Otello by Giuseppe Verdi at the Ljubljana Festival: the triumph of José Cura

Il Piccolo / Repubblica

Paolo Bullo

7 July 2016

[Excerpts / computer translation]

In the varied program of the Ljubljana Festival, it cannot be missed that the opera of choice this year fell to the Otello by Giuseppe Verdi, one of the masterpieces of opera…with staging by Manfred Schweigkofler.

The South Tyrolean director does not seek any particular interpretation of the text and without a doubt the protagonist of the story is, as usual, Iago.  An Iago who, as we know, reduces Otello to a puppet with his intrigues, pushed him to the terrible femicide of Desdmona, and in this case open and closes the work with his presence on the stage.  Mission accomplished.

Schweigkofler sets the drama in a timeless space which captures historical references (the banners depicting the Lion of St. Mark, for example, the gothic atmospheres of Tim Burton and manga-inspired influences.

The set design, by Walter Schütze, consists of an imposing structure that rotates on the large stage and turns from time to time – thanks to the remarkable lighting system by Andrej Hajdinjak, giving three dimensions to the show – in the different environments in which the plot unfolds.  From my point of view the costumes of Mateja Benedetti – especially those worn by the women, just a step from the kitsch – are not particularly successful, but definitely are consistent to the idea direction.  Evocative and exciting the short fourth Act, with Desdemona’s white bed immersed in the darkness from which Otello will appear.

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The highlight of the evening was, of course, guest star José Cura as the Moor. All the other singers were resident artists at the theater.

A tenor with a long career, Cura is one of the most credible interpreters of Otello today, not only for his charisma and acting ability but also for his vocal qualities. Although the high notes occasionally sound forced, his voice runs well in the theater, his breathing technique allows him to handle the difficult, shifting texture of the part, and the central register is still flourishing.

Besides that, he has complete mastery of the part and his Otello is played with the phrasing that places the performance in the tradition that favors the psychological excavation of Jon Vickers to the more outward, muscular voice of Del Monaco.  Cura excels in making his protagonist’s descent into hell both theatrically effective and credible and Nium mi tema proved incisive and poignant, embellished with a sense of exhausted defeat that emotionally involved the audience. 

The large and sympathetic audience paid tribute to the show as a great success and the entire company was kept on the stage for a quarter of an hour, decreeing individual and real triumph for José Cura….

José Cura:  “You cannot be an opera singer if you can only sing”

Delo

Igor Bratož

5 July 2016

The fifty-three-year-old Argentine tenor José Cura has already appeared at the Ljubljana Festival a few years ago in an evening of opera arias, but this year he will perform what has made him one of the most celebrated contemporary opera singers, Verdi's Otello.

Mr. Cura, you are renowned for your intense and original interpretations of operatic characters. How does your understanding of each character change over time?  Who is your Otello now? You said some time ago that Otello is a man who once upon a time was something, even a hero, but who has become nothing, a man who is disintegrating into fragments of nothingness.

I used to explain this quite simply, namely how Otello has changed throughout my life: when I started singing him about twenty years ago, they had to gray my hair to make me look older but now they darken it from time to time so I don't look as old as I am. It sounds like a cheap treat, but think about it: in one's life, things like that are interesting and important because they speak their mind and they draw attention.

It is one thing to be young and pretend to know how a 50-year-old like Otello thinks and feels, but it is another thing to be really 50 or older and have the answer in the palm of your hand. There is also, of course, the parable of how the role develops in your mind: no matter how many times you appear as Otello, your understanding is always different because you are always discovering new colors and you are looking for, and sometimes finding, new meanings.  This role is simply fascinating. 

Since you have devoted yourself to studying composition and conducting as well as singing, you are probably often asked if you have a different perception of an opera as a singer. Do you see more than others?

I could use a comparison from the kitchen to describe my approach to opera and music in general: in a piece of music, I don't see a dish put on a plate ready to be consumed immediately, but I am interested in how each of the elements on the plate has been prepared. I think that's the way any performer should face a piece of music, to understand how it's put together, not just to know that it needs to be performed. I think that knowledge of composition and conducting makes for a much better performance of a piece, and in my case the analysis of a piece or an opera is almost reflexive.  I don't just look at the part that I'm singing, I look at all the other characters, and the orchestral and choral parts, the orchestration, everything else. I can't do without that, it's obviously part of my character.

Question for the conductor: what makes an orchestra sound good?

You have asked a difficult, very difficult question. It would be equally difficult for me to answer you if you asked me why a woman is so beautiful or why a dish is so tasty. It is, of course, a question of taste. The sound of an orchestra, which one person finds excellent, another person finds barely acceptable. Nothing, nothing in the world is universally beautiful; it is beautiful only for the individual, for everyone differently. In fact, I never want to talk about sound quality in this respect.  I prefer to say that it is a question of taste.

To be more precise: in a particular performance of a piece, rather than talking about beauty, which depends on the [perception of the] individual listener, it makes sense to talk about the emotional commitment, the dedication of the musical performer(s) to authentically convey the composer's idea to the listener.  That seems to me to be much more important than being impressed by beauty for the sake of beauty. Beauty and perfection cannot be the absolute goal, they have to be part of the musician's endeavor. I don’t want to hang with a boring beauty. Nor would I want to work with an incredibly great orchestra if I could not feel its emotionality. Well, that's my point of view.  Not everybody has to think like that.

All the performances during your singing career point to acting, the energy and the effort you devote to the acting part of each role.

In opera, singing and acting should be equal. It is one thing to be an actor and another to be a singer - and yet another to be an opera performer. You have to be an exceptional actor who sings, or an exceptional singer who acts, not just an exceptional singer who also tries to act, or an actor who also tries to sing. The problem of overlooking the importance of these simple requirements comes from schools, from conservatoires.

The concept is wrong.  We should know that you cannot be an opera singer if you can only sing. Then what happens is that, in the context of so-called modern approaches to the classical operatic repertoire, directors suffer all sorts of oddities in the performances just so that the audience doesn't lose attention because of the incompetent acting of the performers. What is most disturbing about such attempts to modernise opera is the lack of intelligent, witty concepts.