Corrected Copy!
Interview with José
Cura: “In classical
music, versatility breeds
suspicion."
Fidelio
11 April 2024
[Copy courtesy of José
Cura. We send
our thanks to Madrid!]
- In the last years
we heard you as a singer,
a conductor and a composer
fortunately frequently,
and you also have a
strong relationship
with VeszprémFest. How
did it happen that you
have such a strong relationship
with Hungary?
Human chemistry is something
difficult to explain
and maybe it is good
that it’s so. I did
my first concert in
Hungary in the year
2000. Next year will
be the “silver wedding”
of my relationship with
the Magyar music family:
25 years of amazing
collaboration! This
concert within the VeszprémFest
program will also mark
my 20th anniversary
of musical friendship
with a city of which
I am a honorary citizen,
and whose festival I
myself inaugurated in
2004, together with
Zoltán Kocsis.
- The program note says
that you chose the pieces
especially for the concert
at VeszprémFest. What
can we know about the
program of the concert?
What will we hear?
Having performed already
three times in the VeszprémFest,
I wanted to recover
the spirit of the very
first concert in 2004,
in which the program
was an eclectic show,
more than the obvious
popular combination
of opera arias. Back
then, I conducted Zoltan
Kocsis in Rachmaninov’s
Piano concerto nº2,
and he conducted me
in opera excerpts. The
following concerts (2010
and 2018) were based
on just operatic repertoire
in collaboration with
great colleagues like
Komlosi, Rost, Miklosa
or Vargas. This time,
I am proud to bring
my country’s chamber
songs in the first half,
backed-up by the amazing
Czech guitarist, Barbora
Kubikova, my long time
friend and great pianist,
Dora Bizjak, and the
Mendelssohn chamber
orchestra, followed
by a second half of
operatic hits, in collaboration
with one of my favorite
sopranos, Polina Pasztircsak,
with maestro De Rose
conducting an enlarged
version of the Mendelssohn
orchestra.
- You often sing Argentinian
music. How did these
songs affect you in
your childhood to find
your way into becoming
a musician? How did
they shape your ideas
about music?
I had no real connection
with this music when
I was young, apart from
some iconic songs. My
family, with 100% of
European origins, even
if proudly born in Argentina
from their emigrant
parents, was more into
international music.
It was in 1999, when
my symbolic status of
cultural ambassador
of Argentina —after
the release of my disc
“Anhelo”—, that I got
two large boxes of scores
and a letter from the
publishers begging me
to become the flag bearer
of this incredible music.
I have been touring
them since then, either
with piano accompaniment
or with a chamber orchestra
performing my own arrangements.
When I recently approached
the same publishers
asking them to include
my arrangements in their
catalogues, they refused.
So much so for gratitude…
But the composers, my
brothers in music, are
not responsible of their
publishers’ miseries,
so I will proudly perform
this amazing songs until
I run out of breath
in my lungs!
- You said in an interview
you like all the roles
you have ever played.
How easy or difficult
to get into a character
when you sing only one
aria in a concert?
Getting under the skin
of a character is the
biggest challenge and
at the same time the
most rewarding feeling
for a singer/actor.
It is there where the
definition of modern
opera relies and not
in creating a nonsense
shows using public money
to exorcize the director’s
psychological traumas…
It is of course not
easy to “become” someone
else during the 5’ of
an aria, unless you
have sufficient experience
in the full role to
be able to extrapolate
the momentum, conveying
the necessary emotions.
However, not every aria
needs such theatrical
resource to be a crowd
pleaser. If you perform
the “Death of Otello”,
you need to create the
mood, but if you sing
“Nessun dorma”,
you just need to hold
the last note long enough!
:-)
- Do you feel you can
show yourself more personally
in an aria concert than
in the other forms of
music making?
It is a tricky question
to answer properly in
a short quote. A “concert
of arias” is nothing
else than a collection
of “samplers” that,
although entertaining
for the audience, is
still not the real thing.
Showing your “palette
of resources” in an
collection of arias
is like broadcasting
only the goals of a
football match instead
of the whole game. Playing
the whole 90’ of the
match is another pair
of gloves. And so is
to portray a full character
during 3 hours or more.
- Your partner will
be Polina Pasztircsák
with whom you sang in
Pagliacci, a few years
ago. How do you remember
working with her?
Polina is a dear colleague
of mine since we shared
the stage in Otello
at the State Opera
back in 2015. The spontaneous
professional friendship
that was born then is
growing stronger with
time. Not only did we
do Pagliacci
together, but also she
sang the World Premier
of my Te Deum
during the Enescu Festival
2021 and the Czech Premier
of it last year, in
the concert the Prague
Symphony orchestra dedicated
to my sixtieth birthday.
I hope we can perform
it in Hungary soon.
In 2023 Polina trusted
me to conduct her debut
in Puccini’s La rondine,
and now we are sharing
the stage for the VeszprémFest.
- In your compositions
you reach an even wider
circle of musical styles
than as a singer. For
example your Requiem
doesn’t follow the traditional
form with arias and
chorus parts. Are the
biological possibilities
of a singer too narrow
to explore all the music
you want?
The richer the number
of colours you want
to paint your “life
canvas” with, the largest
the palette your creativity
needs. This doesn’t
mean that “just singing”
is not enough if you
decide not to enlarge
your spectrum, but it
is surprising that in
the twenty-first century,
while in other artistic
activities a single
person can deploy several
specialities, in the
Classical Music industry
this polyhedral approach
is regarded as suspicious…
It took me several years
of the usual “hung-up”
comment “Cura is a Jack
of all trades”, before
reaching the “Cura is
a polymath, a Da Vinci
of our times”, recognition.
No complaints. I made
it. But I wonder how
many potential talents
we are losing along
the road due to this
“social jail”… A very
pertinent question these
days in which machines
are “instructing” us
about about how to do
almost everything.
- How do the different
kinds of activities
you do – singing, conducting,
composing or even directing
and photography – affect
each other? Do
you see them in complexity
or is it better and
more useful to always
change the point of
view?
All that I do can be
regarded as an independent
activity or as the “pinions"
of a complex mechanism.
How I use them, as a
single tool, or as a
“task force” where each
discipline complements
the others, depends
on the job I was engaged
to do.
- You are well-known
for concerns about problems
of society like poverty
or migration. What do
you think, how much
can music and arts do
to make a better world
and what should famous
musicians do beyond
their profession?
A famous personality
is someone to whom people
generally pay attention
to, a sort of “influencer”
—now that this word
is fashionable—. As
such, when you say or
do something, there
is a huge responsibility
implied. You can use
this “influencing capacity”
to sell trash, or to
embed a thought into
the collective mind
that will activate an
avalanche of consequences,
as in a cosmic “cannon”,
consequences that can
be positive or negative
depending on the moral
caliber of your influencing
power. If only the influencers
of all sorts would focus
their “enchanting privileges”
through this lens of
social responsibilities,
how many things would
change in a blink? Call
me an idealist…
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