You’ve been described as the “Fourth Tenor”. Is it difficult to always hit the high notes? Tenors are alluring. I think it’s because the tenor is the voice that sings on the edge of danger. It’s the least natural of all the voices and there is a risk. When you hit the high notes it’s like you are scoring a goal. And if you crack, you know you’ve missed.

How fit does an opera singer have to be? These days you can’t get away with being unfit on stage. When I was younger, I was a semi-professional body-builder and I also trained as a kung fu fighter. But when I was 24 I gave it all up as I had a vision of what I might become. I couldn’t even touch the back of my head because my arms were so massive. Now I just work out on machines at the gym in my home in Madrid and when I am traveling I try to stay in hotels with gyms.

Did you aspire to be the next Arnold Schwarzenegger? He was the hero for us all; him and Lou “Incredible Hulk” Ferrigno. Of course they look like babies compared with today’s bodybuilders.

You’re also a composer and a conductor. Do you ever worry about trying to do too much? When you have two or three talents, you have to decide whether to just use one and hide the others. The music world is fond of labeling people, but at the end of your life you will have to explain to that being who gave you your talents why you were so cowardly as to not use them all.

Ah, the famous ego. Some critics have had a bit of a field day at your expense. I used to care what the critics said. I used to suffer, especially when the criticism was suspiciously bad. But I would rather not talk about it except to say that people always criticise eclecticism.

As an opera singer do you have to stick to a strict regime? Because I was a semi-professional athelete for many years I learnt how to eat well. Before a show I have a big plate of pasta, for energy. What with make-up and singing, then all the after-show business, you can be working for five hours at a stretch.

Ever tuck into the steaks? I was a vegetarian for about five years in my twenties, then one day I woke up and thought it wasn’t too smart to lose my barbecue. But when I was a vegetarian I weighed 20kg (44lb) less.

Champagne or sparkling water? I don’t drink. Well, I have a finger of wine when I eat meat, but I can’t handle any more than that. If I do, I start talking nonsense.

I guess the smokes are out of the question? Actually I smoke a pipe when I’m at home. It’s not something I can’t do without, but it’s pleasant. I never smoke in London. The air is polluted enough already here.

You are quite physical on stage. Have you ever suffered for your art? No, but in the past I’ve had many injuries, particularly to my back and knees because of all my weight training. Yet thanks to all those years in the gym I have a miraculous cardiovascular system. My heartbeat is 52 to 54 at rest. When I go on stage it reaches only 80 beats, which is akin to resting for other people. It gives me a huge advantage — I am never out of breath.

Do you pop any pills? Now that I’m in my forties I take supplements including vitamin E for hair and nails and vitamin C in winter.

How do you cope with the nerves? When you cross the stage for the first time each night you need to be a little nervous. That’s normal and good and it helps to break the ice with the audience.

Naturally good looking or do you attack the make-up? I’m a Neanderthal man as far as my face is concerned, but all that heavy make-up that I have to wear when I am on stage does it no good. Every so often my wife insists that I go to a spa and have a facial.

Do you sleep well at night? Now I am 41 I have achieved mental peace. I don’t worry about what people think. I have found audiences are ready to take the love I give them on stage. And I try to live my life as intensely as I can, knowing that it’s the only one I have.

What spurs you on? The goal is always the same, to be a Renaissance man. If I were only a singer, I’d be more relaxed. I’d go to the movies on my days off. But I’ve decided to complicate my life with conducting and a recording company and composing. I’m also a keen photographer and I’m going to publish some of my photographs in a book.

José Cura is performing at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (020-7304 4000), in Samson et Dalila until March 25

I Would Rather Answer To My Fellow Man Now, Than Account To God Later

 Ópera Actual

 Eduardo Benarroch

Translated by Monica B / Photos from Dana

July 2004

 

They say that José Cura does too many things; that he does not concentrate on any one thing; that he is a human octopus who wants to embrace everything, wants to do it all. After singing ‘Samson’ in London, he conducted ‘Butterfly’ in Warsaw, besides having directed ‘Un ballo in maschera’ earlier at Piacenza. In London, they call him “The Renaissance Man”, but who is José Cura really? A singer? A conductor? An impresario?

Ópera Actual: How was your debut conducting Verdi on his home turf?

José Cura: It was a great challenge to debut with ‘Ballo’, my first Verdi, in Piacenza near Parma, both Verdi strongholds,—and with the Orchestra Toscanini, a Verdi orchestra par excellence, as well as a cast of first rate Italian singers at that. It was like going to Bayreuth to conduct ‘Tristan’ for the first time.

Ó.A.: ‘Ballo’ is one of the most difficult works to conduct.

J.C.: It has a bit of everything, even Beethoven and ‘Otello’; it is one of the first among the great operas of the mature Verdi in which -except for one or two measures- there is not this well-known um-pa-pa. It is very polyphonic and symphonic; the recitatives and the (arie) concertantes are woven in a more primitive way than in ‘Otello’ and ‘Don Carlo’, but no longer as in ‘Trovatore’. You’re dealing with a very modern opera, although it still does not come up to any of the works mentioned. It is one of the first operas with operatic symphonism instead of just accompanied singing.

Ó.A.: Have you sung the role of Riccardo?

J.C.: I try not to conduct those operas that I sing, so people can’t say: “Why is he conducting instead of singing?”

Ó.A.: But that question is inevitable.

J.C.: Exactly, and in order to avoid it, one has to try to dodge the issue. Let me give you ‘Butterfly’ as an example: I sang it many years ago when I was a lot younger, but I do not have it in my repertoire today.

Ó.A.: How do you divide your activities during the year? Do you sing less opera?

J.C.: I sing about fifty performances per year; that’s not the hundred or so that I had come to do. Those were tough times, but it was a price I paid, and I sowed seeds in order to be able to reap benefits later.

Ó.A.: How did your debut in London go?

J.C.: I covered for Carreras in ‘Fedora’, and thanks to that opportunity, they contracted me to open the Verdi Festival with ‘Stiffelio’. Later, I sang the first version of ‘Simon Boccanegra’ in concert at Queen Elizabeth Hall.

Ó.A.: Which was one of the great Verdi performances held in London.

J.C.: And, with the Age of Enlightenment, which uses for tuning the diapason of Verdi.

Ó.A.: And it has the “cimbasso”!*

J.C.: Yes, but the “cimbasso” is a double-edged sword so to speak, because the one of today is not like that of the past: today’s instrument is a kind of “nuclear weapon” which, when it is blown by the “cimbassista”, literally knocks you out of your boots. You hear only the “cimbasso” and nothing else.

Ó.A.: What is the main focus of your career at this time?

J.C.: I’m involved in new productions in Zurich. With the director of the Opera House, Alexander Pereira, we have done ‘Otello’, ‘Don Carlo’ and ‘Stiffelio’, all especially for me, and in 2005, I will sing in a new production of ‘Turandot’. In Vienna, they have scheduled ‘Le Villi’ especially for me. There, I will debut as conductor with ‘Butterfly’ in 2006, which is a big challenge.

Ó.A.: And how about your debut in Barcelona?

J.C.: It came about unexpectedly. I was having lunch at the house one day, when Joan Matabosch, the artistic director of the Licéu, called to tell me: “I have ‘Samson’ on for tonight, and Carreras is ill”. I was free, so I caught the first flight out. Fortunately, it was the London production, something that I did not know initially. In going through the crates of costumes, they found the clothes which I had used in the English capital. Even the mezzo, Markella Hatziano, was the very one with whom I had sung in 1996, so that it wasn’t difficult. It turned out to be a big success. I had that experience shortly after the Madrid episode, and I felt that the public was trying to decide which side they were on. When the opera was over, the entire theater jumped to its feet; many told me that it was one of the biggest ovations ever given at the Licéu. And for that single performance, the fans awarded me the prize of “Singer of the Year”. I liked the fact that they looked me over, that they weren’t prejudiced. They even waited to let me know that they liked me. They are people of great temperament and conviction.

Ó.A.: You are going to return to Barcelona in ‘Il Corsaro’, whose principal role is a very demanding one.

J.C.: It is very heavy/serious. In ‘Il Corsaro’, there is much of the Verdi that will come later. It is not entirely a masterpiece. Those who know all of Verdi’s output realize that the composer is experimenting in this opera. One can tell because there are parts which are impressive and which Verdi would use again later, for example in ‘Otello’. I will sing ‘Il Corsaro’ in January of next year; in 2006 I will interpret ‘Otello’ and in 2007 ‘Andrea Chénier’. I’m going to be connected to Barcelona for many years to come.

Ó.A.: You state that you do not sing those operas which you conduct, but when you are singing certain operas, do you think about how you might conduct them?

J.C.: I usually conduct as if I were singing and sing as if I were conducting because when I conduct, I like for the musical phrasing to have the same breathing as the phrasing of the singer. I have never had a liking for those who conduct the music, measure by measure. For me, that kind of thing means the death of music. Zubin Mehta says that it is a pleasure to work with me because it is like directing an instrumentalist; there isn’t this anxiety about following the singer. In my opinion, the singer is just another staff notation on the musical score; he isn’t one who is dangling up there suspended and whom the musicians have to desperately try to hook from the pit. Besides being anti musical, it shows a lack of respect for the orchestral musician. Singers ought to be musicians: Just as a violinist is a musician who plays the violin, so a singer is a musician who plays the larynx. That’s being a musician too, and then there is the individual phrasing, the color…..but that’s another matter….It has nothing to do with playing the music as if there were no rules-- who said that that’s acceptable.

Ó.A.: False traditions have been perpetuated for many years which have only now begun to be eradicated.

J.C.: For example: The ‘Siciliana’ in ‘Cavalleria Rusticana’ has many variations in tempo because Turiddu sings while walking down the street, and when someone walks, he does not do it at the same rhythm all the time; he’ll jump a pothole, go up a hill… Therefore, the ‘Siciliana’ has that aspect of the irregularity of a walk. I performed it in 1999 at the Met, and as it was written, it presumed not only a musical analysis but also the musical flexibility to have those changes even within the same measure. But they criticized me for being unmusical; they said that I required the harpist to perform “saltos mortales”, do somersaults, to try to accompany me. That comment is born of ignorance; they make no attempt to see what the score is really saying.

Ó.A.: Most people can’t read music. If they hear something wrong, that mistake stays in their heads, and when they hear something different from what’s on  the recording…..

J.C.: That mistake becomes the true version, the truth. On my latest CD of Dvorak’s 9^th Symphony, I interpret the 4^th movement as the composer intends, at 152 crotchets (quarter notes). Thus the music gets a power and energy that make you sit down when it’s over and take a deep breath. Dvorak did not die in 1715 but in 1904, at which point in time, had he spelled it out for a metronome, he would have made matters much clearer. He wanted that particular sound.

Ó.A.: It is somewhat strange to speak with a singer about the technical elements of an orchestra, but in your case what irritates a lot of people is that they cannot classify you. People love to classify, to pigeon-hole you, love to be able to say,” José Cura is a singer”.

J.C.: I’ve avoided any kind of classification! We live in a society, in which the majority of people are insecure as a consequence of our modern times. The 1% that manipulates the remaining 99% tries to classify things in order to be able to sell a product and does it with an identifying label for people to see up front. That label, which is in 99% of the cases  the only way to be able to sell the product, becomes a coffin so to speak in the rest of the cases, and the product dies right there. But there are products that can perform multiple functions, and if they are sold for one purpose only, we are limiting the capacity of the product to evolve as a musician.

Ó.A.: How did you become involved in the project of the Coliseo de las Tres Culturas in Madrid?

J.C.: The conversations regarding this project date back to some time ago but were only recently firmed up after my performances of ‘Samson’ in London. After intense discussions, I accepted the post of Director de Disciplina Musical y Artística, that is the position of Musical and Artistic Director.

Ó.A.: What is your relationship with José Luis Moreno?

J.C.: Besides being the creator and principal patron of this project, he is a very capable person as well as a capable musician.  It would be entirely wrong to categorize him as a TV presenter when his musical knowledge is so ample. Moreno is a musician in his own right; that he has become famous for other reasons is another matter. Moreno is the owner of it all. He has conceived this project, has approved the designs and will always have a voice in everything. It would be impossible for him not to.

Ó.A.: What are you planning for the upcoming seasons?

J.C.: In October, we will try to announce at least the program for the first season and if possible also for the second.  That, however, is not a matter of sitting down for an hour and putting titles on a time table; it is a complex task with many variables. Not only do we have to announce works, but also artists, conductors and stage directors, lighting technicians…..I’m a very prudent man, and these matters have to be dealt with in a serious manner.

Ó.A.: There is talk about the establishment of a new orchestra.

J.C.: My first objective is to create a philharmonic orchestra of great prestige with top notch musicians. Not with the elite in mind but something of high musical quality, with players not older than 40 who should be soloists but would also come together in an orchestra of some 90 musicians to be joined by another 60 or more, who are to be available to the Coliseo whenever there are simultaneous activities in the three main halls of the artistic complex. The Philharmonic will be the basic building block, the foundation stone, of the Coliseo de las Tres Culturas.

Ó.A.: And the chorus?

J.C.: I will apply the same fundamentals here. There will be a chorus of 80 to 90 members- also excellent, first-rate singers- and we will have additional people who will be called in accordance with the needs of the Coliseo.

Ó.A.: How do you feel about so much responsibility?

J.C.: I am delighted with this project--and I know that there will be a lot of work ahead of me. But I am sure of one thing: Thanks to all the backing attained, this initiative affords all of us the pleasure of being able to present music that is first-rate in quality and accessible to everyone.

Ó.A.: Are you trying to prove something with these challenges?

J.C.: The parable of the talents tells us that we must work on transforming everything that is given to us as seed, into plants. There are people who receive one seed while others receive more. Based on this parable, I reached a conclusion, and for that, they have labeled me as arrogant. If I develop only one of my seeds in order to avoid being called arrogant, I will have to give account at the end of my life to Him who gave those seeds to me. On the other hand, if I develop all of them, I will have to answer to my fellow man who will criticize me for that.  At any rate, I would rather answer to my fellow man now than have to account to God later.

Footnote: * “cimbasso” is a low brass instrument, perhaps a valved contrabass trombone.

 

---

I’m Not An “Arrogant Bastard”

The famous tenor José Cura talks to Thanasis Lalas

(translated by Erato)

 

TO VIMA

11 July 2004

 

 Lisbon. On the eve of the Euro 2004 final with Portugal. This is the second time that I meet José Cura. The first time was in England, in 1999. He was at the time “the Fourth Tenor”, “the Handsome Tenor”, “the Big Talent”. Then he broke with the recording industry, he created his own independent label, he fought and was fought, he became 'the setting star'--obviously a tough period intervened, during which he had to struggle hard.  In our second meeting I found him completely different.  Mature. A man who shows that through hardship he found himself, a man proud of surviving through the isolation, a man strong and self-confident. My colleagues and I spent 48 magic hours with him, watching him rehearse for the recital he is going to give at Oinousses next Thursday and we set a new appointment to take place there. And before I let you read the “new José Cura”, I’d like to especially thank Mr. Yiannis Lemos. president of the I.D.Lemos Foundation of Oinousses, who gave me the chance to meet José Cura again. Our second conversation, five years after the first one, was, at least, very constructive.

I hope you enjoy it.

 

Thanasis Lalas

-         Has anything changed since we last met?

 “To be honest, Mr. Lalas, just a few things have …NOT changed!”

 -         What has not changed? Same wife…

 “Same wife, three kids. These are among the few things that didn’t change. But we moved out of France to Madrid, we created our own recording label, we produce discs and DVD’s, we make our own productions, while, at the same time, we are managing my career, as well as the career of other artists. We have become, in a way, a ‘thorn’ in the flesh of the existing, established companies performing artistic management, who prefer the water not to be agitated by initiatives like ours”.

-         Why did you change attitude towards the recording industry?

 “When an artist proves that he is able to make a good career without giving in to the managers of the companies that are often not so capable, it is a fact proving something not so favorable for them. It is setting an example for imitation and then some people will lose their jobs. So, this is how we started and we have succeeded. The honest companies – because, for all that, there are some that are not “pirates”- are collaborating with us and we co-produce. The companies that are not so good get a bit nervous with this situation and I know that some weeks ago an important international meeting took place in a specific town, where among other topics they discussed about ‘what are we doing with Cura and his company’. This made me glad. If they are concerned and are paying attention to us, this means we exist. It needs great courage to do what we do and it’s a great risk. I have got many ‘kicks’ these last years. But every kick that leaves me a bruise on the backside gets me at the same time several meters ahead! So, if they keep on kicking me from behind, they will certainly help me get very much ahead!”

-         Might it be that people are making everything in such a way that they ensure security?

 “This is a possibility. Another one is the fact that it is very easy to write and talk about classical music, to claim that ‘the good way to make art is dying’, and I don’t refer just to opera but also to the other forms of art. It is so easy to say that, but also so destructive! It just needs you to take a pen, to put this as the title on your article and the chief-editor will print it right away, because it is going to have a great impact. But all this is bullshit! We have never before had such a coming of audience, so many new orchestras born every day, new artists, new talents! So, where is the problem? The matter is simple. If you want to perform in the 21^st century in the same way that one used to perform in the 19^th century, then of course you’ll be out of job. Sarah Bernard was a legend in her time. If she was living today and performing in the way she was doing in the 19^th century, she would be boring. Today we are here in Portugal, shortly before the final between Portugal and Greece for the Euro Cup. The players of today don’t play as 50 years ago. If someone like Di Stefano or Pelé was getting into the field tomorrow, he could hardly make it for five minutes. Accordingly, the cinema adjusts, pop music adjusts. Everything and everybody adjust to today. Why, then, don’t we at the opera and in classical music have to adjust? Why do we have to dress like penguins to get on stage?”

-       So you are telling me that what we call interpretation of a work is actually the interpretation of a period of time?

“However, it doesn’t have to do with the performance of the music. There is only one way to make good music: To do it right! As there is only one way to kick the ball. You put up your foot and you kick the ball. Isn’t it so? What matters is if your whole conduct can attract the public or not. I go back to the example of Sarah Bernard. If she performed today a theatrical play the indolent way she did in the 19^th century, she would seem to us funny, at the best of times. The part is the same. So, it isn’t that which makes us disrespectful of the musical work or the writing, but the way you approach the work. If, instead of getting on stage dressed like a penguin or as if you were going to a funeral sending out at the same time the message that you see what you do as sad and boring, you get on stage dressed normally but elegant and with a smile, tanned and in a positive mood, the audience will get the message. They will think that this man on stage enjoys what he’s doing and likes it! And because he enjoys it he will make us enjoy it too. In countries like England I have been criticized with characterizations that you certainly wouldn’t expect to be written by a journalist – such as: ‘Cura has to understand that performing on stage is not for his own pleasure. He doesn’t have to have fun with the music.’. When I read that I said: ‘Something is sick here. And certainly it is not me!’. How can you transmit joy if you yourself don’t enjoy it? There is a notorious quote of Maradona of Zidane. If Zidane gets upset, explain to him that I simply repeated it! Maradona said: ‘Zidane may be the best master of the ball today, but his play is sad!’ ”

-      How did you choose this kind of music?

“Have you heard yesterday, in the rehearsals, the two “boleros” I sang? Did you see how my whole attitude and mood changed? You can’t say even for a moment that ‘this is an opera tenor who sings boleros’. I suddenly became a pop singer. Because I have the music in my soul. And this is my real soul. Because also as a musician I am curious to try new experiences in all fields. For three years I was doing renaissance music – Palestrina, Gregorian chant. And this has nothing to do with my personality or my voice. But everything enriches my musical existence. The same thing happens with opera. I enjoy singing but if someone would come today and would tell me that starting today I couldn’t sing opera anymore, I won’t die of sorrow. For me, opera is another musical experience that I will be doing for as long as I can, the way I believe it has to be done:  with good acting and by giving it my all when I’m on stage”.

-      Revolution is to see the same thing from a different point of view or to make a rupture?

“No. I don’t like ruptures. They are too drastic. And let’s not forget that when something breaks, someone always suffers. Those kinds of revolutions are usually the social ones, where suddenly one day people revolt and cut heads. In art, the revolution is made by doing your job by letting your own art slowly imbue the environment intoxicatingly. Maybe two people get imbued by it and transmit this intoxication to two others. And these two to another two. And this develops into a chain reaction. It is not possible [for an artist] to wake up one morning and say: ‘Stop, from now on you paint this way!’. It is both impossible and wrong. I personally learn, change and adjust as time passes. The good thing in this kind of revolution is that people can get the idea and develop its positive elements. In this case it is something more than a revolution. It is a vaccine. You do the vaccination and you expect the body to reproduce the antibodies”.

-       Why do artists like you do bother the companies? Might it be that the companies want artists that think less?

“No, no! I think that if the managers of a company are clever, they will understand an anti-conformist artist. And the leader of a company who has risen to the top because of his abilities - and not because a finger has put him in the chair – is certainly very clever. It’s rare, of course, for someone to get very high only with his personal skills, but it happens. Let’s say then that this man is very clever. The clever ones recognize right away the artist who is also clever, who has talent and who’s going to make the difference. This is not the problem, i.e. to be recognized. The problem is to be supported. Because if you, the avant-garde artist, you say to the manager of the company: ‘This is the new way and this is how we will save the company, and this way we will refresh our identity as a company, and this way we will sell again millions of discs’, immediately you declare that everything else in the company is out-of-date, old-fashioned. Put now yourself in the manager’s place. What is he doing? For supporting you, the new people, he is actually putting his career at stake, and this demands guts, big guts. Maybe this is where the problem lies. And maybe the solution is one: that there are managers only with big… guts! I suppose …”.

-      To get success you need brain and soul. So, how come people who get to the top often burn themselves?

“I give you an example. If you manage to get to the top of a high mountain after preparing your muscles for you entire life, then you climbed the mountain by using your own hands, by leaving your blood on the rocks … When you get to the top, you are so strong that you can fight almost everything. If it was a helicopter that brought you down to the top of the mountain, the next day you are again at its feet!

I started to climb at the age of 12 and today I’m 42. I have been climbing for 30 years now! Believe me, I have very strong muscles!” 

-      Should an artist be an egoist?

“I don’t think he should be an egoist, but he has to be vain”.

-      Why?

“You can’t be a public person without having a healthy streak of vanity – which is an important ingredient of the human being anyway. Because if you don’t enjoy being looked at, why are you a public person? And you, Mr. Lalas, you are vain, look at yourself… you wore a shirt fitting with your glasses and your pants! This is vanity. Vanity. Healthy vanity that’s not used for hurting but for showing the most pleasant possibilities while we are with other people. So, does an artist have to be an egoist or not? Of course not.  If you are an egoist, you are finished. But yes, you should find your ‘ego’, you should cultivate it, so that it is so healthy that, when you project it, others enjoy it and become richer from it. It’s a different thing to be an ‘egoist’, which means you have a big ‘ego’ just for yourself”.

 -       Were you ever in danger of loosing your talent?

“Once or twice, but I was very tough. I have been very tough since I was a kid, as my mother says. I’ve gone through a lot but I had the intelligence to know which people I needed to have around me. It’s like when you put a stick by the little tree you have planted in a pot to support it. Finding those sticks is often the secret for the development of your talent.  Success also depends on the quality of the “hedge” that these sticks form around you. This “hedge” should be strong enough to protect you but also open enough to let the sun and the air in. If you have this recipe, then go ahead. I discovered this recently, in my 40’s. When I started I wasn’t like this. Do you remember the way I was promoted by the companies? With all those cheap slogans: “the sex symbol”, “the erotic tenor”, “the fourth tenor”, “the tenor of the 21^st century” and other similar bullshit that were putting me in great danger. Then suddenly one day I woke up and made the decision to cut my links to all that. So I created my own company for driving my life with my own driving license and not with someone else’s. However, I lived through three years of nightmare because suddenly I found myself cut from everything …”.

-      And what has ultimately happened?

“The last two years everything has started to get better. However since 1999 till 2002, everybody tried to make clear to me in every way that, if I wanted to continue by myself, I would be cut-off. So then, no more cover stories, just one or two interviews, and the critics systematically ruining my works, I was called ‘the setting star!’ and other of this kind. I lived three years fighting the wind and the adversities, until I finally managed to get back on the scene and to be on covers again, with people writing about me, my label has already done three productions with significant sales - something that is a great achievement for a label with no distribution network or any advertisement! And now everybody says: ‘Here is an amazing tenor. He performs with any orchestra and they start to play divinely! He sings and the people rave with the spectacle he creates!’… You see how things change? Now I have also assumed the position of the artistic manager in a new theater that is going to open in Madrid very soon, two or three orchestras in the world are offering me positions as their musical director, two motion pictures companies are in talks with my company for incidental music for their films, while the managing team of a French company is trying to convince me to be the main theme of an international festival that would include music and cinema. All this is not bad at all for ‘the setting star’… What do you think?”

-     How were you feeling when you had to face all those obstacles?

“Look, even though they have tried to cut my legs many times, I feel them deeply rooted in the ground. And something more: I never compromise. I have never bribed a journalist or a newspaper for writing about me, I have never greased somebody’s palm for being hired. I am happy with my wife and my family. I am a normal man! For dealing with a case like me you have to invent lies – but, as the maxim says ‘lies have short feet’ -, which, sooner or later will be revealed. So, they were saying I am ‘an arrogant bastard’. Mr. Lalas, I’m not an arrogant bastard. I am someone who suffered and struggled a lot, who resisted and managed to get to the top of the mountain through the storm – and I am proud of all that! If being proud of all I’ve done in my life after 25 years of hard work is arrogance, then I am arrogant! However, I don’t think this is right or fair!”

-      For closing, I’d like to ask you how did a tenor become a torchbearer for the Athens Olympic Games?

“Let’s say I am one of the few that exist who represents the ideal of the Greek civilization: ‘Nous iyiis en somati iyii (Healthy mind in a healthy body)’. This was the ideal at the time of the first Olympic Games. It is said that at the time of the first Olympic Games, Pythagoras was one of the athletes as was his son-in-law, Milon the Krotonian, who was a mathematician and a musician at the same time! Consider me too, then, as a descendant of Pythagoras. A Pythagorean!”

-    Thank you very much!

“Me too”

 

It may indeed have been some seven years ago that José Cura let himself be hailed with much fanfare as ‘tenor of the 21st century’; on the other hand, he has had to fight for an uncontested good reputation almost the entire time--especially since the beginning of this century.  On the one side, the marketing of this gem of a tenor, who was in that respect almost futuristic, was indeed rather dreadfully high-pitched, gloating and, ultimately, more damaging than anything else, arousing aggression; on the other side, given the considerable competition in the field at present, the marketing claims aren’t entirely false either: no less a person than Waltraut Meier, Cura’s  ‘Cavalleria’ partner, eager to find superlatives, authoritatively confirms the Argentine to be the first, and at the moment the only one since Plácido Domingo, to sings so beautifully on stage that Santuzza has difficulty fighting back tears and continuing as composed and cool as possible.

Cura has never shied away from the most demanding and taxing of Verdi, Puccini and Verismo materials, nor from roles such as Des Grieux (from ‘Manon Lescaut’) that are normally considered beyond his heroic-dark range with their extremely high tessituras--a point in which he differs from the otherwise comparable Cecilia Bartoli, a colleague of his generation who, after more than a decade, continues to be extolled as everybody’s darling by a public apparently gone crazy--as long as she merely keeps on chirping (or if need be barking) a string of inferior Vivaldi and Rossini and late Salieri vulgaria, and who in so doing probably controls the better part of 51% of the Classic CD market. It is also a point that Bartoli, unlike Cura, has never really mastered a truly significant role from Mozart to Verdi and Puccini. Yet with it all, Cura has failed to awaken only sympathies as has the buxom mezzosoprano, with whom, for some strange reason, he invites identification. Rather, in addition to the highest expectations (of the kind that can cause heart palpitations) and to frequent displays of enthusiasm, he has also had to suffer all manner of strange resistance, yes, even at times real hostility.

And this too is somewhat paradoxical: His concurrent, continual and standard festival presence in German-speaking areas (predominantly in Vienna, Zurich and Munich) not withstanding, José Cura has mustered something like ten significant roles since about 1995: Verdi’s ‘Otello’--persistently triumphant; ‘Don Carlo’--not quite so convincing; Bizet’s namesake from ‘Carmen’; the protagonists from ‘Pagliacci’ and ‘Cavalleria’; ‘Andrea Chénier’--likewise in Verismo style; and finally, at the end of April something to look forward to: his role debut as the heroic bandit Ramerrez in Puccini’s ‘Fanciulla’, which ought to suit his voice and temperament especially well and which should counter the practically uninterrupted string of Cavaradossis (‘Tosca’). At all three opera houses mentioned above, the tenor has sung that role repeatedly, as well as the one in which he is no doubt worldwide the most enlightened: Verdi’s ‘Otello’.

Cura could, if he wanted to and if he were very foolish, no doubt sing the part of the hero of the ‘chocolate project’ (Verdi) all across the globe, 365 days per year and for top pay, even though in the strictest sense he-like Domingo-isn’t the right type of singer for Otello at all. His smooth, baritonally-grounded spinto tenor is hardly ‘eroico’ or ‘robusto’, something that is quasi-demanded by the notations in the score. In the last half-century no doubt only the Chilean Ramon Vinay and Mario del Monaco excelled, covering the demands of the role totally. To be sure, Francesco Tamagno, Verdi’s original, inaugural tenor, who in his vocal heavy weight reminds of Wagner-style singing, was hardly satisfying in the role of the Moor. Yet on good days, Cura-like his sometime mentor Plácido Domingo- is nevertheless sure to enchant and captivate as Otello. His ‘Esultate’ rendition is of such stupendous power discharge that critics perversely-and not always entirely without reason-find fault with his ‘exaggeration’ (Neue Zürcher) and also- as far as the development in differentiation and intensification of the character is concerned-with a ‘monochromatic’ interpretation. But when he-Cura/Otello-voices his yearning desire for Desdemona soulfully with ‘Gia nella notte densa--Venere splende!’, often in a half reclining position, then this well-nigh athletic provocation of his tenor rivals in combination with the natural voice of this ‘brawny bundle from Argentina’ (FAZ)- a voice genuinely large, substantial and almost always nobly employed- oftentimes indeed does have that certain power to excite, to arouse. That in turn makes not just women here-even now still willing to erupt emotionally-to glow; it actually bowls them over totally right there on the quiet in the middle of the opera house. But up to now, one only keeps hearing that ‘the man whom women love’ (Kulturmagazin Rondo) and who hails from the provincial capital of Rosario, is happily married to a French [sic] woman in a quiet sort of way, even if he on occasion, and in front of the author of these lines, deigns to use a magic marker to draw a mysterious long black line (‘reserved’?) on the forearm of female admirers-their hearts aflutter. On this occasion, he happened to mark my wife.

Were one to compare Cura’s muscular voice, which was only discovered on second take in Puccini’s small first opera ‘Le Villi’, with the true giants, the truly great voices, say by way of the much talked about contest of the century, then the studied choir master/conductor, whom the newsmagazine ‘Spiegel’ labeled-somewhat stupidly-as ‘heir to Pavarotti and Domingo’, would not come out badly-even today already. Indeed, he shares-thanks to his timbre-the erotic drive of the delivery with his somewhat lighter lirico-spinto colleague Luciano Pavarotti, also with Bergonzi and Tagliavini, two legendary and monumental figures. And the somber, dark brown coloring/shading of the voce oscura is really not too far at all from the legendary and-according to Puccini- god-sent cello sound of Caruso. To be sure, Cura lacks the boundless ease in the top notes of a Giovanni Martinelli or also of Franco Bonisolli, who-sad to say-recently met with an untimely death, and in the producing of ‘squillo’ metal sounds, Giacomo Lauri-Volpi has the edge. But such an animal as an all-round, universally ideal tenor has simply never existed. Summasummarum, everything considered, Cura also holds his own with bravura, as far as the century perspectives go. At the moment perhaps, indeed only Roberto Alagna and the vocally lighter and higher situated fellow Argentine Marcelo Alvarez are fairly noteworthy adversaries.

No, altogether the work of liars, rogues and scoundrels it is not, that talk and ado about the tenor of the new century. Opting against Cura of late were for the most part only smart alecs, know-it-alls and fake purists masquerading as connoisseurs- and yet, they do have somewhat of a point, too. Less because of the one man entertainment spectacles that were presented a bit much like a show by the brawny bundle in the course of a nationwide promotion of his latest CD releases; more rather because of his simultaneous singing and conducting. Most significantly, they have a point in that the now 42-year-old could learn new things, stylistically speaking, with respect to his serious Verdi singing-perhaps from maestro Carlo Bergonzi. Cura’s CD anthology of Verdi arias is on average 7 to 23% less thought provoking and stimulating than those previously released CDs with Puccini and Verismo evergreens-but also some exquisite rarities! With ‘Niun mi tema’ at the end of ‘Otello’, most doubts definitely fade away, even for the most purist of ears ‘languisce il cor’. But why has Cura nonetheless almost from the start and up to now rather persistently caught his share of tales about Rambo and Macho to which really Franco Bonisolli is somewhat more justifiably entitled? On stage, the Argentine is anything but macho and narcissistic and a womanizer and busy showing out and sloppy. On the contrary, the carefully thought-through minimal nuances and action sequences weigh in, come into play time and again, for example in the usually trite and washed-out roles of Don José and Andrea Chénier. And what about picking an argument with an anti-claque set to cause a disturbance, as he has done on occasion in Madrid? He was right in doing so! It appears-no is certain-that Cura in all sorts of ways skidded into the strange dilemma of the modern consumer-driven/demand-oriented opera media mill. His complaints about it are plausible. He says that if he sings ‘E lucevan le stelle’ as Puccini desired ‘sostenuto/restrained’, ‘with deep, genuine feeling/con intimo sentimento’ and ‘morendo/dying away’, then he meets with an icy, cold reception, also on the part of the presumed know-it-alls, the would-be-wise-guys at the Vienna State Opera. If he, on the other hand, screams the extremely melancholy melody, this farewell from life, like a stuck pig, then in turn the full wave of pedant, petit-bourgeois enthusiasm comes screaming, crashing back at him.

Also, his visually plausible image as Latin Lover has hurt him more than helped him. According to Richard Wagner, the rather unenlightened taste for art and artistic sense of women no doubt created a sort of nonsensical projection early on in the ranks of critics. It goes something like this: Whoever is that good-looking cannot possibly also sing enchantingly beautiful. And to wrench the nonsense spiral up another turn: From FAZ to Berlin’s ‘Daily Mirror’, oddities in reviews of Cura’s CDs were repeated several times over. They blamed the singer-mostly without reason-for the very thing that they themselves intended quite shamelessly with their own headlines and selection of agency photos (Cura writhing passionately on the floor), and that is to attract with such kitsch and crap the perhaps also mentally rather weak sex. In the face of such a ‘circulus abstrusus mediensis’ (an abstruse circle created by the media), even an angelically sung high B is rather powerless. (It is a rare occasion on which Cura like Caruso, like Bergonzi, like Domingo, offers up the high C.)

In Cura’s case, the phonotechnical document department still has a pleasantly clear structure-quite in contrast to Domingo’s and Pavarotti’s. Besides the aforementioned anthologies, complete versions of ‘Samson et Dalila’ and ‘Manon Lescaut’ are available on CD, as well as a live recording of ‘Le Villi’-the one in which a tenor draws attention to his already very beautiful, yet not mature voice for the first time. More frequently in recent years, there have been DVDs-life recordings-of opera performances and concerts, most notably the Verdi Galas in Parma and London, celebrations held on the occasion of the 100-year anniversary of his death in 2001. Cura as champion of the folklore of his homeland can be heard moreover on a CD of dreamy ‘Anhelos’. While the tenor takes back/reduces his voice potential for the most part by some 50 to 80% in a truly humble, Christian manner in this recording, the monumental, defining work, where Cura would have to give fully 100% flat out, is on the other hand still missing for the time being. There is no reason or excuse not to record ‘Otello’-long awaited by fans-in a CD/DVD combination if at all possible, even in these times of crisis in the classical music industry.