply can't be downloaded. To do this, he questions clichés, changes perspectives, and continually tries new things.

Cura: The artist should set standards, that's what it's all about. Otherwise, we could continue doing things the way we did 150 years ago: not good, not bad, but just like we did 150 years ago. That means setting new standards is part of our task.

The Singer as a Gesamtkunstwerker

Today, tenor José Cura premieres Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila in Karlsruhe – a rehearsal report.

It's said that the tenor had back problems but he shows up anyway.

Frankfurter Rundschau

Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich

14 October 2010

[Computer-assisted Translation  // Excerpts]

On this morning of the first stage orchestra rehearsal of Samson et Dalila the mood in the theater is a little subdued. José Cura, it's said, has back problems and will arrive an hour late, if at all; in any case, he won't be singing. But then he arrives on time at 10:00 a.m. A bit worn, a white shirt pulled over his trousers like a smock, long dark curls, a profile as if painted by Raphael, a three-day beard: as the biblical hero Samson, he is magnificently cast, even if only in appearance. In Karlsruhe, he will also direct and design Camille Saint-Saëns’ esteemed but rarely performed opera, which premiered in Weimar by Franz Liszt in 1877. He could also conduct it, but then it would be impossible for him to also be on stage.

For more than a decade and a half, the Argentinian-born conductor (who now lives primarily in Madrid) has been conquering the world's major opera houses, exclusively with Italian and French repertoire. The Vienna State Opera is practically his second home. Here, he has been acclaimed in many tenor roles and most recently as the conductor of Madama Butterfly. His capacities seem inexhaustible, as he can be heard not only in the well-known works, but also in many extremely rare ones.

Directing tenors are not quite as rare as one might assume, and singers with conducting talent (Domingo, Schreier, Fischer-Dieskau) also occasionally appear.  What is quite unique, however, is Cura's ambition to design the sets and costumes himself.  Opera, if one cannot compose it oneself, is at least spun out as a performance from the imagination and talent of an individual – a romantic idea of ​​Wagnerian proportions, and also a motif arising from the demonstrative omnipotence of the pop-cultural entertainer.

José Cura stands roughly halfway between the two phenomena. A romantic artist, perfectly in tune with the zeitgeist. When the Karlsruhe State Theater gives him carte blanche for his long-cherished pet project, it doesn't have the air of a trivial sensation so much as a hint of utopia. From Mahler to Felsenstein to the present day, it has been the endeavor of outstanding artists to bring opera to life on stage according to their personal ideal.

Cura Has His Eyes Everywhere

The rehearsal begins with some difficult orchestral passages, where conductor Jochem Hochstenbach perfects the Badische Staatskapelle in the pit to world-class performances, usually after two or three attempts. Then the curtain rises for the second act, which reveals the love nest in which the Philistine Dalila seeks to ensnare the young Israelite Samson in order to steal from him the secret of his strength—a courtesan in government service. The stage design is very simple. The space is narrowed by reddish side walls; toward the center, against a black background, a powerful white curtain billowing from the fly screen covers the stage floor all the way to the ramp (the color combination of black, white, and red is apparently not intended to convey any political message).

The mezzo singing Dalila first has to get used to this ambience and adjusts some of the scattered cushions to make it easier to sit down on them. When the high priest grabs her from behind through the white curtain veil, she makes sure that her face is not covered, which would hinder her singing. The cloth has pitfalls in other ways as well: it's easy to trip over it or to get caught in. But sometimes it also comes in handy, as when Samson kneads it into a sausage shape and stretches it out toward his reclining partner, allowing her to rise more comfortably from the floor. Four days later, at the dress rehearsal, the special point of this white curtain is revealed when Samson is finally trapped in it like a giant bag which the high priest ties up with a corner that he holds tightly with a theatrical gesture.

Although with obvious effort, Cura also moves onto the stage a few times during the orchestra rehearsal. He is clearly a man without airs and graces and has won over all the participants. Even during the dress rehearsal, which was interrupted several times (and during which he no longer showed physical signs of a pain attack), he corrected several small details, leaving his place as Samson to position two choristers half a meter further back or an extra with a tray slightly into the shadows. He has his eyes everywhere and he's able to do so because he can sing his role, so to speak, in his sleep. His voice, which is not overly focused, is easily appealing, eloquent and tirelessly radiant, even if Cura sometimes doesn't quite sing out on this occasion. With Julia Gertseva, he has a dark-toned, erotically present actress at his side.

The intimate interior of the second act (which contains the famously captivating love duet as its centerpiece) seems almost modestly amateurish in its setting. At the dress rehearsal, one was surprised by how skillfully Cura had visualized the first act – a desert scene with oil derricks, since we are in the Middle East, and the biblical material is somewhat brought into the present day. However, Cura remains fixated on tableau-like "beautiful" images, often committed to symmetry – as in the reddish-brown illuminated opening of the act with the prayer (a monumentally oratorio-polyphonic soundscape) of the motionless Israelites, distributed in groups across the stage.

This work by José Cura has nothing to do with modern "director opera"; its breeding ground is the decorative operatic theater of the American and Southern European style, focused on grand gestures and well-composed "tableaux vivants" (which, of course, doesn't become stiff stage theater, but is repeatedly enlivened by splashes of liveliness, which, in the first act, are primarily provided by the children's ensemble). At every moment, you can see the care and love of an obsessed opera artist.

Samson et Dalila – Karlsruhe

 Das Opernglas

JM Winecke

December 2010

[Computer-assisted Translation  // Excerpts]

“All-round star José Cura did himself triple credit in one swat and secured a publicity-hype rarely seen in this form for the ambitious Karlsruhe Opera House. In previous years, one had been able to experience the outstanding tenor here in several key roles of his repertoire, most recently in his signature role of Otello. He has been following his calling as conductor even at the major houses on a number of occasions and has been thoroughly successful. What is more, he had introduced himself as director with Verdi's Ballo at the Cologne Opera House in 2008. 

In Karlsruhe José Cura was given the special honor of directing, set designing, and singing the lead role simultaneously. The experiment was successful with only the smallest of missteps, bringing a much celebrated triumph to the theater and the singing-director. The exceptional project lent wings to the ensemble and created an artistic result that would do credit to any international operatic stage. 

Cura makes no effort to conceal the fact that the excesses of the Regietheater are not his style. Nevertheless, his version of the Samson story is not historical correct and seeks a middle course between a careful update and a clear focus on the core message of the Biblical drama.

Camille Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila has always been difficult to stage effectively since its static chorus scenes seem closer to oratorio than to a passionate, theatrically effective opera. Set in a gloomy oil field in modern times, this production references the current potential for conflict in the Middle East without exploring more deeply the political dimensions. In this respect, the production remained a bold one, motivated by the atmospheric and committed to a point of view. For the more intimate scenes of the second act with its fateful meeting with Dalila, Cura surprised with powerful metaphors that stunned most particularly in its simplicity. The warm and enthusiastic encouragement he earned at the end was not just for the highly gifted singer-actor.

Tenor José Cura directs and sings Saint-Saëns' opera "Samson"

Pforzheimer Zeitung

Ruth Wolfstieg

18 October 2010

[Computer-assited-translation  //  Excerpts]

Saint-Saëns' Samson et Dalila in Karlsruhe is a production that seems explosively contemporary. Yet its hallmark is not a deliberate modernization. On the contrary, its visual power seems to transcend time. It is not director's theater, then, but firmly rooted in the historical context of Palestine/Israel three thousand years ago, in which Camille Saint-Saëns set his opera.  These building blocks are not historically interpreted but abstracted, so that they remain open to any other context. José Cura, who directed, designed the stage set, and sings the title role, achieves an impressive balancing act between concrete history and generalized interpretation, between "so it was" and "so it can happen again."

The stage design of the three imposing towers that dominates the first and third acts already encompasses everything: they could be mine derricks, drilling rigs in an oil field fraught with disaster, or the oversized watchtowers of a concentration camp. The dramatic setting and the musically superb performance by the entire ensemble fill these images with a stirring artistic intensity. Saint-Saëns's opera actually contains two stories: that of Samson and Dalila and that of Samson and the Israelite people. What belongs together in the biblical original falls into two parts in Saint-Saëns's work. Saint-Saëns also first composed the middle act as a great tragedy of love and seduction between the title characters. Only later did he compose the framing acts as a grand drama of autonomy, liberation, and justice.

Failed Freedom Hero

The fact that the almost ultimate failure of the freedom hero Samson is accidentally triggered by Dalila is actually irrelevant to the overall narrative; it could have had any other cause. This split, which is also expressed in the music itself, was not resolved by the production. The act, which focuses on Samson and Delilah as a couple, was sung by Julia Gertseva as Dalila with a captivating, seductive vocal artistry of her sensual mezzo-soprano, ranging from the finest nuances of (feigned) lovesickness to overwhelming, supreme passion. José Cura's radiant tenor and Gertseva outdid each other in the most captivating vocal ecstasy. The excellent performances of the choir, rehearsed by Ulrich Wagner, and the energetic orchestra under the inspired direction of Jochen Hochstenbach also left no musical gaps. The ensemble of soloists delivered convincing performances, notable among them being Stefan Stoll's powerful stage presence as the High Priest.

The visual impression was somewhat marred by the overly repetitive footsteps of the actors, whether by Dalila's companions, the Hebrew people, or even the children. This schematic nature reflects the fact that Saint-Saëns originally conceived the opera as a non-staged oratorio. Cura's idea of ​​including children, however, emphasized the revolutionary spirit of the production. Ultimately, José Cura shone through, not only as the leading character, but also with his highly dramatic performance, which reached the existential level in his voice and expression.