A Long March

Der Tagespiegel

12 March 2008

Uwe Friedrich

The march from Ottorino Respighi's Pini di Roma is a compositional glorification of Mussolini. The composer presents his "March on Rome" in fascinating sonic splendor—anything that gets in his way will be crushed.  Respighi makes extremely skillful use of all the musical means of overwhelming aesthetics but at the same time he was also a great artist with a feeling for tonal colors, for an almost impressionistic fragrance that he added to Italian music. However, there is no sign of any of this in the conducting of tenor José Cura fronting the orchestra of the Deutsche Oper.  With expansive movement using both arms, he merely sets the tempo while his head is remains deep in the score. The horn players are left completely to their own devices, for Cura hardly makes a single cue for them throughout the evening. Wearing an open black shirt under his tailcoat, Cura holds the baton in his mouth while putting on his glasses. Refreshingly unconventional or just plain tacky? In any case, he doesn't make the fascist noise any better than it is, and the few Cura fans in the hall obviously like it.

It speaks to the quality of the orchestra that Sergei Rachmaninov's Second Symphony also goes off without any major incidents. Apparently, everyone involved counted the bars continuously so as not to miss their passages.  But the sprawling work comes off as colorless and clotted. Cura can't get rhythmic contours and finely graded climaxes right; even the cheap effects he strives for regularly fall flat. The mezzo-soprano Daniela Barcellona offered the lyrical poem "Der Sonnenuntergang" quite routinely with a sprawling vibrato, the strings pull their horsehairs over their instruments without ambition. At the end, Cura demonstratively raises the score aloft. For all those who would not have recognized the work otherwise.

Weight training with Verdi

DerWestern

Michael-Georg Müller

20 April 2008

MUSIC. The opera stage is also his gym: the Argentine star tenor and former rugby player José Cura lifts the high notes like other people lift dumbbells.

DÜSSELDORF. A singer is an athlete. That's what Jose Cura says again and again. And always dodges the question of whether he feels more comfortable in the gym or on the opera stage. In any case, you could see the muscles packs and broad chest under the fluttery shirt he wore at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein gala.

He prowls the stage softly like a lurking tiger.  The 45 year-old Argentinian wipes his medium long curls, dripping in sweat, from his face as he engages in his sport of singing—although he agreed to only three duets and three arias from Verdi and Puccini (and encored Nessun dorma twice).  That’s appropriate for his weight class.  The audience, paying up to 112 euros for seats in the opera circle for the Cura concert, responded with frenzied ovations.  "José - Grande" chanted the fans, well-versed in Italian and inspired.

Top pay for the testosterone tenor 

Bravos urge him on.  After high notes, the women respond as if he had lifted a 100-kilo dumbbell.  A former rugby player, Cura was a ‘nobody’ in the early 90s who earned money for his vocal studies as a fitness trainer.  In the mid-90s, the youthful powerhouse with sex appeal quickly became a superstar and, as lifestyle magazines wrote at the time, “the ideal male sex symbol.”  Then things quieted down around him, then he began to conduct (he would sometimes sing and conduct during the same performance), and more recently to direct.  For instance, he will premiere Verdi’s Masked Ball in mid-May at the Cologne Opera House.  But Cura still earns top fees as a singer:  he reportedly collected as much for one night in Düsseldorf as for the entire Cologne production.

His vocal chords are as taut as ever. At a thousand volts, the testosterone tenor turns up the heat.  Especially in the middle register he shines, carrying a glowing power, baritonal in weight and brilliantly dramatic.  As a result, Cura has found success in such roles as Corrado (in Verdi’s Il corsaro) or Otello.  Together with Teresa Waldner as Desdemona he leads the betrayed Otello into tragedy.   Immediately you see a figure of suffering—flesh, blood, tendons, and muscles.  But Cura had to struggle through the high registers, groaning as if he were bench-pressing, so he is certainly no successor to Pavarotti.  He stormed the summits with baritone Boris Statsenko in the Libertá duet between Don Carlos and Marquis Posa.  Here, Cura demonstrates how he shapes the works with passion and pathos.  Opera needs the Latin American for such spectacles.

Cura Breaks the Curse of the Real

The tenor, who participates tomorrow in Toledo in a tribute to Puccini, returns to the theater in 2011, after years of absence after facing the public

La Razon

Gema Pajares

(Excerpts)

The alarm clock sounded at seven in the morning for José Cura (Rosario, Argentina, 1962) on the day we had this conversation.  He was in the garden until 12, making an adjustment here, a revision there.  “I arrived (home) yesterday and saw that it had already grown very long hair,” he comments and sighs with a rich, deep laugh. 

Entering his study, after climbing two flights of stairs (the second of which is really long), is not a trivial task.  The first thing you find in an immense piano, a Bösendorfer covered with a black cloth. Cura proudly uncovers it, sits and plays a few notes.  “It sounds erotic, doesn’t it?” he fires off without batting an eye.  On both sides of the room are rows of red and yellow cushions, perfectly aligned.  And next to the piano, the drum kit of his son.  After several anecdotes (about how they came to have the house, the suffering experienced in the England-Argentina final in the 2002 World Cup), Cura takes off his shoes and tells us that in October he will begin a project he wants to leave as a legacy for future generations.

JC:   “It will be a recording of Argentine songs for voice and piano, followed by Italian, and then French.  It is a personal thing.  I’m not going to make money with it as things now stand.”

- “Do you think people are confused about who you are?  You project a somewhat aggressive image.” 

JC:  “People confuse the artist with the character he portrays, and so they label him as presumptuous, abusive, aggressive, but I am none of those things.  I am not Otello.  On stage you are living as the character but when you leave the stage you are not that person, though many do not understand that.   Eventually the job immunizes you.  As a young man you go everywhere with a loaded gun but life teaches you.  It calls you to mature and each of us does that in his own way.”

- “I do not know if the word mature is appropriate in this case, but after the incident at the Teatro Real with Il Trovatore (Cura was booed and responded from the stage),  you have had time to reflect, to learn.”

JC:  “For God’s sake, it’s been almost eight years…I wasn’t performing as a visitor on that day: my roots are Spanish.  In fact, one of my grandparents is from Soria.  I would like to see Spain feel proud that I say I am from here.  The time has come to look forward with enthusiasm.”

- “You may have forgotten, but the audience remembers.”

JC:  “It's better for me than for anyone else to sing at home, in Spain.”

- “Have you made peace with the Teatro Real?”

JC:  “We have talked several times and there is a date in 2011, the first in a series that will continue as long as I still have vocal chords.”

- “Is José Cura, then, back at the Real?”

JC:  “I will return.  The Real and the audience have lost the best year of my career, the years of my youth, over a foolish thing.  I have a very good relationship with Antonio Moral (artistic director of the Real).  Things will change very soon.”

- “In what role?”

JC:  “Perhaps I have already said too much.  It is a title I’ve sung often and that will be released on DVD in September.”

- “And which José Cura will we see?”

JC:  “The José Cura of 2011 is going to have very white hair.  I depend on an instrument that follows its own course.  The larynx is a part of your body and its progress cannot be controlled.” 

- “Do you think a trio such as Domingo, Pavarotti and Carreras would make sense today?”

JC:  “No, not at all.  I was offered it for years, with Alagna and Marcelo Alvarez, but it didn’t work out.  What nobody can doubt is that [the Three Tenors] marked an era.”

- “Why are there so many Latino voices in opera?”

JC:    “I ask you:  would you be surprised if there were four Italians at the top?  Why not?  We are talking about a vast expanse of land that runs from Mexico to Tierra del Fuego.  [Considering the size] There are not that many singers.  Generalizing, I will tell you that there is more need to go out and fight to survive than in Europe.  That is key.  The first twenty years are spent groping around in the dark.  And then, it depends on each…the arts are not learned from a book.”

- “Is it hard to say no?”

JC:    “It is very difficult to say no, although it is also necessary to learn how to say yes.  I made my debut in Otello in 1997 when I was 34.  I accepted because I knew exactly what to do so that yes would not become an accident.  It was an Otello paved with good intentions, with my idiosyncrasies, molded by me.  Copy and paste in art has no value, despite the fact we live in a world full of clones.”

- “I have the feeling that singers of your generation moved step by step.  There are artists today who fly at 30, touching the top and then falling.”

JC:    “That is the way it seems.  My generation suffered a little less so.  During the first ten years, we developed the muscle.  The internet is a beast, a double-edged knife, because today you are a nobody and tomorrow you are in all corners of the planet.”

- “In Santander you will sing Samson et Dalila in late August.  How have you modeled Samson?”

JC:    “He is the first suicide bomber in history, a maniac who kills because he had to.  Slaughter in the name of a god, no matter what religion, doesn’t make sense.”

- “So, as you say, we speak of a modern opera.”

JC:   “Ultramodern.  We are talking about espionage:  Dalila was a spy who obtained information.  She was paid to betray him.  It is the same as continues today.  We have not evolved at all.”

- “I do not know if this approach will find answers. …”

JC:    “They are my motivation to inhabit a character.  The artist has not only the right but the duty to seek his individual motivation.

José Cura: In opera, only the most well-grounded artists endure

EFE

lola camús

30 August 2008

The Argentine tenor José Cura has been on stage for twenty years and in that time he has seen how many singers, talented and less so, have been “broken.”  He is clear that the world of opera requires "strong backs" and that only the most solid artists endure, a "natural law" that extends to other areas such as sports or politics.

Composer, conductor and stage director as well as singer, he can now afford himself the luxury of seeking new paths, although he believes there are still stereotypes to be broken and ended—for  example, the idea that a singer cannot also be the director of the opera in which he performs.

"A Redford or a De Niro directs and acts at the same time and nothing is said.  If you have a good team of assistants and good coordination, everything can be done," this multifaceted musician who has just debuted at the Santander International Festival says in an interview with EFE and who has projects such as a new Samson et Dalila awaiting him in 2009, in which he will sing, direct and create the scenery.

Also on his agenda is Verdi’s Requiem that he will conduct in his country. The possibility of returning to his homeland is a recurring topic of conversation between the tenor and his wife, but at the moment they don't see it as fair for his children. "Their lives are here, their friends, their roots. It would be like breaking up the family," he explains.

However, he does not rule out that if in ten years he receives "a flattering offer" from his country, he could live between Spain and Argentina, "where there is not only the Colón but magnificent theaters in the interior of the country."

It is possible that he will return, although not until 2012, to the Teatro Real, where he has not performed since 2000 when he was confronted by a sector of the audience that booed him. Making a play on words, he says relations with the Madrid theater are going "really well" but he believes that it is those in charge who should broaden the meaning of that expression.

José Cura was trained as a composer and conductor but his life circumstances took him from an Argentina emerging from dictatorship to a Europe in need of new voices.

And the path he chose is demanding for those who start it. "The first five or six years are very hard because everyone throws themselves at you, the media, the public, the agents, the theaters... and if you don't have a strong back, they will crush you. Those of us who have managed to make it through that filter live to tell about it and are able to enjoy the maturity of our career," he explains.

"You have to go through a period of the big magazine covers, the label of the sex symbol of opera and its hope for the future, all that bullshit that is part of 'show business.'   If you endure it with your head in the right place, then you can publicly declare yourself a mature artist who has survived and is ready to transmit an art form with a certain authority," he adds.

Two great characters stand out in his repertoire, Samson and Otello, who are "sadly linked to the present."   He cannot build them from his personal experience as Stanislasky commands because "luckily" he is "neither a fanatical murderer nor a traitorous mercenary to my race."

His Otello "has developed another face" since 2001 and he asserts that the interpreter's obligation is to make an analysis of the society in which he lives and take current conditions to his characters if he does not want the opera to be "a museum piece."

Cura has little time to compose but he has found enough time to put music to seven sonnets by Neruda, his last work. And although he continues to record, he understands that the market "is undergoing a complete rethinking." If in 1997 the goal in classical music was to sell 200,000 copies, today 10,000 is a gold record.

He also believes that the buyer "pays the price" when the records leave the production company at five euros and then sold for twenty and that the new technologies are rewarding "the artists of race, who claim their profession: get on the table and communicate with the public live".

He also believes that the buyer "pays the price" when the records leave the production company at five euros and are sold at twenty and that the new technologies are rewarding "the artists of quality, who defend their profession: to get on the platforms and communicate with the public live."

José Cura, world-famous Argentine tenor, was a guest in Croatia

Stop with the Clichés about Classical Music

Jijenac

Jana Haluza

9 October 2008

[Excerpts]

José Cura is no ordinary tenor: after studying composition and conducting in his hometown of Rosario, he took singing lessons to deepen his knowledge of music and gained a better sense of phrasing. It was then he discovered his singing talent and only at age 29 did he begin to sing professionally.  The start of his singing career, however, did not end his interest in other fields of music and art.  In addition to playing five instruments (piano, guitar, trombone, flute and percussion), he is a composer and conductor, designer of sets and director of operas, all while engaging in artistic photography. This summer he released a book of photographs entitled Espontáneas, which Cura says is a "collection of moments caught by a nomad."

Q:  Argentina is a country that, in comparison to other parts of Latin America, seems to exude a European tradition and heritage. What can you tell us about your origins?

JC - Argentina is, as you know, a country of immigrants. More than ninety percent of the people are descendants of immigrants. One was my grandfather, who was Lebanese, one was my grandmother, who was Italian, and another was Spanish. My blood is mostly European. I am Argentinian because I was born in Argentina, but my ancestors were mostly from Europeans. Each one who came had something from Europe to add to Argentina itself, so that our music, culture and customs are very European. Even our most important composers, like Ginastera and Guastavino, wrote in the style of European classical music with the spices of Argentine folklore.  My first time on stage came when I was twelve years old, which means that I have now been on stage for 32 years, which is a long time.

Q: You began as a composer and conductor. What led you to becoming opera singer?

JC - I think every composer and conductor should know to sing. This is important because singing is our most natural musical activity—our first encounter with music is when we first begin to sing as children. For any professional musician, whether singer or instrumentalist, singing should be an integral part of life.

When I was learning composition and conducting, a professor recommended that I also learn to sing so I could become a better songwriter and a better conductor. I would give that advice to many conductors today: singing will make them better.  And that’s how I discovered my voice. The time needed to learn to sing is very long and hard.   I worked long and hard to develop it and I only fully succeeded in the last five or six years. It took me almost twenty years to develop my voice.

Q:  Do you still compose?

JC - Yes, though I don’t have a lot of time.  Just last summer in Italy I premiered a solo song cycle to the poems of Pablo Neruda of which I am quite proud.  Next year I will arrange the publishing of the score and record the works on CD.

Q:  What compositional work are you most proud of?

JC - I don’t know. To be honest, most of my work date back to the period of life in Argentina, and that means before 1992.  However, among my most important works are a Requiem, a Stabat Mater, and a half - hour children's opera - not for performance on stage but in a cartoon.  Once my singing career became so successful, I had a hard time finding time to compose. It may sound romantic to write during breaks in rehearsals but it’s not really feasible. Composing requires the necessary peace, and if you travel from city to city all the time, you have no peace.

Q:  How would you describe your style of composition?

JC - I do not know, it depends on the subject. My Requiem in is a neo-romantic style, [similar] to the style created by Krzysztof Penderecki, my dear friend and a composer who has strongly influenced me.  I learned a lot through his music. However, my Magnificat is more avant-garde, built n a more complex musical language created on the principles of serialism.  And the Neruda's sonnets are quite tonal because his words are so wonderful and too violent, avant-garde music would not suit them. I had to work on harmony and melody to make the text more expressive. Here the lyrics are more important than the music, but that’s not my typical musical style.

Q:  Has the experience of composing and conducting helped you in your singing career?

JC - I can't say that it helped me, but it enabled me to understand some things faster and better.

Q:  Are composing songs and performing operas two opposite sides of a coin?

JC - These are quite different positions. The composer is a chef in the kitchen, working alone where no one can see.  The other is a performer who takes his music and carries it to the audience. The conductor  is the only bridge, the link between composers and audiences.

Q:  So far, you have agreed to conduct about once a year. Do you intend to start conducting more regularly soon?

JC - Not yet.  My plan has always been to start conducting more often when I am no longer singing. The life of a singer is like the life of a dancer, perhaps a little longer, but certainly limited because we depend on our physical condition.  Depending on how your body reacts to the passage of time, you will song longer or less long.  I can continue to conduct until I die and for now it’s time for me to sing and act.

Q:  Have the Three Tenors made it harder to be a tenor?

JC - No, you still work on your own style, your own way of singing, according to personal taste.   We live in a time of new systems, of Internet and YouTube, which has completely changed our lives.  As soon as you sing somewhere, be it good or bad, the whole world sees it. That is what has changed our conditions quite a bit.

Q:  What do you think is the role of classical music today, the opportunities and spiritual exaltation?

JC - It's a question that will be difficult to answer. Many say that opera and classical music are relics from the past that you do not need to spend money on today. Those in the opera world say the opposite.  The whole conflict is ridiculous and pointless. I think that in all things there are equal shares of the beautiful, the ugly, the boring. In classical music, as well as in pop music, sports and politics, there are good things and performers, and on the other hand there is a lot of rubbish.  The intelligent folks will try to take only the best of everything.  Just enjoy a good piece of theater, ballet, a good rock concert, even a football game. I think that in the 21^st century we should no longer have to worry about whether something belongs under an elite label and do not need to have instructions on what we need to do - that is so old-fashioned.

Q:  Do you think that the general level of music education has fallen in recent years?

JC - Clearly, I think. Generally, all spiritual values and artistic discipline are in decline, and for many reasons - cultural, political, financial - every country has its reasons. Thirty or forty years ago you could expect a good career as an engineer, as a lawyer or a doctor; it was always harder for a musician. Today the world is so complicated that every career means both a lot and nothing. Today you can be unemployed as an engineer and successful as an actor, or vice versa.  No career guarantees you a job.  Today, everything depends on individual talent and preparedness. Talented individuals will be successful no matter what they do but even the best lawyer or engineer may fail because society has changed so much.  .

The problem is that in general chemistry and mathematics are now considered more important in education than the humanities, because chemistry and mathematics are viewed as potential careers and the humanities are perceived as hobbies.  We forget that society requires all sorts of professions. I’m a singer but I need an accountant to take care of my accounts, I need a lawyer to defend my interests, and if I want to build a house, I need an engineer. But when the engineer wants to have fun, he turns to a musician. Does this mean that the engineer is more important than the musician, who gives pleasure to the engineer? Everyone is equally important in society and I think that needs to be rediscovered.

Q:  Within classical music you’re a tenor with a wide audience.  Is it your responsibility to work of [classical music’s] popularity?

JC - I think we should stop with these phantoms of classical music. There is only good and bad music. In classical music there is much bad and boring music, and just because a piece belong to any given period does not mean it must be good. We need to stop with clichés.  On the other hand we have to stop thinking that pop music is bad just because it’s pop.  Compare the great songs from the last century, from Lennon and others, to classical music. Schubert in his day was nothing but Lennon in the sixties.  The composers we call classical today were the pop artists of their times.  Schubert became a classical composer in the 20th century, when we started categorizing music. Mozart played the piano while the king drank—he played in a piano-bar. We need to forget the clichés, compartments and labels and simply enjoy the art whatever it is.  Labels in the 20th century were invented by the intelligentsia to divide society. We have to end this.

Q:  Does contemporary opera have a place in the art?

JC - Sure, but it is difficult to say which work and composer of our time is worthy of Verdi and Puccini. Remember in their time their works were criticized at the first performances. I always encourage composers to keep writing because no one ever knows where the potential of genius lies.  Today, you never know whether music is performed because a composer is really talented or because he’s the friend of someone important.  Only time will show us greatness, we can’t judge.  Music that seems good to us today may in a hundred years sound very bad.

Q:  For your European home you choose Madrid.  How do you feel like a South American in Europe?

José Cura at the Nancy opera: we want more

Le Républicain Lorrain

13 Oct 2008

[Excerpt / Computer assisted translation]

José Cura enchanted the Nancy opera house on Friday. What an evening! How simple, natural, instinctive opera seems with José Cura, the Argentine tenor.  Joyful, even!  It was with obvious and very infective jubilation that he transported the hall of the Nancy Opera where he performed with a young soprano of strong character, Julija Samsonova.

Just before the curtain, we learned Jan Stava, a beautiful young bass voice whom we had discovered last year during the master class conducted by José Cura himself, would not be able to participate. 

Too bad for Jan, who could only be a spectator of this moment of grace. But Cura and Julija rose to the challenge and the evening went like a dream—better than that, an enchantment. It must be said that the program was designed to seduce the audience: Puccini, Leoncavallo, Verdi …and again and again Puccini, who has the power to move the most indifferent rooms. Especially when La bohème is sung this way, with so much heart and intensity! The talent of José Cura, who definitely seems to like Nancy a lot, lies in the generosity of his character and his voice which reaches its fullness with disarming ease. Sometimes he takes the conductor's baton, sometimes he drags the young Julija to a corner of the stage, asks a spectator to borrow a pair of glasses to sing an aria from the Marriage of Figaro in an improvisational manner... He is at home on the stage. One should not take for granted this appearance of ease: it is certainly the mark of the greatest. But beyond the eloquence and the facility to create intimacy with the audience, there are hours and hours of work spent in pursuit of excellence. Welcomed on the biggest stages, he does not hide his pleasure in Nancy and the audience returns his affection.

The evening ended with an endless standing ovation that Cura enjoyed while holding Julija's hand and blowing kisses to an inspired orchestra led by Mario de Rose. We ask for more.

The Return of Jose Cura

Le Républicain

Lorrain D.H.

12 October 2008

[Excerpt / Computer assisted translation]

At the invitation of Nancy Opéra Passion, the Argentine tenor José Cura performed Friday evening on the stage of the Opéra National de Lorraine with the Nancy orchestra, under the direction of conductor Mario de Rose, who has worked with the singer since 2005.  The audience was also able to appreciate this complicity between the two artists, all the more essential since the orchestra was not in the pit, but on the stage. In the program, composed of arias from the Italian lyrical repertoire (Leoncavallo, Verdi and above all Puccini), the orchestra never covered the voice.

It must be said that José Cura has unusual power and a very wide range. He goes from chest voice to head voice with ease and elegance. Above all, however, he manages to fully fit into his characters, despite the difficulty of a concert where you go from one role to another almost without transition.

He was to share the stage with two young singers but when Jan Stava became ill, Cura offered himself as a partner to soprano Julija Samsonova in duets by Verdi and Puccini. The two artists gave a colorful La ci darem la mano, an extract from Mozart's Don Giovanni as an encore before the tenor, at the request of his audience, added two arias by Puccini to the program, including Nessun dorma from Turandot. During the concert, the singer also conducted the overture to Verdi’s La forza del destino.

The Triumph of a Great

Forumopera

Yonel Buldrini

10 October 2008

The triumph of a great and the brilliance of a young talent

[Excerpt / Computer-assisted translation]

The concert didn’t start under the best auspices: the bass Jan Stava, so impressive during the master classes last year and scheduled to participate in the program, had to withdraw for health reasons. The evening therefore rested on the shoulders of José Cura and soprano Julija Samsonova, another lauded singer from the master classes held by the Argentine tenor in the former capital of the Duchy of Lorraine.  With two singers instead of three, one might wonder if the concert would excel. The solution lay in the professional conscience and generosity of the performers. They could indeed make do using encores to replace the pieces planned for the bass, but that would eliminate the beautiful offering eagerly awaited by the audience...  A compromise was offered: the encores would be used, including one planned with Jan Stava (his part was taken over by an astonishing and inexhaustible José Cura!), and the audience received other unforgettable gifts, all made possible by the generosity of one truly great singer. 

The intermezzo of Pagliacci immediately plunged us into the world of Italian opera from the second half of the 18th century. The same opera features one of the best-known arias in the repertoire and José Cura dramatically rendered—from the start of the concert, cold!— the character's distress. No strong effects or inopportune sobs,  just the right amount of “verismo.”

[…]

After Verdi removed the bitter final cabaletta of the third act of La forza del destino, Don Alvaro has only one great aria, where one hears a farewell to the Romanticism of the composer's youth.  A Donizettian clarinet with a beautiful melancholic theme leads into the recitative. Making the poetic pain that the character expresses in this aria his own, Cura made us want to hear him in the whole role, and we dreamed of seeing him dressed in Don Alvaro's wig and jabot, attacking the poignant lament of his duet with the baritone: "Le minaccie, i fieri accenti"...

Barely catching his breath, José Cura then seized the baton to attack the famous overture of the same opera, reminding us that the artist first received training as a conductor before becoming a tenor which in turn guaranteed a perfect balance between both aspects. Too many conductors risk the breath of the singers, forcing them to struggle to keep up with the unhealthy and sometimes noisy rush so unfortunately in vogue today. None of this was the case with José Cura.  He breathed a dosed intensity, nervous without haste, brilliant without flashiness, into this much-heard opening. "The fate of the evening is in the hands of the conductor," declared the tenor the next day, having kindly agreed to answer our questions.  "He supports, identifies everything, and must ensure the liaison between the instrumentalists and the singers," he added, reminding us that there are opera conductors who direct with their heads down, only concerned about the orchestra.

[…]

The love duet of Act I of Otello ended the first half and the colors deployed by the song of Julija Samsonova mingled happily with the nuanced warmth and mastery that the great interpreter [of the lead role] demonstrated.

The second part of the concert was devoted to Giacomo Puccini, in homage to the composer whose one hundred and fiftieth birthday we are celebrating. It was a good idea to choose lesser known pieces like Luigi's aria in Il tabarro, brief but intensely bitter for a character recounting the hopeless mediocrity of his life (Luigi is a poor longshoreman), sentiments admirably conveyed by Cura, who was able to bring out the generosity of his so warm singing, also doing wonders in the aria Ch'ella mi crede from La fanciulla del west. We expected it in the lament from Tosca, E lucevan le stelle, perhaps the opera's most famous aria. Mastery of singing, richness of sound, legato, impressive intensity were put at the service of the brilliant composer who so well translated poetry in despair into music.

With other little-known and judiciously chosen pieces, one could discover a Romance from Le Villi, the first opera of the Master of Lucca, sung by a radiant Julija Samsova, followed by the love duet. The addition of the voice of José Cura completed the charm, the tenor knowing well the role he recorded to the disc with a striking interpretation of the very difficult grand aria of the second act.

Then another Puccinian duet, this one very well-known, the finale of the first act of La bohème, brought together the two performers who had the touching idea of ​​slowly leaving the stage as the action provides to launch their long final high note on the word “Amor!” ! !"  At this point we were able to appreciate the sensitivity of Cura the man joining with the professionalism of the artist: the soprano had a problem with the prolonged note and stopped early but Cura’s Rodolfo who, by himself, could have held the treble, also stopped out of sympathetic solidarity! How many live recordings show the contrary, with certain singers yield to the temptation to outshine instead of showing camaraderie.

The moment of the end of the concert was filled with enthusiastic noise, with everyone wondering what gifts could be in store from the singers who had already given so much... With the good-natured simplicity which characterizes him, the tenor then addressed the audience, explaining they had hoped to perform the encores of the third artist... but he had misplaced his glasses, which would have allowed him to interpret the piece from the score. Never mind, exclaimed a gentleman from the first rows of the orchestra as he handed over his own glasses to the tenor who, realistically, asked him what correction they presented… “Oh! I have almost everything!” replied the gentleman with a humorous resignation, further increasing the hilarity of the room, already amused and delighted at the idea of ​​hearing more great singing.

We were then treated to the charming duet from Don Giovanni,  Là ci darem la mano, the tenor surprisingly becoming bass-baritone for the occasion, and gracefully completing his interpretation.

It was then an operatic whirlwind in which the audience let their heads spin with delight: chaining new encores, the art of José Cura was once again marvelous—twice!—because the audience, barely recovered from the dazzling flourish "Addio, fiorito asil" from Madama Butterfly, found the maximum emotion with a Nessun dorma from Turandot, given here by a supercharged José Cura, giving the maximum of his colors, of his expression... so much so that the whole audience burst into applause while the orchestra was still playing!

It was actually a standing room only audience, from the floor to the galleries, who gave José Cura a standing ovation at the end of his performance—unheard of at the Nancy Opera in thirty-four years of attendance.

We wish Maestro Cura a happy continuation to his career as he puts his artistic belief in opera at the disposal of young singers—but also to the warm simplicity of man, at the height of his great artistry.

José Cura: amateur choir, a student orchestra and student soloists

Fontanka

Kirill Veselago

18 November 2008

[Excerpt / Computer-assisted translation]

Petersburg hosted the first concert of the star of the world opera, the Argentinean tenor José Cura. Why did opera fans think of it as a barrel of honey with a fly in the ointment after the concert?

The first thing that all the music lovers who were lucky enough to get to the concert of the famous Argentinean spoke about was deception.  The posters proclaimed 'José Cura Gala Concert' but instead it turned out to be a concert by the Mikhailovsky soloists with the participation of the famous tenor!  You could hardly call the complaints groundless: during the entire concert Cura sang four solo pieces and one duet. On the other hand, the soloists, chorus, and orchestra of the Mikhailovsky Theatre were represented in almost excessive numbers.  During almost the entire first act it seemed as if they were in rehearsal for the upcoming production of Pagliacci: on stage the chorus was without costumes, casually dressed as if in ‘civilian’ life and with no stage sets.  The everyday clothes appeared to be illustrative of the "working" state of this score: the orchestra were out of sync and played muddily, the chorus sang indiscriminately and out of tune. 

At the beginning of the first half, José Cura sang the baritone Prologue from Pagliacci, showcasing for the audience the rich and full middle and lower register of his voice.  Nedda’s aria was sung by Svetlana Monchak, the owner of a very good light soprano—so light, in fact, that the part of Nedda was too heavy for her. The section ended with Canio's famous "Recitar...".   In the second half, Cura sang Cavaradossi's aria from Tosca, perfectly structured in form, flawless in terms of dramaturgy, and simply brilliant in vocal terms. 

Among those who do not like the voice and creativity of the Argentinean, one can often hear talk about the "dullness" of his middle register, or about the "roll" of his voice in the middle (which to the singer's fans seems to be an ordinary vocal vibrato). What is there to say? Those who love a singer always look for the virtues and those who do not always look for flaws in their voice.  However, even music lovers who are not fans of the Cura agree with his undeniable merits: his impeccable diction and - probably, the most important thing for a tenor – brightness, boundless breathing and fantastic freedom while taking extreme top notes. The best illustration of the last statement was Calaf’s aria of performed by Cura as an encore with the famous "Vincero!" on the high “B” which seemed to last an eternity.

[…]

After Cura performed Otello’s death scene (in which, by the way, not all of the singer's numerous rubati seemed entirely justified) the black velvet curtain rose, revealing the theater's choir clad in black costumes. They performed Va, pensiero from Verdi's opera Nabucco.  The piece is usually performed by ensembles with a high level of professionalism, with an evenness of sound, smoothness of voices, and subtle mastery of the dynamic nuances. It is a mystery, then, why the Mikhailovsky Theatre showed such discord and confusion between the orchestra and the chorus—the latter, armed with the musical score, demonstrating their inadequacy (the number was not even mentioned in the program.)

I was able to talk before the tenor the day before the concert.

- José, how was the rehearsal?  How do you find your partners, the choir and the orchestra?

JC:  Well, it was all right! (He laughs) I have sometimes sung concerts like this: amateur choir, student orchestra and student soloists.  It’s often very encouraging for them, and anyway, it can be very rewarding for them.  (Cura laughs again)  Chickens have to be raised...

- By the way, your last name in Russian also sounds like "chicken" or "hen"...

JC:  Yes? Damn, it's time to change the family name! Just kidding, of course.  In Spanish "Cura" means "father" or "priest."

- You are a perfectionist, one might say: you haven’t sign exclusive contracts with any record label or with prestigious impresario bureaus. Was money the reason for your first appearance at the Mikhailovsky Theatre in St. Petersburg?

JC:  Well, it's not just money, it was a lot of money. I wasn't planning on going anywhere at all, I just wanted to take a break. But Mr. Kekhman was the first person to invite me to St. Petersburg and he said he would pay me as much as I asked. So I asked - and here I am!

- But what if somebody - Gergiev, for example, or Jimmy Levine - invites you and says, 'You know, we haven't got much money, we won't pay you much; but the work is really interesting.”  What do you say?

JC:  I am guided by interest in this or that work in the first place. According to my observations, Gergiev personally cannot offer anything interesting to me: he has somewhat different objectives ... I can say the same about Levine.

- I wonder if there's a theater you're always glad to come to and where you're always welcome?

JC:  You know, I don't like having "affairs" with theaters, it doesn't seem quite professional to me. You sign a contract, you come and sing. And let’s leave "love and carrots" for a private life! (Cura winked)

- Do you often have conflicts with directors because of their extravagant productions?

JC:  No, God forbid. I choose productions very carefully. Probably the most idiotic was the production of Otello in Zurich.   (Author’s note: the director moved the whole action to a spaceship.).

- This is not your first time in Russia. What is your opinion of the country?

JC:  Well, it's like another planet! Everyone knows everything, everyone wants to buy and sell everything, but at the same time they try to show that nothing will surprise them. At least in Moscow, where I sang a few times. St Petersburg is completely different. Everything is calmer here. And the most amazing thing was in Yekaterinburg: such open faces, so sincere! So much selfless love comes from them! Your country is amazing. I hope I will visit here more than once.

Cura Presents Argentine and Spanish-Influenced Works

Muzsika

Malina János

March 2009

[Computer-assisted Translation / Excerpt]

Spanish-inspired and Argentinian pieces were conducted by José Cura at the head of the Óbuda Danubia Zenekar. The program was somewhat one-sided because the much more popular second half, which offered the works of Rimsky-Korsakov, Bizet and Ravel, led to an unbalanced evening. This is not in the least to diminish the merits of such great Argentine composers as Astor Piazzolla and Alberto Ginastera, but their works certainly have a very different audience from European compositions, although the connective character of all the compositions, whether they be called caprices, rhapsodies, pictures or variations, was undoubtedly the link between the two halves.

Rimsky-Korsakov's Spanish Capriccio does not rival the composer's most beautiful orchestral poems, but it is eclectic music offering the orchestra a rewarding task (even if in the concluding Fandango asturiano movement we can recognize a close variant of the Count of Luxembourg's Gimbelem-Gombolom duet). The orchestra performed well: the sound was impeccable, the horns were superb, the violin solo was excellent. At one or two points, for example during change of tempo, there was a slight problem with the synchronicity, but this is probably attributable to the conductor's somewhat listless baton.

Bizet's Carmen Suite No. 1, with its true French elegance, is music of elemental power, and listening to it we again experienced the same thing as before: a fine orchestra playing with fine individual performances, but we didn't learn much about the conductor - let's be honest: he didn't make much of an impact. And yet the orchestra tackled the most difficult task of all: Ravel's Spanish Rhapsody in four movements, with a score even more sophisticated than before, with remarkable technical skill and musical sensitivity; the melting sweetness of the English horn solo was particularly memorable.

After the interval, Carlos López Buchardo's Argentine Pictures, Astor Piazzolla's Tangazo and Alberto Ginastera's ballet suite Estancia brought to life the mountains, folklore and varied history of Argentina. Among the three works from the 20th century, Buchardo's symphonic poem is a kind of idyllic nature tableau, a symphonic light music tending towards film music, if you like; if that is what you expected, it is of a good standard. The subtitle of Astor Piazzolla's Variations on Buenos Aires takes the listener from the spacious natural settings to the big city, and its more sinful suburbs, harbors and nightlife districts, as Lóránt Péteri's excellent review puts it so well. Piazzolla is of course unbeatable in tango but he also excels in his treatment of the symphony orchestra, and his is certainly the most valuable of the three Argentine compositions. It's fun music (when was the last time we heard that phrase? the 60s?), but it's top notch.

Alberto Ginastera's ballet suite, which transports the listener to the world of the pampas, has the distinction of incorporating original folk instruments into its orchestra. In particular, the 4th movement, the exhilarating Danza Final, is a superb piece and an impressive concert finale. In the less musically rigorous second part, neither the impression of the orchestra nor of the conductor changed significantly. (7 March - Music Academy)

José Cura conducts a charity concert in Budapest

Hirado

13 November 2009

[Computer-assisted translation]

José Cura will give a charity concert in Budapest on Sunday and Tuesday in aid of the Salva Vita Foundation for the disabled. The Argentinean artist will take to the stage of the Liszt Academy as conductor, performing Bach's Mass in B minor with the Danubia Symphony Orchestra Óbuda.

José Cura said at a press conference in Budapest on Friday that his godson has Down's syndrome. "Parents and friends are finding that this 10-year-old boy is more intelligent than we are," José Cura stressed. In his opinion, healthy people are arrogant enough to force people with disabilities to adapt. But it should be the other way round, which is why he appreciates the work of the Hungarian foundation.

He suggested that only those who are open to embracing the love and passion in music should go to the concert. “Bach composed this mass around three key words: forgiveness, faith and peace. On Sunday we will ask forgiveness for folly and cry out for peace," added José Cura.

He also said that in 2002 he was asked to be a member of the board of the Leukaemia Foundation in Portugal and that every year he holds a huge concert for them. In seven years, the number of donors has multiplied, with 150,000 people now willing to help leukaemia patients. Portugal is also a country of about 10 million people, so this could be a lesson for Hungary, according to the singer-conductor.

On the B minor Mass, he said he had been conducting and singing Bach's works for three decades. The first piece he conducted when he was very young was precisely the Mass in B minor, and since then he has taken part in many performances, playing it with a large choir of a thousand, accompanied by piano or organ. But the bottom line for him has always been that Bach's works are of an outstandingly free spirit, perhaps only equalled by jazz. In the Mass, the vocal parts are interpreted by Maria Bisso, Judit Németh, László Kálmán and István Kovács, with the Monteverdi Choir of Budapest.

José Cura is an Argentinian-born opera singer, composer and conductor at the forefront of world music. His international career began in 1994 when he won the Operalia International Singing Competition, under the direction of Plácido Domingo. He has increasingly taken on conducting roles both on the concert podium and in the orchestra pit. José Cura was first known to Hungarian audiences as a singer, but his name is not unknown in Hungary as a conductor.

The Salva Vita Foundation was founded in 1993 with the mission to contribute to the realization of equal opportunities for people with disabilities and to the creation of a diverse and inclusive society. José Cura, a globetrotting tenor who, in addition to opera, is also an ambitious conductor, last year conducted Verdi's Requiem, also for the Salva Vita Foundation in collaboration with the Danubia Orchestra.

Canto a la testosterona fina

El Pais

Xavier Pujol

18 August 2009

[Computer-assisted translation / Excerpts]

The Peralada Festival ended its 23^rd season with a solo recital, the first of its kind in Spain, by the Argentine tenor José Cura, who was accompanied by the Orquestra Nacional d'Andorra Clàssica directed by his compatriot Mario de Rose.

The recital traveled the path from di forza fragments from Verdi’s Otello, one of Cura’s favorites, to Verismo opera arias from Leoncavallo and Puccini.

After finishing the first piece, the Prologue from Pagliacci, Cura directed the control room to shine a little bit of light on the public because, he said, “a concert is like a night of love and I do not like to make love with the lights off.”

The prospect of spending the rest of the evening being loved passionately, albeit collectively, by the handsome Argentine tenor spinto was flattering though certainly disturbing since Verismo is one of the most effective but least refined forms of musical eroticism; it does not get lost in baroque fussiness, Straussian intricacies or Mozartian refinements.  It goes to the point with the line “here you sing, here I kill you,” it aims directly at the center of pleasure and it looks for immediate orgasmic erotic-aesthetics.  Because of this, veristic operas are so short.    

The masculine verismo song is strong and manly.  It needs a seasoned tenor who does not shrink from the high notes, who can project strongly over the orchestral accompaniment and who conveys wholesale emotions. Cura gives the full measures of all these aspects and did not have any problem in completing with brilliance the short but terribly demanding program that included, in addition to “Dio, mi potevi scagliar” and “Ni un mi tema” from Otello--which was the best of the night--“Vesti la giubba” from Pagliacci, “E lucevan le stelle” from Tosca, “Non piangere Liù” from Turandot, “Ch'ella mi creda libero” from La Fanciulla del west and “Hai ben ragione” from Il tabarro.

Cura, who on his web page is defined as a ‘natural showman,’ is in addition to being a great tenor one of those beings who is at ease on the stage, who owns it and dominates it, who tells the audience when they must applaud and when they must stop, who flirts with the first cellist and replaces the conductor at the head of the orchestra, although not able to improve on the musical results of the Andorran orchestra.

A Theatrical José Cura

El Periodica

Cesar Lopez Rosell

19 August 2009
 

The tenor shone his lyrical and dramatic power in the closing of Peralada

[Computer-assisted Translation]

An exhibition of vocal force and dramatic presentation:  José Cura raised the musical bar in Peralada.  The charismatic Argentine tenor dazzled the audience at the end of a festival that emphasized outstanding quality of offerings that did not always get, especially those that risked the most, the expected response from the public.

Cura applied his stage presence and appealing acting skills in the service of a repertoire of works by Leoncavallo, Verdi, and Puccini.  After appearing among the musicians with the prologue from Pagliacci and opening with an interpretation of the Intermezzo in charge of the Orquestra Nacional Clàssica d’Andorra (ONCA), he then presented the famous “Vesti la giubba” from the same opera.  [Certainly] a risk for a still cold voice but where Cura demonstrated a pure tenor timbre tinged with dark tones and an ability to recreate the pathos of the character.  This expressive version extracted the first bravos [of the evening].

After a somewhat unvarying interpretation of the overture from Nabucco, Cura asked that the lights in the auditorium be turned on.  “A concert is like a night of love, and I do not like to make love with the lights turned off,” said the artist who is also a composer, conductor and stage director, all things that helps him exploit the dramatic and musical resources.

And then came Otello.  This opera is one of the hallmarks of his career.  With “Dio!, mi potevi scagliar” he showed a passionate outburst with the painful song about Desdmona.  He followed it with “Niun mi tema” to close the first half with acclaim.

But he did not yield the intensity with Puccini.  Cura reappeared wondering where conductor Mario de Rose was.  “I have lost him!” he said with a comical gesture before turning, singing, and directing “Tra voi belle” from Manon Lescaut and offering later, with De Rose on the podium, the romantic “E lucevan le stelle” from Tosca, “Non piangere, Liu” from Turandot and other pearls from Puccini operas.

For an encore he offered a change of pace with a Guastavino song, “though I know what you want are my high note,” he commented.  Then he ended the opera gala with an impressive “Nessun dorma” that brought the audience to its feet.

Cura ...  is a lot of Cura

E Cosi Dolce

17 August 2009

.

[Computer-assisted Translation / Excerpt]

Cura ...  is a lot of Cura.

 And everyone can interpret these words as they wish.

The tenor was accompanied by the Orquesta Nacional Clàssica d'Andorra conducted by maestro Mario De Rose, Cura's frequent collaborator. Under his baton the orchestra played loud. Very loud. But no orchestra can withstand Cura's resonant voice because it has power. A lot of power.

Cura also conducted several orchestral pieces, two in the first half – a Leoncavallo (Intermezzo from Pagliacci), a Verdi (Overture to Nabucco) that seemed to be all fortissimo – and two in the second – two Puccini works (the Tregenda of Le Villi and the Intermezzo from Manon Lescaut – which were more successful.

José Cura is, as I say, a lot of José Cura. He is a figure who evokes strong emotions—both positive and negative—wherever he goes. Last night he elevated the Auditorium of Peralada.

His stage presence was impressive.  He started with numbers from Pagliacci, the first the prologue written for baritones (we already know that Cura does whatever he wants with his vocal register), then on to the Intermezzo and finally to the heartbreaking Vesti la Giubba.    For this he came on stage carrying a chair, sang the whole piece seated as if he were singing the opera and at the end of it, while the orchestra was playing the last bars, he got up, carried the chair on his back as if it were a saddle and left the stage.

And he earned the first bravos of the night.

He followed with the two arias from Otello, Dio mi potevi and Niun mi tema, the second better than the first.   Let me explain: it is inherently difficult to interpret these arias within the opera even with the support of the arc of the character built throughout the drama, the staging and the magic moment opera is able to muster.  In concert, it is much more difficult to create the drama.  But Cura seemed to be “inside the opera” because he relies on his vocal abilities and stage genius and power of seduction and conviction of his most faithful admirers. That is the genius that his fans are so passionate about.

He asked the lighting technicians to focus light on the back rows so he could see the crowded audience and addressed the whole auditorium: "A concert is not an opera.  A concert is like a night of love. And I don't like to make love with the lights off."

For the second half, the tenor changed his shirt from black to white. Then came what, for me, was the best presentation of the evening, E lucevan le stelle from Tosca with a nuanced interpretation, "al la Cura" but nuanced.  And this gets to the frustration with Cura, that someone with all of Cura’s virtues—we all know the voice he has—is capable of singing delicately and with beauty in certain moments and yet at other moments sings crudely (rough and raw).  At times he can bring the audience to the verge of delirium but then… Why not take it down a notch with less personality and temperament (except when needed) and a bit more subtlety? 

[…]

In spite of the admirable self-assurance in which he moves about the stage throughout the concert, it is in the Puccini numbers where he is best, especially in the three essentials ones:  Tosca, Turandot, and Fanciulla.

He ended the program with a well-executed and emotional Hai ben raggione from Il tabarro after which the auditorium resounded with applause and pounding feet, all leading to the three encore numbers accompanied, of course, by Cura's persona and playfulness. Cura boasted that the louder he sings, the more the audience would applaud him. True enough.  But then the question is whether the louder he sings, the better the performance... well, everything comes down to opinion and I reserve mine.

Finally, he said "it is very hot, but I still want to sing more," and as what he had sung before was "not enough for him" he concluded with Nessun dorma.  Delirium.

Shouts, noises, bravos and joy. He returned to the stage three or four times and still the audience did not want to leave.  There was nothing more to sing.   He brought a score almost to the edge of the stage and with the gesture "it's blank" he said goodbye.

Thus this year's edition came to an end with a flourish.   Cura had just conquered Peralada.

José Cura Captivates at the FIS with his Argentine Songs

Cantabria Ibera

21 August 2009

[Computer-assisted Translation]

Much was expected tonight with Argentine tenor José Cura and the compositions on poems by Pablo Neruda which he has set to music debuting in our country.  The result was a success for the FIS because Cura gave Santander the opportunity to be able to experience something original and intimate from a unique voice [and artist] who is already preparing a new production of Samson et Dalila.  

José Cura (5 December 1962, Rosario, Argentina) is one of the most famous tenors in the world right now although he has always been shadowed by a controversial image.  He has had the occasional shocking performance, although perhaps the most famous one was at La Scala in Milan.   If he has stood out in any operatic role, these are, without a doubt, two: Otello and Samson.  It is precisely in the latter that he made his debut last year in the International Festival of Santander [FIS].  For the 58^th edition, however, his participation on the stage of the Palais des Festivals Argenta de Cantabria reflected an old dream  of the Argentine, a project he undertook with the Pablo Neruda Foundation,  to set to music the very famous ‘Seven Sonnets of Love’ by the Chilean poet.  After having presented the work in other countries, he made their debut in Spain in our city, at the FIS.  He was accompanied on piano by Giulio Laguzzi.  Besides these famous poems, Cura also performed other songs from composers from his homeland, like Hector Panizza, Carlos Lopez Buchardo, and Hilda Herrera. 

How could it be otherwise that the recital, which demonstrated Cura’s stunning singing ability, turned into something intimate and close, though it lacked for color and perhaps some viewers were disappointed by what was offered.  However, the gamble convinced most who enjoyed the excellent voice of the tenor from Rosario.  Moreover, since this was a special day he offered his performances to all the victims of the Barajas accident that just one year ago killed 154 people at the Madrid airport.  After his great success last year when he made his debut in Santander with Samson et Dalila, it is possible to say that Cura’s transition for the 58^th edition of the FIS was very positive and allowed him to demonstrate that he as the capacity to do almost anything if the voice is involved.

The Argenta room rewarded him with bravos and ovations, but not enough noise to bring Cura back for an encore.  Certainly Cura demonstrated that his is a character with a convincing and forceful interpretation though perhaps something was missing that would have made  a greater victory in Santander of a recital that started with the added difficulty of performing songs to which we were not very accustomed in this area.   In short, a beautiful night that has brought us closer to the Cura phenomenon in all its dimensions.

The Argentinean Tenor Presents His Adaptation of Neruda's Sonnets

Informador / EFE / El Universal

21 August 2009

[Computer-assisted Translation]

The Argentine tenor put forth all the emotions of which he is capable in defending his music;  Jose Cura offered a recital of songs from Argentina, sung intimate and softly, in Santander, Spain

Neither arias from grand operas nor a display of prodigious voice:  in Santander, José Cura offered, intimately and in mezzo voce, a recital of songs from Argentina and in choosing to perform his own music demonstrated that he is not satisfied with being an opera star.  He also made it clear once more that he is quite a character.

On his return to the Santander International Festival, where last year he starred in one of his favorite operas, Samson [et Dalila] by Saint-Saëns, Cura performed, for the first time in Spain, the cycle of seven songs he has composed from the sonnets of Neruda..

The Argentine tenor pulled out all the emotions of which he is capable to defend his music, before an audience that responded to his work with “bravo” and loud applause, but not enough to make the artist return more than once to the stage to thank them.

Later, in the second half of the concert, he thanked the audience for the “respect” with which they had listened to the score that was so important to him and that, he explained,  was born when someone left him a copy of Neruda’s sonnets in his dressing room, with an anonymous dedication that remains a mystery.

The premier of these songs which had closed the first part of the concert had been dedicated by the singer to the victims of the Spanair jet crash and that began in an unusual way:  a completely dark theater and only the voice of Cura.

Then came some little gems of a repertoire as rich as it is little known to the general public, like Arroró by Alberto Ginasterra and Canción del árbol del olvido by María Helena Walsh.

José Cura is every inch the “showman” with an imposing presence, and even in a chamber concert like tonight he chews the scenery.  He speaks to the audience, he makes jokes, he tells stories, and he responds to the audience when they speak to him from the seats.

Perhaps because he feared that some absent-minded person might think that Verdi would be playing there, Cura explained that he was going to sing arias from unknown Argentine operas, although one of them had become an anthem in his country (Canción a la bandera by Panizza), with which he intended to satisfy those who missed "the high notes.

He had previously said that he did the same program in Germany a long time ago and fifty of the attendees, attracted by the posters announcing the tenor José Cura and disappointed by the chamber concert, asked to be refunded what they had spent on the tickets.

The anecdote was greeted by someone with "we want opera," to which a female spectator added "no me extraña."  The tenor, who a few years ago at the Teatro Real was confronted by a section of the audience who whistled at him, did not remain silent and replied - without losing his good manners - by saying that was "an insult to such beautiful music," which he intended to continue to enjoy.

He had previously spoken to the audience about his grandfather from Soria, his grandmother from Piedmont, his Lebanese great-grandparents who emigrated to Argentina in search of a new life, his long friendship with the pianist Giulio Laguzzi, who accompanied him in the concert, with whom he has been "making music for many years, because this is making music."

He also said that he hopes that since some critic alluded in the headlines to "pure testosterone" in his article on Cura’s last concert (the one containing opera arias, with high notes and a symphony orchestra) with which he closed, this same week, the Perelada Festival, it will now not occur to anyone to headline "pure estrogen" in his review of the Santander concert.

Tenor José Cura gives a simple and insubstantial performance

A sense of frustration with a recital with Argentinean music

El Diario Montanes

R. Hontañón

23 August 2009

[Computer-assisted Translation]

The always controversial Argentine tenor José Cura returned to the Santander International Festival [FIS] in which last year he had an outstanding presence in Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila.  This time his recital had a peculiar feature in that it was dedicated to Argentine music, which did not exactly arouse much excitement in the Argenta Hall of the Festival Palace.

That José Cura's extraordinary singing qualities are as indisputable as they are sometimes poorly exploited is obvious. And the feeling of frustration was clear after a recital that was not as well rounded as expected. Although Cura was lavish in his commentary throughout the program, it must be said that in general the musical aspect was linear and without substance.

For although he can be applauded in Hilda Herrera's opening song Desde el fondo de ti, in those of María Helena Walsh or in Alberto Ginastera's beautiful Canción del árbol del olvido, his interpretation of Pablo Neruda's Sonetos composed by Cura can hardly be endorsed because musically they lack interest and the singing was rather blurred. Things were better in Carlos López Buchardo's Canción del carretero and in those of Carlos Guastavino.

Cura has the unnecessary habit of questioning the audience when, as a well-educated attendee told him, he wanted was to hear opera arias, which is certainly what he is known for.  For this reason, the spectators were grateful when Cura offered Felipe Buero's Pontezuela and Hector Paniza's Canción de la bandera, which closed a recital.

Singer José Cura Brings his Family to Český Krumlov for a Holiday

Cura will perform at the opening of the 19th International Music Festival Český Krumlov 2010 on 16 July.

České Noviny

14 July 2010

[Computer-Assisted Translation]

Prague - The biggest star of the International Music Festival Český Krumlov, José Cura, is coming to South Bohemia with his his wife and two [of his three] children. The Argentinian tenor will sing twith Korean soprano Kim In-hye at the opening concert on 16 July in the Brewery Garden. Due to the great interest, a repeat performance has been added, which will take place at the same venue two days later.

"I am very proud that my first concert in seven years in the Czech Republic sold out in one day. That's why I am adding a Sunday performance, which will be identical to the one on Friday," Cura announced.

At today's press conference at the Augustin Hotel in Prague, the 48-year-old singer also told journalists that the festival organizers were lucky to have approached him for dates during the summer holiday months since, for example, his participation in February would have been completely out of the question.

"The most difficult thing was to convince my wife to agree to a holiday in Český Krumlov, where I will also be working, but I showed her photos of the town and the family will spend a week there," said the smiling, slightly greying artist, revealing that he and his wife have been together for 31 years.

Cura gave a very relaxed impression at the press conference. He joked with photographers in the front row and wondered if the handsome translator was married.

"There are still about a hundred tickets left for the second concert.  Do any of you want to buy them?" he asked the media representatives.

According to Cura, he will return to Český Krumlov next year to perform an opera in front of the local revolving auditorium. "I hope I won't have to take pills against seasickness," he laughed with those present.

Cura will be accompanied in Český Krumlov by the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Italian conductor Mario de Rosso. Cura himself is also exceptional in his ability to combine singing with conducting. He appeared as a conductor at the Municipal House in Prague in 2003. "Being a conductor is a completely different responsibility than being a musician or a singer. A conductor is especially important in rehearsals," he pointed out. He described the question of whether it is better to be a conductor or a musician as similar to whether it is better to be a player or a coach in football.

The concert in Český Krumlov will feature arias and duets from Italian operas by Verdi, Leoncavallo and Puccini. Cura will perform his famous roles such as Otello, Canio from Pagliaci, Calaf from Turandot and Mario Cavaradossi from Tosca. With soprano In-hje Kim, he will also sing duets from Madama Butterfly.

The character of Otello from Verdi's opera is considered to be very difficult to sing and Cura also pointed out the complexity of the character. "It's not just a play about a handkerchief, but also about racism and disappointment. It is still relevant, nothing has changed in the thousand years since the character was created, we are still killing each other in the name of God," he shared.

Cura is not only a tenor and conductor, but also a composer, opera director, designer and photographer. He has written three novels, he said, but has not yet published them. "I enjoy everything in the world, I have to stick my nose into everything," said the artist, who said being original does not mean being different from others at all costs. In art, he stressed sincerity. "Even Oscar Wilde said: Be yourself, all other roles are already taken apart," said Cura, who first performed in the Czech Republic in 1998 accompanied by the Virtuosi di Praga orchestra.

"Voice is a delicate matter," says José Cura

ČT24

Martin Veselovsky

14 July 2010

[Computer-Assisted Translation / Excerpts]

This year's 19th edition of the International Music Festival Český Krumlov will be opened by the Argentine opera star, the "tenor of the 21st century," José Cura. This will be the third time that the Czech audience will have the opportunity to appreciate Cura's unique voice and interpretive talent, and the interest is considerable; the festival organisers have even had to add another concert. Martin Veselovsky spoke with José Cura, "the fourth of the great tenors," in Události on 13 July.

José Cura didn't start singing professionally until he was 28. Before that he was conducting, composing and playing the piano. In 1991 he left Argentina for Italy, and in 1992 he made his debut at the Arena in Verona in Henze’s Pollicino. Further success came in 1993 in Turin, where he sang Alberto Gregor in Janáček's The Makropulos Affair. But his real breakthrough came when he won the prestigious international competition Operalia in 1994, after which he immediately made his debut in the United States and London's Covent Garden. From then on, he began to receive offers from all over the world. In 2003 he came to Prague, where he presented himself at the Municipal House not only as an opera singer but also as a conductor.

Martin Veselovsky: At concerts, you often include Latin American songs in your repertoire in addition to classical compositions. Can the Czechs also expect this at the festival in Krumlov?

José Cura:  Of course. I'm really proud of that because it's not common.  I'm Argentinean and I usually sing the Italian repertoire, so I'm looking forward to being able to sing songs from Argentina as a person from Argentina.

MV:  As well as singing, you are also a conductor, direct opera, and are involved in photography and design. Normally, one needs to be fully dedicated to only one profession if one wants to get to the top. How is it possible that in your case you are successful in more than one field?

JC:  I don't know, you'd have to ask my mother. I believe in a very holistic approach to career work. I'm not saying I'm right or wrong. It's just that some can only focus on one area but my approach to the work is different and so far it's working. I have to follow certain rules, of course. Some people enjoy it, some people don't, but that's normal.

MV:  If I started saying to my bosses, gentlemen, I'm going to try my hand at news editing, I don't know what I'd encounter. How do other conductors and other professions that you kind of dabble in in classical music feel about it?

JC:  When you're standing in front of someone who is a well-prepared professional, a good conductor, director, the more those people know about the work, the better. Things run smoothly. But when you're faced with someone who's not doing very well, just someone who's bluffing, of course you're nervous. And things get complicated.

MV:  It's generally assumed that people who are involved in the arts in the highest levels have to start at a very early age. But you didn't start singing until you were about 28. Are you an exception, or is that just the way it goes?

JC:  I started singing at the age of twelve and then there was a long period of time where I was also acting, composing and doing anything related to theatre including menial jobs. That was a really big advantage. I became a professional singer at the age of 28. The voice is a delicate thing. When you start singing at an early age, and my repertoire is very difficult, you suffer a bit. And I was young enough to justify the investment and old enough to be able to control it.

MV:  You're sometimes described as the successor to the three great tenors. Luciano Pavarotti tried to move out of classical music towards a more popular approach, for example by collaborating with pop singers. Is that your way too?

JC:  Every great artist leaves a mark on history. And those who follow him try to be as good or better, but they have to follow their own path. Then we'll see what happens, because history will have the final say.  But it’s not good to follow in someone's footsteps. Because that means you're not respecting the person who worked hard to become someone unique.

If someone tells you they're following someone who won a Pulitzer Prize, maybe that's good because they are working hard to win their own Pulitzer Prize. And I'm happy to make an effort in that regard.

MV:  Does that mean you're purposely setting  yourself up in your career to have your "Pulitzer Prize"?

JC:  I don't want to define myself.  You may have someone you really admire, but you're not going to copy them. Copying is a lack of respect. For example, a great composer is distinctive, you don't just copy him. To show respect to somebody means that you will notice their life, their career in a certain way, but you will not copy their art.

MV:  How is it with artists of your caliber with the move into the mainstream, into pop music? Is it something that is basically completely inappropriate and something that colleagues turn up their noses at, or is it a legitimate way to reach a wider audience?

JC:  That's an old question. Caruso and Mario Lanza started it. They were the first singers to sing pop music alongside classical music.

It's not that we have pop music or classical music. We have good music or bad music. What we call classical music today was popular music 200 years ago. The definition between pop and classical is a matter between profane and ecclesiastical phenomena. And profane music includes what we call classical music today.

Do you know the first piano player in a bar in history? Mozart. The great god of music. He played the piano while the monarch ate and entertained. And he was indeed the great Mozart. We must abandon this phantom. People should be involved in music and enjoy it.

MV:  When a famous opera singer stands in a stadium at the closing or opening of the Olympics and sings a Queen song, is that stepping over your line or not yet?

JC:  I've done something similar many times. For example, in Australia in 2003 (a few months before I came to Prague) I attended the opening of the Rugby Championship. I was singing in the middle of the stadium in just my shirt, it was about 5 degrees. There were 100,000 people in the stands and I was hot in that shirt. It's a completely different energy than a traditional theatre.

MV:  You're from Argentina. When you look at the origins of many of today's opera singers, it's as if that country, and the Latin American region in general, is producing more and more people in your field. Why is that?

JC:  The largest number of classical opera singers in Europe came after World War II. It was a reaction to the suffering of the war. It was a kind of cry against the pain - let's start singing, let's start doing music, let's enjoy ourselves. That time has passed.

Today, even with the big crisis we have in Europe, Europe is Disneyland compared to some countries in South America. The reason why people from Latin America are really struggling is because of the difference between eating or not eating, trying to survive. Many young people in Europe have forgotten these types of feelings while we still have to push ourselves against that.

Interview with tenor José Cura

CIA News

15 February 2010

The music palette of the 19th year of the festival will be opened on July 16 with a unique opera gala performance featuring the famous Argentinean "tenor of the 21st century," José Cura. The charming voice, brilliant technique, and suggestive stage performance of this first-class star singer promise an unforgettable experience. Partners of this singer will include Korean soprano In Hye Kim and Symphonic Orchestra of the Czech Radio conducted by Mario de Rosa.

Q:  In 2003 you debuted successfully in Prague and your concerts became ones of them Prague never forgets. Are you looking forward to your come-back to the Czech Republic?

JC:  Unfortunately, after my last concert in Prague, I received no serious offers anymore to come back to your great country. It is a real pity as the Czech musicians are fabulous and the Czech public very warm. Now, after so many years, I will finally be back in the Czech Republic, although not in Prague. I hope one day I will be invited to work in Prague once more.

Q:  Dvořák's Symphony No. 9 could be heard several times in your interpretation. You have published a unique recording Antonin Dvořák Centenary Tribute including his beautiful Love songs cycle. How is your relationship to Antonin Dvořák and Czech music?

JC:  I do not have a special, dedicated relation with Dvořák apart from my great admiration. One of my dreams would be to conduct his choral symphonic pieces.

Q:  Let's start in the beginning. During your studies you were concerned mostly with conducting and composition. In 1988 you began developing proper singing technique and few years later you made triumphant debuts on prominent opera scenes in Europe and USA. What was the key stimulus for you to shift to the opera singing?

JC:  Please, do not be disillusioned if I tell you that, in the beginning, the reason was "pure survival". It is very difficult to survive just as a composer, so having discovered my voice, it was logic to use it. Eventually, I started to love the singing "twist" in my life. The rest belongs now to the story everybody knows.

Q:  Your repertoire is very broad, nevertheless the critics joins you especially with such roles like Samson, Otello, Andrea Chénier, Canio and others. Do you personally prefer some role(s) or specific part of the opera repertoire?

JC:  Of course, being an actor-singer, I prefer those roles were I can develop a stage presence that fulfills my comedian instincts.

Q:  Your sophisticated, insightful, emotionally deep interpretation fascinates both audience and critics all over the world. How is your approach to the interpretation? What is crucial to create high quality and heartbreaking performance to attract present-day audience?

JC:  TO GO BEYOND THE SURFACE OF THE MELODY AND THE TEXT (yes, like that, in capital letters!), in order to reveal the essence of a masterpiece without hiding behind tones of books of the apparently correct interpretation. Books written by other... It is good to use them as a point of view to enrich yours, but never as the only possible plan. "Be yourself. Everybody else is already taken", one of Wilde's best quote...

Q:  You are really a renaissance personality coping with many art crafts - opera singing, conducting, composition, stage direction and design. What are your principal artistic plans and goals for future?

JC:  Only God knows the future. As for me, I could be happy if I can continue to earn my living by working in this privileged job: being an artist.

Q:  In 2001 one you founded Cuibar Productions. Why and what is your vision of this company?

JC:  This company was born as a back up to my work. Eventually, I got enough with all the crap in which my early agents and PR people put in, so to be my own man was the only possible cure. As a result, I am in sight when needed and in "sordine" when not needed. It is not as some think that because I am not torturing everybody all the time with my presence in all media that I am not the same level of artistic being I was. Discretion and respect towards the public is what has been lost in the past years.

Q:  The life of an opera star is very demanding and exhausting, especially when combined with conducting and other art activities. How do you relax and care of your splendid voice?

JC:  Writing answers for interviews like yours... :-)

"Perfume" of the words important, says star of Český Krumlov International Music Festival 

Radio Prague International

Ian Willoughby

16 July 2010

The Argentinean singer Jose Cura is one of the biggest stars of contemporary opera, known for his powerful and distinctive interpretations of characters like Verdi’s Otello. Czech fans will have a rare chance to see him in the flesh this weekend, when he performs two concerts at the International Music Festival in Český Krumlov, one of the country’s most beautiful towns.

I spoke to Jose Cura in Prague earlier this week, just before he set off for south Bohemia. Given his famed skills as an actor, does he give preference to operas with relatively strong narratives?

“Of course, of course. I feel very embarrassed when I have to do operas with a…silly libretto. Even when the music is good. For example, [Verdi’s] Il Trovatore is a great, great piece of music, but the libretto is so, so…funny sometimes that it is very difficult sometimes to feel comfortable on stage.

“I did Trovatore and there is a DVD of my Trovatore, etc, etc. But it’s a role I don’t do any more now, because I really didn’t feel happy on stage with it. But this is only an example.”

Is your interest in acting also a reason you don’t like singing phonetically?

“Of course, yes. When you are an honest actor on stage, you know that the most important thing is not only the words, but the perfume of the words, what is behind, under and around the words, what is not written exactly.

“If you don’t speak the language very, very well, if you don’t master the language, unless you think in the language, pray in the language, you cannot say that language belongs to you.

“That’s why I don’t sing in German for example. I am sure I would probably do a more or less good thing vocally, but I am sure that I would not be very happy with my dramatic interpretation. I don’t want to feel unhappy on stage, because then people will feel it.”

Generally speaking, opera stars are expected to be able to act more today than they would have been in the past. Why has that change come about?

“It’s very simple. In the past – I’m talking about a long time ago – when cinema was in the beginning, when going to the theatre was for a very small group of people, of course we didn’t have internet, we didn’t have TV, we didn’t have any of these things, it was easy to be on stage doing little things, almost nothing, because the people were there to enjoy the music.

“Now, if you only want to enjoy the music you stay home, you put on a CD, and that’s it. If you come to the theatre with the background of…everybody knows a good movie, everybody understands when a movie is good or bad, when an actor is good or bad.

“When you watch TV you know if you are watching garbage or a good show. If you like garbage, that’s another problem, but you understand…many things in the past were not so easy.

“So it’s impossible today to behave like in the past. Not because the past was bad, but because our present has a lot of different information. And the obligation of an artist is to live in the present.”

I guess also you must have to be physically fitter than your predecessors.

Well, it’s expected. The problem with opera is that opera is a paradox. Of course the number one thing is the voice. If you don’t have the voice, even if you look very good, you can go home.

“And the contrary…if you have the voice and you don’t look good, that you can accept sometimes…Of course everybody would like to look like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie – we would love it, but it’s not possible. But to look at least as good as you can, that is not impossible.”

What is your relationship to Czech music?

“As everybody knows I started my career almost with Janáček. I also did a recording of Dvořák’s Love Songs and the Ninth Symphony for the one hundredth anniversary in 2004. So far that’s my real link to Czech music, which is not big.

“Again, if I conduct then it’s OK, but when I sing, because I don’t speak Czech…it was very, very difficult to do the recording of the Love Songs for example. I did it at Czech Radio, by the way, in 2003. It was very, very difficult – it was a nightmare to try to convey the words of a language that is not mine.

“That’s why I wanted to do it in Prague here, because I was surrounded by Czech people…the technicians, everybody was Czech, so I was breathing in Czech.”

Tell us what can fans expect at your two concerts in Český Krumlov this weekend?

“What you can expect for sure is that I will try my best to make people have a good time. Then you have all the unpredictable aspects. You don’t know if it’s going to rain or not, you don’t know if it’s going to be so hot that we will…feel like a piece of nothing, instead of a singer, and you will try even still to sing these difficult things.

“For the musicians to play in 35 degrees it’s no fun. These things you cannot control. But one thing is for sure – everybody’s going to give their best.”

And you’re spending a whole week in the town?

“A whole week in the town, yes. After the first concert the next day is free but I cannot do a lot, because I have the obligation of the second concert. But we will go sightseeing and everything. I’m really looking forward to it: everybody says Český Krumlov is like a postcard.”

José Cura (tenor)

Opera Plus

16 April 2010

Opera Plus:  You are tenor, conductor, composer, stage director but also designer and photographer. Which of them is the most difficult one and why?

José Cura:  All of them are extremely difficult and greatly complementary. I am very lucky to be able to enrich my life and performing career by doing all these artistic activities. Einstein said: if you want different results, don’t do always the same things…

OP:  You have been among the world´s prominent tenors for a long time. Is it very difficult? How do you do it?

JC:  Work, work, work, study, study, study. Never give it for granted, never cease to investigate.

Be aware that the farther you get the less you know, and so start studying again and working even more.

OP:  Your repertoire includes a lot of very difficult roles like Otello, Radames, Samson, Cavaradossi, Calaf, Dick Johnson, Don José and Andrea Chénier to name a few. In your opinion, which one is the most difficult and why?

JC:  All of them…

OP:  It seems that you receive or reject offers with careful consideration. What are your decisive criteria?

JC:  First of all I have to be able to give a good vocal performance. Opera is about singing, after all. But because opera is NOT ONLY about singing, I have to be sure I can create a good character; otherwise, I feel stupid on stage and that is a heavy limit for me.

OP:  A lot of your colleagues complain that singers are nowadays rather second-rate because of stage directors. What is your opinion? Do you prefer traditional or modern productions?

JC:  Nobody is second rate due to somebody else’s fault. If you are mediocre it is your responsibility. Don’t look around for excuses. I like good, intelligent productions independently of being traditional or modern. I have only one condition: if you are going to direct me or conduct me, you have to be honest and prepared. I cannot stand lack of professionalism and preparation.

OP:  Are you preparing new roles now?

JC:  I have just done my debut in Bohème. To sing such a lyric role after so many years of dramatic repertoire, is a good confirmation for my career.

OP: You have already sung in the Czech Republic and that is why you have so many fans here. Please, be frank and tell us: Do you sometimes mind that huge interest in your personality?

JC:  Don’t worry, I am always frank. When you attract the interest of people, you have to understand that you will awake both admiration and rejection. If your question is if I “mind”, of course yes. It is a big and heavy responsibility. Not only artistic, but mainly human. You can turn to be an example or a shame. Of course, as always, it is a point of view.

“Schubert was the John Lennon of his time”

The tenor justifies his words by giving the example of the Austrian composer Franz Schubert, a songwriter in his day, who today is considered a classical musician.

“I am going to say something that will seem blasphemous to many, but it is not: Schubert was the John Lennon of his time and we cannot know if in thirty or a hundred years Lennon's songs will be considered, if they are not already considered, as classics of his style. This applies to pretty much everything,” he notes.

“I am not as I appear in the publicity photos”

In promotional photos, José Cura usually appears as a very serious and thoughtful man. But he says that he likes to develop his comedic talent. Let's see, what is José Cura really like.

“The real me is what you see now, normal, spontaneous and that's it. What happens with the photos, when you send promotional photos, you send serious photos, laughing photos, photos with a bad face and photos with a good face. I don't know why publicists always choose those that I have with a bad face and looking like I'm angry... (laughs) I'm not like that at all, on the contrary."

The tenor describes as false the idea that a performer of classical music is generally serious.

“That is an invention of recent years, from romanticism onwards. When romanticism began and an artist was associated with a languid, white, pale person, if possible with glasses, and what's more, if it was a little scruffy, even better.  An image that is a complete distortion of the famous maxim of the inventors of modern art, the Greeks and Romans, to be of a healthy mind in a healthy body. Guys like Pythagoras were musicians, composers, mathematicians, and Olympic champions, and no one cared about image. It was part of what it had to be,” he insists.

A tenor who loves rugby and football

José Cura's trajectory squares well with these terms. The tenor does not focus his attention exclusively on music, in addition, he is dedicated to design and photography and in his time he practiced many sports, as he recalls.

“As I usually say, 25 kilos ago, not years but kilos (laughs), I was a semi-professional athlete. I have done rugby, body building and martial arts and worked for many years in a gym as a trainer.  And this came in very handy in my career because later on stage it allowed me to use a physical message, the body that collaborated a lot with my way of acting and singing on stage.”

The singer, born in Argentina, and living in Spain since the 1990s, is also a great football fan who, of course, enthusiastically followed the World Cup matches in South Africa.

“Yes, I was glued to the television for sure! When Argentina played first, because I am Argentine by birth, but I have citizenships in both countries. My grandfather was Spanish and I am Spanish by adoption, so I was lucky to have two countries to be with. I followed Argentina until it was eliminated and then I followed Spain until the end, of course,” he explained.

“Dances and nostalgia give Dvořák a special color”

José Cura returned to the Czech Republic after a seven-year hiatus.  He says he arrived with great enthusiasm, since during his career he has collaborated with several Czech orchestras and appreciates the long tradition of classical music in this country.

“I really like this country. As in all the countries in the north of the world they have incredible musicians. The string and wind sections here are great. The Prague orchestras are famous all over the world, so in that sense, it is really very good professionally here. The rooms are beautiful with incredible acoustics and everything and the audience is very warm.”

And which Czech composers would he highlight?

“Well to limit it to one because if not we would be talking here for two hours, the most famous of all is Dvořák. His New World Symphony, his Ninth Symphony, is famous far and wide in the world. He has the characteristic that so many Czechs have had, above all, basing his music on local colors, dances and that nostalgia that the Czech people also have in some things and that gives a special color to his music.”

Before leaving the Czech Republic, José Cura promised his fans not to make them wait so long for his next concert. The tenor announced year he will return to Český Krumlov next year to delight the music lovers of this country.

Tenor José Cura Braved both Tropical Heat and Freezing Cold

Halo Noviny

Tomáš HEJZLAR

3 August 2010

[Computer-Assisted Translation / Excerpt]

The opening concert of this year's 19th edition of the International Music Festival Český Krumlov was again of an exceptional standard, although the media coverage surprisingly did not correspond to it.

The world-famous Argentine tenor José Cura is a sought-after personality abroad yet his presence at this year's Český Krumlov festival was not as well received as his last visit to Prague seven years ago. Perhaps this is due to this year's tiring climatic conditions? Or are the journalists waiting for next summer, when the famous singer should be the star in front of the Český Krumlov turntable in Leoncavallo's opera Pagliacci?

The organizers of the Český Krumlov Summer Festival prepared a program for the performance of the world-renowned tenor José Cura that is artistically valuable and equally acceptable to the broadest audience. The singer's name alone is a great attraction, even for a less musically sophisticated community. As expected, individual arias were always followed by thunderous ovations and yet, although Cura's performances this time were incomparably more artistically worthy than during his two previous performances in Prague at the beginning of the century, there were still some things missing for a truly five-star rating: in particular, a more refined timbre in all registers, for example in the subdued dynamics, but also a more expressive cantilena worthy of the singer's reputation. The artist certainly possesses these qualities, as he demonstrated at times during his Český Krumlov creations, but at times the expressive uniqueness was lacking.  The more experienced listener must have been aware of Cura's occasional technical shortcomings, which would probably not have passed muster in large opera houses under the scrutiny of the demanding critics.

[We should note] that the weather were not favorable for these concerts. The first evening in Český Krumlov's Brewery Garden - the official one with the participation of important personalities - took place on an incredibly scorching evening while two days later the temperature had completely changed and the audience sat on the seats and huddled in warm blankets.

Hello, signor journaliste

The gala concert began somewhat unusually: while singing, Cura strolled nonchalantly between the completely filled rows of the audience and "sang into the ears" of those present. Cura is a master at getting in touch with the audience and can artfully improvise imaginatively, especially when the part he is singing allows him to do so. In the case of Leoncavallo's dramatically exposed yet melodically moving music from Pagliacci, this is perfectly true. And so, while singing the prologue to this classic work, which next year - with Cura in the lead role of Canio - will be performed in front of the Český Krumlov revolving stage, the spontaneous Argentine smiled at those present (especially the ladies, but not only the youngest ones...) during his singing, sometimes almost conspiratorially, sometimes making gestures as if he were flirting slightly, and even sometimes shaking hands with them.  […]  He continued to “wander” through the rows of audience with a smile and nonchalant elegance as the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of guest conductor Mario de Rose, finished the instrumental interlude in Leoncavallo's aria.

Communicating astutely with gestures and facial expressions, it was not only the expected level of his singing but also his spontaneity and wit that won over the audience in Český Krumlov. The evening of melodic and veristic music of Italian opera masters Ruggiero Leoncavallo, Giacomo Puccini and Giuseppe Verdi in an impressive interpretation by the charismatic Argentinean singer, was certainly an extraordinary experience for many.

The highlight was Otello

Direct contact with those present took place during both performances and he reacted spontaneously: during the first performance, which took place in the middle of a steamy hot summer evening, when even the setting sun did not cool down the environment, he asked the president of the republic, who was sitting in the audience, if the musicians could play without jackets in the unbearable heat (he was of course granted...).  Two days later it was an incredibly cold environment, with the audience huddled on comfortable armchairs in warm blankets - and the spirited Cura ended up throwing one of the blankets over himself as well. With an apology, an explanation and a smile. However, even with these temperature changes, which are an incredible, even dangerous burden for any singer, the tenor still exuded the proverbial optimism. He commented on the mentioned temperature extremes with his own wit, a truly southern grace.

The vocal highlight of the evening can easily be considered Cura's rendition of Verdi's Otello. In the arias Dio! mi potevi and also Niun mi tema he portrayed a wide range of feeling, which was offered directly in accordance with the score. Aware of this expressive variation, however, the performer does not embrace his protagonist in traditional expressive grandeur but rather tries to understand the psychological instability of this opera character, oscillating from dramatic exaggeration to deep human interiority. After a less intense onset, Cura only slowly expands the sound register to a dramatic impact in a quest to psychologize this musically, ambivalent character. He thus expresses Verdi's Otello with a suggestive persuasiveness that springs from his perception of the role.

Conductor's extempore

José Cura may have made a name for himself as a tenor but he devotes himself to other fields in his quest for the greatest contribution to the Renaissance breadth of human endeavor.  He is a photographer and writer, but most often he is a conductor. Unfortunately, in this area his expression is often rather superficial, with a poorly developed sense for the more detailed concept of the scores: the conductor's performance is therefore more indicative of a generous effort to impress the audience with spectacularly conceived movements than of a gradual, ingeniously sensitive unravelling of the musical score.

The audience could see this during the course of the evenings in Český Krumlov not only during the performance of symphonic music in the part La Tregenda from the second act of Puccini's opera Le villi, but also in the conception of the intermezzo from Puccini's opera Manon Lescaut. Compared to guest conductor de Rose, Cura's conducting does appear livelier, which corresponds to his nature, but in terms of the actual interpretation, the sometimes overly excessively sweeping gestures are not very functional, even superfluous.  And since the Prague Radio Orchestra was perfectly prepared, obviously mastering everything from the previous rehearsals "to the last note," it seem Cura’s conducting was more about a spectacular visual display. 

[…]

Of course, such a gala concert could not have ended any other way than with the famous operatic hit Nessun dorma from Puccini's opera Turandot as the finale. Cura commented on it by saying, "It is as inevitable a conclusion to opera galas as the song New York, New York, without which no Frank Sinatra concert could end. And I am very happy that people in Český Krumlov also took away joyful moments of good music into the late summer night!"

During the final long-sounding Vincero!, everyone, even the most hardened critics, stood up with emotion and enthusiasm. Cura really "pulled it off" here as a true tenor of world renown; he proved that his vocal possibilities are truly outstanding. For his colourful, metallic-sounding bel canto of Pavarottian colouring finally asserted itself here, firm, sure, sonorous and impressive, something that the discerning spectator had found somewhat missing during the evening. So excitement and emotion were ultimately present in spades and the audience could be satisfied, certainly for the melodically rewarding repertoire. There are not many evenings like that.

The 19th year of the International Music Festival Cesky Krumlov

Lipa Musica

Lucie Johanovská

29 August 2010

This year’s opening concert was a really great celebration because one of the biggest stars of the opera world, renowned Argentinean tenor José Cura, accepted an invitation to the festival. The program consisted of the most famous opera arias of Italian opera repertoire spiced with inserted instrumental opera compositions, in most cases directed by José Cura himself. Cura’s singer partner was a leading Korean soprano, In Hye Kim. Both singers were accompanied with the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Argentinean conductor Mario de Rose.

José Cura presented not only a brilliant singing performance but by his informality and openness to the audience, he prepared a great artistic experience for everyone present despite of extreme weather conditions when tropical heat did not get to a tolerable level even in late night hours. With respect to the orchestra, José Cura then even asked President Vaclav Klaus, if members of the orchestra could take their jackets off. The heat however did not undermine the artistic quality of the concert. José Cura returned to the Czech Republic after seven years, his voice has matured like wine and got a darker color without losing the loveable cantilena that managed to charm literally everyone.

The suggestive opening presentation of Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, for which Cura walked informally from a side of the stage, was an example of next year’s cooperation in the framework of which José Cura will return to the Revolving Auditorium in Cesky Krumlov in a new version of Pagliacci. Then the Korean singer In-Hye Kim introduced herself to the festival audience for the first time in aria Pace, pace, mio Dio from the opera Forza del destino.

It was followed by one of touchstones, very difficult pieces of Verdi’s opera Otello. Cura’s interpretation of arias Dio mi potevi and Niun mi tema were certainly among peaks of the entire concert. José Cura pointed out at the press conference that “if you are in hands of a good conductor, if you follow what Verdi wrote, Otello is not dangerous... Otello is a murderer but he is not a murderer of voice... psychology of the character is the most important, though.” Cura however humorously remembered his first performance in Otello: “When I was thirty-four, the main goal was to survive and I changed my nappies between acts.” Otello in Cesky Krumlov was however so persuasive and intensive that it left no room for doubts whether Cura has mastered this role perfectly.

Arias from Tosca then shone through the hot night. Cura excitedly interleaved them with symphonic parts from operas Le Villi and Manon Lescaut. The fact that Cura is also an excellent conductor is not unknown. His expressive, charming but at the same time very precise gestures led the Symphonic Orchestra of the Czech Radio to a very good performance. The night peaked with parts from Madame Butterfly in which Kim at first perfectly presented aria Un bel di verdemo and then both singers said good-bye to the audience and the main part of the program in an excellent duet, Viene la sera from the same opera.

At the end, Cura himself pointed out that like Sinatra said that until New York, New York is played, no really good ovation can be heard and it is similar in the world of opera where everyone expects Calaf’s aria Nessun dorma and thus even this time this beautiful and tough aria could not absent although there was no lack of applause during the entire night – and standing ovations ended the concert. The perfect presentation of this aria was preceded by refreshing examples of Cura’s popular Argentinean song repertoire – songs Somos Novios and Esta Tarde Vi Llover. The entire night was ended with colorful fireworks.

And what were artists’ reactions after the concert?

In-Hye Kim said: “I am extremely happy and honored that I’ve had an opportunity to perform with one of the best tenors in the world, José Cura, and the great Symphonic Orchestra of the Czech Radio, and that it happened here, in beautiful Cesky Krumlov. In addition, we are celebrating 20 years of diplomatic relations of South Korea and the Czech Republic this year and thus I believe that this lovely cooperation will continue.”

José Cura, physically exhausted by the complicated conditions of the performance, pointed out he had lost two kilos of weight and he joked that he had not managed to eat any mosquito – which is one of the greatest risks of open-air concerts, which he had mentioned during the concert.

At the end of the last year, when advance sale was started for the opening gala evening with phenomenal José Cura, it was obvious that it would be sold out soon and therefore it was very pleasing that José Cura was willing to please the demand of Czech audience and added a second performance. What could not have been influenced, though, was the weather that negatively affected even the second performance of José Cura who sang with determination with a blanket over his shoulders.

“It was very, very tough. It might seem funny but it isn’t. If you sing in 40 degrees of Celsius one day and in 12 degrees the next day, it’s no fun. The difference of 28 degrees is lethal and it is not just about you being cold, you can wear warm clothes after all but the problem is that the cold air that you breathe in with your mouth goes directly into your lungs. If you went out now (i.e. at night) and breathed in with your mouth, not your nose, you would start coughing after three breaths. So imagine what it is like to sing in these conditions... it’s very, very hard because ice-cold air gets into your body and your organism is beginning to produce mucus to protect your tissues so you have to cough out all the time. If the audience understands that you are trying to do the maximum for the love of the concert, you cough and people understand it. It is unpleasant, though, if the concert is recorded and people sitting at their radios do not understand what is going on. That was also the reason why I tried to explain that it is cold but in your homes it is cozy and warm,” Cura said after the concert and added:

“Energy here, in this place, is really very nice and people who come here, at least as far as I’ve been able to see, are those who want to enjoy it, not to judge whether they liked it or not but to spend a good time here. You can see people in the audience, how happy they are, excited by the concert and nobody leaves. If a similar concert took place at a different festival in the same weather, for example in more southern countries, I don’t know if the audience would stay until the end of the concert. I remember a concert in Verona, for example, one raindrop was enough for the performance to be ended and everyone left and if it stops raining, the concert continues, if it does not, it is canceled. And here you can see the opposite. It was not so bad today but yesterday my wife went to the Broadway Night and people listened to the music in rain. It proves that people want to enjoy nice moments together and are very devoted and excited listeners and you do the maximum for them so that they could bring home a great experience and they suffer with you. That is really a great thing that is worth mentioning.”

The artistic peak of not only this year’s festival, thousands of excited visitors, atmosphere that is hard to describe with words – these were two performances of José Cura in Cesky Krumlov. We are pleased and excited that next year we will meet José Cura in Cesky Krumlov again – as Canio in Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci at the Revolving Auditorium.