A Conversation with José Cura

María Josefina Bertossi

When José Cura came down punctually to the lobby to give us his final interview before returning to Europe, I thought it was gracious of him not to have canceled after the effort of the previous night’s concert when he sang while suffering from an untimely cold (for a singer, a cold is always untimely).  Besides, it was a very cold 9 July (Rosarinos hardly remember when it was really cold) and many expected snow. I will never forget when it snowed in Rosario a few days before my entire family was involved in a car accident and we saw the snow on the windows of the hospital, recalled the Rosarino musician (singer, director, composer) who now lives in Madrid but works in capital cities around the world.

“Have you ever tried to pick a flower with a glove?” was the first thing we heard from José Cura from the stage.  The opening question was an attempt to explain how it feels for a musician to sing with a cold and, in addition, to share the recital and the respiratory affliction with the pianist, Rosarino Eduardo Delgado, also ill with a cold.

The audience filled the auditorium of the Teatro Fundación for the concert on 8 July, the main event of the 25^th anniversary of the Mozarteum of Rosario, which had been announced as a program of chamber music, a difficult assignment considering the health (of the artists) since this repertoire needs vocal subtleties, but we can attest that the artist carried it off with experience that comes from the position, interspersed with enjoyable and sincere comments.

“Last night I took a beating and this morning I rose voiceless.  Anyone who isn’t in this career has no idea of the significance of singing with bronchitis.  I did well and believe those who saw it liked it,” Cura said with satisfaction.

There were those who hoped you would sing opera even though chamber music had been announced.

The program said chamber music.  I would love to do all of my concerts this way. I do not enjoy singing arias in concerts because opera in concert is monastic and the audience always expects me to sing the same thing.  Besides, opera cannot be done with just a piano and for a concert as important as this anniversary it had to be a chamber concert with piano.

The auditorium of a theater can be a good thermometer to measure the relationship between an artist and the public, and it is there that we listened as some talked about this singer.  José Cura is the full name of an international artist, but those who knew him in Rosario, in Fisherton, and from childhood they have called him what they always called him:  José Luis.

José was designated by the exigencies of the program space because José Luis is too long.  Only in Rosario do they call me José Luis.

The concert represented the world-wide release of Sonetos, a work based on the verses of Pablo Neruda with music by José Cura.   The composer explained that once in a dressing room somebody left him a book of poems by Neruda, which he fortuitously opened to the page of the sonnet that begins “When I die, I want your hands on my eyes.” 

The premiere was not assured, however, since authorization from the heirs of the Chilean poet arrived only four days earlier.

Here in Rosario we saw you and we listened to a singer, composer and director.  How difficult is it on the international level to impose the role of director and composer on the figure known as a singer?

I never impose it.  I propose.  Those who like the proposal accept it, those who do not, don’t.  I conduct a lot and in very important locales such as the Vienna Opera and when you direct the Wiener, you conduct one of the significant orchestras in the world, the same is true in London with the London Symphony.   There is never this sort of question because when one stands in front of the orchestra for the first three minutes the musicians see the tenor but then no longer, because to move forward without a professional musician [standing on the podium] would not be possible.  The preconception comes from the press, which does not understand and uses tenor as a bad word.  To say someone is a tenor is like saying that she is a woman rather than a feminist, like referring to a stupid individual with no rights.

The buzz surrounding the concert was the announcement of the ‘music’ of José Cura.

Because of it, the highest points in the entire night were the sonnets, twenty minutes of music of very strong intensity and that says a lot.  When you write something people have not felt, makes no sense to them, they start fidgeting and begin coughing.  Therefore, it was very emotional, and one must not forget this was a premier, that while the audience was listening, and it is complicated [music], they were already analyzing it and enjoying it.  There was a lot of work (in composing), hard work with theatrical awareness.  Every harmony and every melodic turn tried to continue the poetry of Neruda.

In our city, there is a lot of music and many musicians who feel dissatisfied with what they can and cannot do.

There is something everyone needs to know:  nobody comes to seek you out, and this is true not only in Rosario or in Argentina:  it is that way in the world.  Youth has a tendency to say ‘I am the best in the world but no one knows it.’  I know many cases like that, both colleagues and students, who come to me and say ‘Maestro, what do I have to do?’ and I tell them they must go out and bang on doors, and they say to me ‘But what happened that made you so lucky?'   Luck?  I have spent more than thirty years doing this and only in the last ten or fifteen years have I begun to see the fruit.  Recently, in the last five years of my life, I have been transformed by an event that is very easy to obtain—the event of maturing.

Sometimes, someone will ask me how it feels to be famous and I say nothing at all, because it is so easy to become famous.  Nowadays, with the mass media, being a celebrity is almost free.  The difference is to achieve the sort of fame that is transformed into greatness.

Sometimes the decision to leave or to stay can be very difficult.

Emigration is always difficult.  Even though now it is easier for us than for our grandparents, that does not stop it from being traumatic.  When you move to a country where nobody greets you, nobody knows you, and when you present your work visa they look at you badly simply because you are Argentine or because you are a foreigner, and there is nothing you do to avoid it, and that it what happened to my wife and me.  There were many people who told me not to leave but if I had a contract I would not have gone. For example, in Buenos Aires some singers asked me how they were singing and I said good.  “Well, then, if you have a contract you can send it to me.” No, it doesn’t work like that. 

The concert ended with “Aurora” by Hector Panizza, the same aria that was sung together with the audience at the Monument to the Flag, the same one which he also occasionally surprises the English audiences.  Despite the respiratory problem that appeared in the last note of the aria, when the audience asked one more from him, Cura , with humility, agreed to one last one.

You have a work dedicated to the Malvinas.  What has happened to it has not be produce?

I knocked on two or three doors and they were not opened, nobody seemed interested in it.  Perhaps it was not the moment.  When I wrote it in 1984, I was 22 years old and we were entering a democracy.  It is a work for two choirs, with the dream being there would be an Argentine choir and an English choir, quartet soloist, a children’s choir, an orchestra—a very big, very expensive work.  I wrote it in ’84 and there it remains, and if some day I decide to do it perhaps I will have to revise it, because many years have passed and with them a lot of experience has been gained, or maybe not, because perhaps it would be nice to show what a boy of 21 wrote at that age.

José Cura

ParaTi

19 July 2007

Julieta Mortati

The renown Argentine tenor, currently living in Madrid, is in Buenos Aires for the opera Samson et Dalila in the Teatro Coliseo.  In a chat with Para Ti, he related how he studied music, martial arts, and even gave classes in body building to survive.  He began to sing at the age of 27 because “I discovered that my voice could pay my bills.” He is considered to have one of the best voices in the world for its interpretative quality.  

José Cura (44) traveled to Argentina to attend the golden anniversary of his parents (the celebration is on Saturday 7 July in Rosario, his hometown).  He is accompanied by his wife, Silvia, and their three children:  José (19), Yazmín (14) and Nicolás (11).  The visit, at first a secret, was quickly divulged and the family plan was subsequently interrupted by five performances of Samson et Dalila (by Camille Saint-Saëns) in the Teatro Coliseo, with the artistic support of the Teatro Colón, and in Rosario with the festival of the 50 years of the Monument to the Flag and a chamber concert in commemoration of the 25^th anniversary of  Mozarteum, (8 July) where he will present the world premier of the Sonetos cycle, seven pieces composed for the poetry of Pablo Neruda. In his last week in this country, he walks with bags under his eyes and runny nose.  “On the stage it is cold,” says Cura of the Teatro Coliseo, “And it was not only cold but windy!  Yesterday it was blowing off my shirt and the boys in the chorus were wearing cravats and scarves on stage.  We endured, “but in the end the body just says ‘enough!’.

What does it mean for you to sing in Buenos Aires?

Well, it is not the same thing to sing for your people and your family as it is to sing for those who have your respect because they are your fans but who do not know you, do not know the man on the other side.  When you sing in your country, you know that in the audience are people who knew you as a boy.

In his childhood, Cura learned to play the piano by intuition, watching as his father interpreted Beethoven and Chopin.  Later he studied guitar, composition and piano, and entered the School of Art at the University of Rosario.  By 12 he had already begun to direct choirs and orchestras.  Along the way, he specialized in martial arts and played rugby.  Then at 27 he began to sing.  “Singing appears rather late in my musical career.  I discovered that I had a voice and initially the investment seemed very logical:  with this voice I was going to be able to eat and to give food more easily to my family than with composing.  As crude as that sounds, I started singing for purely economic reasons,” he admits and then explains:  “That which began as a blind date ended in a life-long relationship but in the beginning I believed I was going to sing for only a few years to relieve the situation, to pay the bills and pay for my house.  Finally, it turned into the full-time profession that transformed me into what I am.  There is a thing called destiny…I cannot complain.”

And when things went badly for him, he didn’t complain, either.  In 1983 he wanted to enter the Teatro Colón but a teacher at the audition told him, “You do not sing, you shout.” The he gave classes in tae kwon do, body building, and worked in a hardware store.  In 1990 he took a second audition at the Colón and finally they accepted him, but he decided to leave for Europe.  With his wife—whom he met at 16—and José, his first son, Cura took a Pan Am flight toward Milan.

[NB:  As most of his fans are aware, Mr. Cura was accepted at the Colón in 1983 and rejected in 1990, after which he decided to move to Europe.  The reporter just got the dates mixed up but we wanted to let you know the real story.]

A Stubborn Man

-  I was always very stubborn.  Like young children, each time they get up in the morning it is not important to them what happened the previous day, just that they are going to play again.  I believe I am like that.  I was always convinced I had something to say, I was prepared to say it, and was going to keep on saying it until I finally found someone who would listen to what I had to say and then this person would pass it on to others.  It is being eternally young beyond all mistakes and objections.  It causes one to want to continue forward with the same thing.

In 1995 [editor's note: he won in 1994], Cura won the Operalia singing contest, presided over by Plácido Domingo, and quickly became one of the most prestigious tenors in the world, especially praised for his interpretive qualities.  A year later, he made his début in the role of Samson at the Royal Opera House in London, a role that he continues to perform and for which he received the Orphée d’Or and Echo Klassik awards.

- What is important for you to interpreting Samson et Dalila?

- One of the things in regards to this opera is its use of force.  Some fifteen hundred years before Christ there was killing in the name of God, and 3500 years later, it is the same thing.  Humans still do not have the courage to take responsibilities for their mistakes or their successes.  If we need to kill, the fault is with the other, and if we use God, so much the better because no one can complain or say anything.   

- And personally?

- This opera has a special aura because it has been with me practically throughout my career.  I have it very well done, very well chewed, very studied, and very sung.  The character is the same in all works, the equation is different.  Every performance is like an act of love, a sexual act, and it is the audience who is your partner at this moment.  And you have to ask yourself, “How much do I give to the artist?” The difference between an audience who succumbs to the artist and one that does not is enormous. It is like making love to a plastic doll.

- How do you prepare for your roles?

- The voice functions like the face of a model.  When you are going to do a photography shoot, you have to treat yourself to more sleep so that you have the least ‘wrinkles’ possible.  And on the day of a performance, if a singer tries to rest everything so the voice can be as fresh as possible, that is ideal.

- Why did you decide to live in Europe?

- I like Madrid, we have a most beautiful house where I am able to have all the things I want in my life, achieve all my whims.

- Do you have the tastes of a divo, eccentricities?

- Eccentricities, none.  But, yes, I give myself the things that I want.  I have a wine cellar in my home, with a pile of wine I have collected.  I have a pool, a gymnasium, the things that we have always wanted in the way we like most.

Cura confesses that when he is alone in the house he enjoys silence and he never sings in the shower.  He prefers to shop, to cook, and to taste wine.

- And you also like photography?

- Yes, I love it, and we are now negotiating the release of my first book of photographs with a Swiss publisher.  I like news-photography, not posed photos, and take to the streets with my camera to collect the testimony of the entire world.  I grab hold of my camera and get lost.  I have ended up in some screwed up neighborhoods and more than once have had to be removed from complicated situations.  I love to know the true face of a town.

- Opera is often considered to be of the elite.  Is this something that bothers you?

- It is always spoken of as elite, but anywhere in the world the ticket price to listen to an opera costs less that the cost of tickets to the [sports] field.  For many years there was a tendency:  people who liked classical music wanted to feel exclusive, but that is stupid because the composers wrote the music for everyone.  They were simple people, but not easy people.  They were geniuses because they were simple, and this trend to deify them became fashionable at the beginning of the twentieth century, when these divisions were created for the purpose for with which all divisions are created:  “Divide and you will rule.’ When in fact there is only good music and bad music.  There is boring classical music and brilliant popular music.

José Cura is one of the tenors in greatest demand on the international stage and also one of the most popular figures in classical music, but he does not agree with such high praise. His is a multifaceted talent (singer, conductor, composer, guitarist, régisseur and businessman), impelled by a spirit always eager for creativity and challenges, leading him on a journey toward artistic satisfaction.  Always on the edge of frenzy from this fascinating life, Cura’s temperament seems to have been forged to enjoy facing risks, as a real titan, and not in vain has it been written that his is one of the greatest voices of the century.  For all that, and in spite of his youth, José Cura has already joined Olympus as one of the mythical singers [sacred monsters] of the 21^st century.  

An anticipated return home

He returned to Argentina, like one of our more prodigal sons, for a concert production of the opera Samson et Dalila by Teatro Colon, but most of all to his audience, to their affection, and to his family.  “After 16 years in Europe, my house, in a physical sense, is no longer in Argentina.  But my feelings, my memories and my most intimate experiences, these will always continue to remain in my country.  I am happy to return and meet again with the people with whom I grew up in an artistic sense.  I want to see the countrymen with whom I was lucky enough to share the ‘kindergarten’ of the stage,” recounted José in a talk in Berlin, Germany, not long before he returned home. And then, as it could not otherwise be, speaking of reunions inevitably means speaking of memories and the conversation, with Cura showing a less familiar side, could not help but begin with his beloved hometown, Rosario.

Memories of Rosario

“The oldest images I retain of Rosario,” he recalls, “are the first two or three days of primary school.  I do not know if that was in the LaSalle or San José School, because after three days my parents withdrew me to enroll me into a new school, one that had just opened by the brothers of Saint Patrick of Ireland.  We were the first class.  There were barely two rooms and a patio.  My class was also the first class to graduate.  Today it is a great school, one of the biggest in Rosario. The last time I was in Argentina, in 1999, I visited the school, I met with the students and I encountered a couple of my former companions.  So there is where I begin my memories of Rosario, in the little school of St Patrick. In reality so many years have passed…and it is only now when I return that I perceive this passing of time.”  The imaginary route soon pass by his old house near the river and the second one in the first residential district of Rosario.  Almost immediately, and understanding the strong connection that joins them, music arrived and, of course, with it the beginning of the history whose future chapters would cause him to do nothing less than conquer the world.  “Music always formed part of my family.  My father played piano well enough.  I have a very clear image of when, as a boy, I watched him, seated at the piano, playing Chopin and Liszt.  Then he tried to imprint on me his own story as a boy, sending me to study piano with a teacher in the neighborhood.  But the initiative did not work.”  After a few months, the teacher dismissed his young student with a brief note sent to his parents, in which he explained, sadly, that it would be best to wait for a time when an interest [in music] developed in José that had, to that moment, not been demonstrated, and at the same time he recommended looking for a hobby that appealed to the young man, because musical sensitivity did not seem strong in him.  “It was probably true at that time, and the best example was that, from that moment, I began to devote myself to rugby.” 

Musical Beginnings

But when did he discover his extraordinary vocation in music and what was that cause that permanently awoke his sensibilities?  Oddly and without warning, that event was the result of an examination to enter secondary school.  “I was there with one of my best friends.  He played his guitar, the Beatles were fashionable, and he created a lot of interest.  I learned to play immediately and the experience awoke the calling that had been sleeping within me.”  This was the friend who gave him his first set of tools.  Soon, his father contacted Ernesto Bitteti (an old family friend), and Bitteti recommended a professor with whom to study seriously.  That began the history with the guitar.  “With my exuberant and extroverted personality, I was like a time bomb.  I learned to play well enough, although always somewhat hampered by my very large hands…the things were causing me quite a lot of work but I managed to have good results.  The guitar, though, very quickly made me feel small, not in a technical sense but in the fact of it being a very introverted instrument.  For that reason, I entered the Conservatory in Rosario to study conducting and composition.” 

One of his teachers—who at the time was the director of the conservatory—gave him the advice that changed his life forever:  “His comment determined who I am today.  He said to me: To become a better conductor and composer, you will have to study singing.’  Indeed, following his advice I began singing opera and ended up becoming a singer.”  Everything that happened after that is more or less well-known history; in 1983 he auditioned for the Teatro Colon, in 1991 he left for Europe, where success and fame waited for him with open arms and rewarded him for years of sacrifice in pursuit of his dream.

Today, and for some time, José Cura has been one of the biggest names on the international music scene.  He is an exceptional professional who believes art is a profound path in life.

“One of the characteristics of classical music is that it is one of the few forms of art that remains, between one person and another, a single thing:  to the work of art itself. We interpret that work live, without networks and without lies.  That artisan concept is probably the most important aspect of music and, in my opinion, why it continues to work, although as a spectacle it may be a little anachronistic.  It is an art of skin and bone, fact with flood, sweat and tears, and for that reason it is an expression that stays alive. It is my hope that all people, at least once in their lives, are touched by this sensation, so powerful and so extraordinary.”

Love of Cerulean Blue and White

In one of his latest disks, called Aurora, José Cura included a special dedication to ‘his country’ and printed the Argentine flag on the cover.  After launch ofthat record (2002) Cura said, “I want my people to know that, for the entire world and with much pride, José Cura is an Argentine tenor.” 

 

 Rosarino Tenor José Cura

 Rosario, 9 July 2007 (DYN) – The Rosarino tenor José Cura performed  in this city after an absence of eight years, accompanied on piano by another internationally recognized son of Rosario, Eduardo Delgado, in a celebratory recital in the Teatro Fundación Astengo.

The recital was carried out last night within the framework of the 25^th anniversary of the Mozarteum Argentino Filial Rosario and before an enthusiastic and effusive audience that filled the auditorium to capacity.

The audience was attentive to the singer in the interpretation of works by John Carter, Carlos Guastavino, Alberto Ginastera, Héctor Panizza, Leonard Bernstein, Gabriel Fauré and of Cura’s own works,  “Sonetos,” a series of songs inspired by the poetry of Chilean Pablo Neruda.

Cura recalled that in 1999, while he was participating in a production of Francesca di Rimini in Palermo, Italy, he returned to his dressing room to find a book of poems by Neruda that had a totally anonymous dedication:  “For you, who sing of love, words of love.”

The tenor said that the emotions that filled him on reading the verses immediately awoke the desire to compose songs for the text, but he had to delay [completing the cycle] for some years until he could finally finish in 2006.

Cura returned to his home town after a series of concerts performances of Camille Saint-Saëns’ opera “Samson et Dalila” at the Teatro Coliseo in Buenos Aires.  The tenor was accompanied on this occasion by Delgado, an outstanding pianist who has lived for three decades in Los Angeles, in the United States, and who returns at least twice a year to Rosario to visit his mother.

Delgado, who performs as well as teaches at important educational institutions in the US, served last night as a first rate accompanist and offered works by Maurice Ravel, Maurice Ravel, Carlos Guastavino and Ástor Piazzola during the concert.

Cura emphasized that the poems of Neruda “Awaken the senses, is theatrical in an old-fashioned way.  Each word is loaded with theater and drama.”

“They are written for a high baritone because I consider the voice of a baritone the most beautiful for chamber music, just as that of the mezzo is for a woman,” he said.

The tenor last performed in his hometown on Sunday, 11 April 1999, after an absence of twelve years, before an audience of some 40 thousand at the National Monument to the Flag in a concert that included songs from the Beatles.