Cura in South Korea – the Concert
Daejeon is a large industrial
town south of Seoul; it is the fifth largest metropolitan area
and, after Seoul, the second fastest growing city in the
country. It is home to over 200 research institutes and hosts a
portion of the South Korean government in a complex of four
high-rise towers. It is also (from our quick trip) a city of
stark contrasts, with the older, traditional neighborhoods being
shoved aside in favor of the aggressively bland modern towers
and stone complexes. It seems a bustling city but one that is
intensely focused on the practical—we saw little of the
exuberance and felt little of the excitement that fills the
streets of Seoul. It bustles but with purpose.
The Daejeon Art and Culture Center opened in 2003 with
the intent of enriching the lives of citizens of Daejeon and
surrounding communities with the presentation of world-class
performing art; the question remains as to whether these
communities are interested. The physical footprint is
impressive: set in a spacious green area that includes an
outdoor amphitheater and attractive art displays, the Center is
housed in a five-story building with a total area of 100,000
square meters. There are two main venues for presenting
performances: the Arts Hall (where Cura performed and which
seats slightly over 1500) and the smaller Ensemble Hall. Each
hall is designed to be one of the most acoustically
sophisticated concert halls equipped with the finest
state-of-the art technology and systems in Korea. From our
experience, the sound is indeed exquisite.
On the day of the concert we
headed to the rail station for the one hour trip south to
Daejeon. Capitalizing on the warm fall weather, we picked up
dinner to go at the Daejeon station and took a taxi to the
Center where, among the lovely art work and flowing water, we
had a picnic while we waited for the doors to open. Once
inside, we followed the signs for a pre-concert discussion,
which turned out to be an open-door session in which each of the
operas that would be represented in music on stage during the
concert was summarized. The room overflowed and staff was kept
busy trying to find seats for attendees. Back downstairs, we
were pleased to observe the number of military cadets milling
about: apparently, one of the bases in the surrounding area had
provided transportation to bring in a few hundred service
members for what may well have been their first ever classical
concert. These young people, even though they didn’t understand
the words, were demonstrably appreciative of the efforts of the
musicians and of José Cura. It was a joyful experience to see
these men and women in military uniform ‘get’ the magic and the
emotion.
The Concert
José Cura was joined in the
concert by soprano Eunju Kim. Interestingly, the program does
not include the name of either the conductor or the orchestra in
English. After some diligent internet research, we discovered
the orchestra was the Prime Philharmonic. Sadly, the orchestra
was did not always perform at the same level as the principles.
Play bill
Leoncavallo: Pagliacci
-
Prologo
-
Qual fiamma avea nel guardo
-
Intermezzo
-
Vesti la giubba
Verdi: La Forza del destino
-
Pace mio Dio!
-
Overture
Verdi: Otello
-
Gia nella note desna
-
Dio, mi potevi scagliar
-
Nium mi tema
Intermission
Catalani: La Wally
-
Ebben, n’andro lontana
Puccini: Tosca
-
Recondita armonia
-
Mario, Mario
Puccini: Manon Lescaut
-
Intermezzo
Puccini: La Fanciulla del west
-
Ch’ella mi creda
Puccini: Tosca
-
E lucevan le stelle
Puccini: Madam Butterfly
-
Un bel di vedremo
-
Viene la sera duet
Encore
As
usual when we set in the front of the auditorium, we are
reluctant to evaluate the vocal performances; however, the warm
resonance of Cura’s heroic tenor seemed to fill the space easily
and his charm quickly won over an audience that wasn’t familiar
with opera or classically trained voices. Particularly exciting
was the reaction of the military cadets, who were polite in
their applause in the beginning but lead the standing ovation
with enthusiastic applause at the end.
If
any one single moment epitomized the excellence of the evening,
it was Cura’s Niun mi tema. The final, dramatic moments
of Otello held the audience spellbound as Cura
moved emotionally through the anger, the despair, the anguish of
the diminished Moor. It is hard to imagine how a stage full of
musicians can disappear, harder still to explain how a single
spotlighted man, standing virtually still, eyes closed, could
take an auditorium full of people who don’t understand the
language on a journey that defied time or location. By the
end, the tears that flowed down his face were reflected in tears
on the faces of the audience: music and man had communicated
what words themselves could not. Simply brilliant.
What Cura concert would end without the stand-out bravura of
Nessun dorma? The soaring claim to victory was met with
thunderous applause and a standing ovation that brought the
singers and conductor back again and again. But the evening was
not yet over, as Cura returned to the lobby of the Center and
signed autographs and chatted with the hundreds of attendees who
did not yet want the singer to leave. The crush was
significant, the line long enough that we ended up having to
leave to catch our train back to Seoul before it ended. It was
a perfect way to end a two week stay in a country we were just
beginning to know.
