José Cura Introduces his Stabat Mater in
České Budějovice
CT24
1 November 2014
[Excerpts]
The world premiere of the Stabat Mater, a work by composer,
conductor and tenor José Cura, was heard Friday in
České Budějovice in the Cathedral of
St. Nicholas. Cura, who attended the concert, originally
considered conducting the work but eventually passed the baton
to the musical director and conductor of the South Bohemian
Opera, Mario De Rose.
Cura was inspired by one of the five sequences of the Catholic
liturgy of Jacopone da Todi, whose words express the pain of a
mother losing her son; it is part of a larger work by Cura, the
oratorio Ecce Homo. The score track bears the date of 1988 and
is the work of the then 26 year old composer. The text of the
poem Stabat Mater has been set to music by others, including
Haydn, Rossini, Schubert, Verdi, Jan Jakub Ryba and
Antonín Dvořák.
The opus has waited 25 years for its musical setting. Finally,
he is seeing it through the efforts of the Music Director of the
South Bohemian Theater, Mario De Rose. “I know José as a
composer. He is a very good songwriter and I knew that many
years ago he had written a Stabat Mater and I said to myself if
would be a good idea to do it in the Cathedral,” explained De
Rose.
The liturgical text by Cura is not just about Christ, about
God. It is about a mother who is under the cross on which her
son is dying. “Think of all the mothers who have held their
dying children in their arms in armed conflicts, the Ebola
epidemic, suicide bombers. We sing it for all these people,”
said Cura.
“When Mario asked about the piece, I asked if I should rework
it. I wrote it when I was very young and today I have more
experience with music and orchestras. He told me not to touch
it,” said Cura. He has not heard the piece, not even the
rehearsals. “I think that after hearing it, I will have the
appetite to change it radically,” he joked.
The evening’s program consisted of two spiritual works,
separated by more than 220 years. After Cura’s Stabat Mater
came the Requiem in D Minor by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.