Samson et Dalila, Bologna, June 2008:  “The merit of the final scene goes to José Cura, who seems reborn and purposefully refining the interpretation of the role that fits him so perfectly.”  La Repubblica, 2 June 2008

Samson et Dalila, Bologna, June 2008:  “José Cura as Samson also does well.  If recently he seemed to be chasing after the good old days when his voice was a flood, he now uses with good “economy,” even stylistically, the means at his disposal.  Applause.” Corriere della Sera, 15 June 2008

Samson et Dalila, Bologna, June 2008:  “Dalila, the beautiful Philistine who betrays Samson for racial hatred and thirst for revenge is Russian mezzo Julia Gertseva. She is beautiful, with a sumptuous voice, sings well, and is both musical and a musician. However, that necessary spark of inexpressible femininity fails to materialize. No such problem with the performance of José Cura. In the first act, shirt opened across his buff chest, he runs agilely up and down the metallic stairs that divides the two levels of the set, with the oppressive Philistines occupying the upper level, the oppressed Jews on the lower one.   And if the instrument is not be what it once was, any ungenerous thought is swept away in the second act, that of seduction and betrayal, where the emphasis is more intimate and conflicted to prepare for the arrival of the true emotions that comes in the third act, where shorn, wounded, and suffering, [Cura] shows himself to be a mature and sensitive interpreter, with the true timbre of an artist.  A great success…”  Il Sole 24 Ore, 5 June 2008

Samson et Dalila, Bologna, June 2008:  “The Bologna season ended with a resounding success for Samson et Dalila, marked by the rhythmic ‘ola’ of the final applause. Principle merit must be attributed to that vocal and interpretive hurricane who answers to the name of José Cura. One of the roles felt most keenly by the Argentinean tenor from Rosario is Samson. You may have seen and heard him in action at the Teatro Regio in Turin when he caused a sensation by appearing in loin-cloth, or at the Liceu in Barcelona when his unexpected performance substituting for José Carreras resulted in him becoming a favorite of that theater. In short, Cura is the only Samson. Beyond the undeniable stage presence, it must be noted in this role [Cura’s] obvious musical engagement in respect to the score and in adherence to the signs of expression, arriving at a display of unthinkable and sweet mezzevoci in the vocal surrender, where the timbre of precious bronzed amber stands out in all it manly beauty. Thus applied we want to see and listen more often but one thing more is also Cura: unpredictable. However, when he is on stage he is the catalyst who demands the attention while the other struggle twice as hard to be noticed.”  L'Opera, August 2008

Samson et Dalila, Bologna, June 2008:  “The predominant tessitura of Samson is congenial to both the beautiful voice of José Cura and his temperament. The broad timbre, encased in burnished velvet, is at its best in the middle tones…in the third act the singer offers the best of himself and the results are excellent, showcasing a man defeated but not tamed, making credible and touching the prolonged moral agony. This Samson, in fact, is not drawn from the religious, maintains at all time a very strong human nature with no hidden ‘divine mission,’ combining fragility and vulnerability to make the events even more tragic.”  Teatro.Org, 6 June 2008

Samson et Dalila, Bologna, June 2008:  “With his natural fighter’s temperament, José Cura mesmerized the audience and it would be difficult nowadays to find a more convincing Samson with the requisite quasi-baritonal qualities.”  Opera Now, September/October 2008

Samson et Dalila, Bologna, June 2008:  “With great pleasure we found José Cura in wonderful form, extraordinary in stage craft and incisive in accents and phrasing.  A triumph.”  GBOpera Magazine, 11 June 2008

Samson et Dalila, Santander, August 2008:  “Tenor José Cura undoubtedly has style, and his beautiful timbre shone brightly in his debut in the Santander Festival. He has the force and dramatic quality necessary [for this role] and was splendid in the second act aria, Mon coeur s'ouvre á ta voix, sung with Dalila.”  El Diario Montanes, 29 August 2008

Samson et Dalila, Santander, August 2008:  “There is no doubt that anticipation had been raised about José Cura's portrayal of Samson. The Argentine's stage presence is both very powerful and magnetic, perhaps somewhat exaggerated, even overwhelming. In that sense, he creates a believable character, albeit with certain aspects of posturing, designed to delight the audience visually but at the same time interfering with the perception of his vocal qualities, which proved uneven throughout the evening, particularly in the first act.  The second act brought us the most inspired Cura of the evening; the Argentine seemed to calm his fiery locomotor, to the benefit of his art: it can be said that he shone in what is undoubtedly the opera's star aria, Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix.  The third act again showed some difficulties, though fortunately not at the precarious level of the first act. The singer's French, at times unintelligible, deserves special mention…In short, an uneven operatic evening that nonetheless drew enthusiastic applause from an audience.” El Diario Montanes, 30 August 2008

Samson et Dalila, Santander, August 2008:  “The vocal attraction of the evening centered on tenor José Cura, who is a true diva and presented as such. Cura has great confidence, a powerful voice, and very good delivery. He performed at a great level and received the evening's greatest ovations.   The Santander performance was a notable success and the audience, which packed the venue, celebrated the triumph.”  El Mundo, 29 August 2008

Samson et Dalila, Santander, August 2008:  “In the cast, José Cura reigned supreme, as expected in one of his favorite roles. It's clear that the tenor lacks refined vocals but the forcefulness of his singing overcomes the lack of care in his diction, overwhelming with richness and demonstrating a power as Samson that captivated the audience.”  ABC, 31 August 2008 

Samson et Dalila, Liege, September 2009:  “Strictly balanced between the hieratic general and the psychological particular, he directed all the actors except the Argentine tenor José Cura who was allowed free rein and for good reason: the singer knows the role thoroughly, he brings to it his deep, warm timbre (habits, too) and, despite some reservations in style and diction, he embodies, by his immense talent, his charisma, and his generosity, the trump card of the production. The Russian mezzo Julia Gertseva (Dalila) has a superb voice but she needs to move out of her reserve, in sexiness and cruelty, to match the fiery temperament of Cura.”  La Libre, 21 September 2009

Samson et Dalila, Liege, September 2009:  “This premiere of the 2009/10 season was not really a success. Due to the renovation works at the Théâtre Royal on the Place Grétry, the opera was performed in the Country Hall Ethias. It is a hall intended for sports events: completely devoid of atmosphere, with terribly bad acoustics, uncomfortable chairs and so spacious that the action on the improvised stage could barely be followed.  Pity, because this only partially did justice to José Cura's performance.  You could, of course, hear that his voice is ideal for this role, although his French diction was nothing to write home about. But he has the right voice type, unforced high notes and he knows how to give the role the right amount of drama. Moreover, he has the physique for Samson: when he strode onto the stage in the first act with his chest bare and a donkey's jawbone in his hand, we immediately thought of Victor Mature in the 1949 film by Cecil B. DeMille.  But the beautiful performances were severely hampered by the poor acoustics.”   Opera Gazet, 20 September 2009

Samson et Dalila, Liege, September 2009:  “Julia Gertseva, with a beautiful figure and a large mezzo voice, displayed nothing of the irresistible seducer. And she needed the sensuality to cope with José Cura’s Samson: powerful, carnal, of real presence. If in his first ‘speech’ exhorting the Hebrew to free themselves from their chains the tenor mishandle the accuracy and the line of singing, in the second act as a man torn between his God and Dalila he revealed mastery of his broad, solid tonal range, from the low register to the high. Cura unleashed in the third act, painfully, tragically.”  Le Soir, 21 September 2009

Tenor José Cura returns to Spain as Samson

Cura has achieved worldwide recognition on various stages around the world with the role

EFE

El Universal

26 august 2008

[Computer-assisted Translation  // Excerpt]

Argentine tenor José Cura returns to the role of Samson, one of his most acclaimed characters, in a new version of Camille Saint-Saëns’classic, with which he debuts tomorrow at the International Festival of the Spanish city of Santander (FIS).

For the artist, the biblical story of Samson and Delilah, one of the great works of the international opera repertoire, demonstrates that in more than three thousand years "nothing has changed" and that killing in the name of God, "whether his name is Yahweh, Krishna, or Allah, is cowardly."

"In my opinion, regardless of religion, regardless of political affiliation, when you kill, you kill, and if it's done in the name of God, then so much the worse," the tenor said at a press conference today.

José Cura will once again play Samson in this production by the Teatro Comunale in Bologna and is being presented for the first time in Spain.  Mezzo-soprano Julia Gertseva, in the role of Dalila, and baritone Mark Rucker, as the High Priest, will share a stage conceived as an abstract space.  For this production, according to Polish director  Michal Znaniecki, two different worlds have been created, one full of color and the other in black and white to recreate a biblical conflict between Jews and Philistines, which could also be a conflict today.

The director confessed that José Cura helped him better understand this opera and has led him to abandon, for example, the classical approach to ballet, which is a common feature in all French operas, in order to give it greater emotion.

Eliahu Inbal also praised the tenor's "great musical personality," joking that in Spain Cura only sings on the coast: at the Liceu in Barcelona or now in Santander.

"Let's see if I'm invited to a theater a little further inland," laughed the Argentine singer, who hasn't returned to Madrid's Teatro Real in eight years when he challenged a section of the audience that had booed him after the famous aria Di Quella Pira from Il trovatore.

Among his plans is to return to another of his facets as a musician, that of orchestra conductor.

He made his debut a decade ago in front of the orchestra of the Bologna Theater, where, as he revealed in Santander, he will return next January to conduct “a whole symphonic concert, with music from the American continent from North to South, from Barber to Piazzola.”

“Ten years later I will meet again with the same orchestra, all older, balder and more gray-haired, but perhaps a little wiser. I think it will be a very fun concert,” he predicted.

And when asked if at some point he will consider giving up singing to devote himself to conducting, he resorts to a phrase his wife repeats often: “Tells me I can retire when I have paid off the mortgage.”

"The stage is the best psychotherapy for an artist."

El Diario Montanes

Maxi de la peña

29 August 2008

[Computer-assisted Translation  / Excerpt]

José Cura believes there are more divas in politics than in music and believes bad taste is the imitation of old molds.

He speaks clearly, distinctly, without empty rhetoric, and likes to get straight to the point. Tenor José Cura (Rosario, Argentina, 1962) does not move through life quietly; he says things that may cause others to like him or not, as either an artist and individual, because he says things people don't like to hear. His discourse is straightforward. He learned to sing after studying conducting and composition. The roles in Samson and Otello have brought him artistic fame. Cura possesses a strong artistic personality, a tenor who can sing like a baritone and is not afraid of retiring from the stage.

Q:  - Are critics ultimately conservative? Do they simply wants "jack, queen, and king" and penalize passion?

JC:  - When I was younger, I was a bit of a "blind bull" and gored people left and right. With time, I matured and learned when to gore and when not to.  I think critics, just like the audience, have different tastes and like different things. What I will say about critics and audiences is that regardless of whether you like the old style better—or to put it more brutally, you think nobody sings as the dead sang, which is fine because it is a form of respect for the past—they shouldn’t deny the merits of the present generation.   I’m not talking about me personally but about everyone.  Young people need encouragement to get on stage, and if the people who are watching and making comments are always focused on the past, there can be no evolution, no change, no progress.

Q:  - Are there many Taliban among the opera audience, a few hardened tribes?

JC:  - There's a lot of Tthat when you're in a group, because it's easier.   On your own, you may think differently but you get carried away a bit by the mass. I'll make the same request for the members of the audience as for critics: respect and admiration for the past, encouragement for the present, and even more encouragement for the future, for our children, who will manage everything that's to come.

Q: - You're a temperamental person. Do you suffer a lot when things don't go well for you?

JC:  - I suffer quite a bit in general. On an artistic level, on an administrative level, on a human level, when I see that things could be a certain way and aren't, I think I can get upset like any other human being. Especially when I see that the evidence is one way and the reality is another.

Q:  - What is a stage for you?

JC:  - The stage, for an artist, for an actor or a singer, is that place of illusion. It's the place where you can be a cowboy, a king, a villain, or a hero, and it's where you can unleash our healthy schizophrenia. It's the best psychotherapy.

Q:  - Are you a self-taught singer?

JC:  - Just because I have a personal way of producing my sounds doesn't mean that my way of singing isn't studied and thoughtful. After thirty years on stage and twenty years of an international career, I couldn't continue singing with a fresh and healthy voice if I didn't have the necessary studies and learning. Now, I'm self-taught because it's the way to have a personality, a way of expressing myself. I've had very good teachers but in the last fifteen years, I've preferred to be the lord and master of my responsibilities, my flaws and virtues of what I do so that when the audience hears me, they say, 'This is the Cura sound,' whether they like it or not. When you see these kinds of assessments, they always correspond to an artist who has been somewhat rebellious.

Samsón and Dalila shows the cowardice to kill in the name of God

Saint Saëns’ opera stars the charismatic Argentine tenor José Cura

Eldariomontenas

Maxi De La Peña

27 August 2008

[Computer-assisted Translation //  Excerpts]

“To kill in the name of God is the way of cowards.” The charismatic Argentine tenor José Cura, the male lead in the opera Samson et Dalila by Camille Saint-Saëns, wants to accent the ‘sad’ force of the argument found in this work inspired by the Book of Judges from the Old Testament.  The Argentine singer and conductor attended an introduction yesterday of the opera being presented during this year’s International Festival of Santander, a production made possible by the joint efforts of four European theaters: Comunale de Bolonia, the Ópera Real de Wallonie, the Ópera de Wroclaw and the Giusseppe Verdi de Trieste.

[…]

For [conductor Eliahu] Inbal, it is a question of the opera being of the ‘highest quality’ and of emphasizing something that is centered on the charismatic figure of José Cura “that supports the musical tension.”  He thanks the director, Michal Znaniecki from Poland, for his great contribution since “he has found the visceral sense of the opera.”

José Cura, who along with many others planned to stroll Santander next to his wife and son and to visit Santalilana del Mar, mused aloud about the reasons “operas are so often presented in the least attractive cities.  Here, two things are joined.  If things go well, I hope to return.”

On a professional level, he explained that there are many ties that bind him the Bologna theater. “The reunion with Michal Znaniecki, who has for the last three or four years been the artistic director of Opera Warsaw and with whom I worked in the Comunale, has been special.  These are the returns of classical music.”  The tenor jokingly complained about singing in the coastal cities of the Iberian Peninsula (Barcelona, Valencia, Lisbon, and now Santander), to which he added:  “I hope they invite me to sing more often on the inside.”

The Argentine opera star didn’t waste [the opportunity] presented by this new adaptation of the Camille Saint-Saëns to analyze the plot background.  The action is developed in Israel, during the occupation of the Philistines, in the time of the Judges. “In my opinion, when it is by religion, as represented in the current political climate, that one commits suicide, when one kills himself in the name of God it is much worse.  It has been 3,500 years since the war between the Philistines and the Jews and nothing has changed in the world.  As human beings we are responsible for our actions and should not seek out excuses from a superior being.”

On the hypothetical question about his future retirement, Cura threw up his hands with both a sense of humor and of reality:  most opera singers are not millionaires, except those who belong to the ‘star system.’ “My wife,” he added, “tells me I can retire when I have paid off the mortgage.”

"Killing in the name of God is cowardly, whether His name is Yahweh, Krishna, or Allah."

EFE

26 August 2008

 [Computer-assisted Translation // Excerpt]

Argentine tenor José Cura makes his debut at the FIS with a new production of Samson et Dalila, which will be performed Wednesday and Friday and shows that in more than three thousand years "nothing has changed" in the world.

Argentine tenor José Cura will make his debut tomorrow at the Santander International Festival (FIS) with a new production of Samson et Dalila by Camille Saint-Saëns, an opera that, in his opinion, speaks of the fact that killing in the name of God, "whether His name is Yahweh, Krishna, or Allah, is cowardly," and shows that in more than three thousand years "nothing has changed."

"In my opinion, regardless of religion, regardless of political affiliation, when someone kills, they kill, and if it's done in the name of God, so much the worse," he said at a press conference today.

The biblical story, which the composer of The Carnival of the Animals turned into one of the great works of the repertoire, conveys, in his opinion, that same idea, as well as that human beings should "take charge of their own affairs and not seek in a higher being, or whatever you want to call it, the courage we don't have."

José Cura, one of the most popular voices in opera, will once again embody a character for which he has been acclaimed in theaters around the world in this production by the Teatro Comunale in Bologna, which premiered on May 31 in the Italian city and will be performed tomorrow for the first time in Spain.

This new version of Saint-Saëns's opera, which is not a very common title in the programming of Spanish theaters, is musically directed by Israeli maestro Elihau Inbal, who will be in the pit opposite the Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro Comunale of Bologna, while Polish director Michal Znaniecki is in charge of stage direction.

Mezzo-soprano Julia Gertseva, in the role of Dalila, and baritone Mark Rucker, as the High Priest, will share with the Argentine tenor a stage conceived as an abstract space.

As Znaniecki explained, two different worlds have been created, one full of color and the other in black and white to recreate a biblical conflict, pitting Jews against Philistines, but which could also be a modern-day conflict—although, in his opinion, that is something for the audience to understand and decide.

The director confessed that Cura helped him better understand this opera and has led him, for example, to abandon the classical approach to ballet, which is a staple in all French operas, in order to give it more emotion.

Elihau Inbal also praised the tenor's "great musical personality," joking that in Spain he only sings on the coast: at the Liceu in Barcelona or now in Santander. "Let's see if I'm invited to a theater a little further inland," added the Argentine singer, who hasn't returned to Madrid's Teatro Real since he challenged a section of the audience that booed him after the famous Di quella pira from Il trovatore.

Among his plans is to return to another of his musical roles: that of orchestra conductor. He made his debut a decade ago with the Teatro di Bologna orchestra, where, as he revealed in Santander, he will return next January to conduct "a full symphonic concert, with music from the American continent from North to South, from Barber to Piazzolla."

"Ten years later, I'll find myself with the same orchestra again, all older, balder, and grayer, but perhaps a little wiser. I think it will be a very fun concert," he predicted.

And when asked if he will ever consider giving up singing to dedicate himself to conducting, he resorts to a phrase his wife has often repeated: "You can retire as soon as you pay off the mortgatee."