Liner Notes (excerpt):  It is music and discovery that form the twin foundations of José Cura’s work on this recording, full of the emotions of nostalgia and yet at the same time anchored in today’s reality, where the artist has skillfully used his exceptional voice to paint his identity on to the music. [This CD is] the perfect marriage of music and discovery which, both majestic and expressive, may be read as an open page of the heart, for José Cura performs these songs with a natural emotion, with all the genuine feeling that springs from a lover’s embrace.  This is no imperious, passive truth, but something far more precious:  it means being master of oneself, of one’s memories, imagination, native country and one’s dreams.  With this CD José Cura conjures up a sense of eternal nostalgia, expressing himself in his own words, living in that state of grace that arises from devotion to all that he has ever seen, heard, endured and enjoyed in his native Rosario, in his own homeland.  That he succeeds in his task without turning his back on his very full and promising life today, renders all the more laudable his efforts to champion this music and bring it to the attention of music lovers everywhere.

If a man should disregard his roots then he barely rises to a solitary metaphysical existence.  Only when he expresses himself within his own world, only when he follows the dictates of his heart does he take on reality, and only then does his world take on a deeper meaning.  José Cura will undoubtedly continue in his brilliant career he has already carved out for himself, but this record will remain as irrefutable proof that man needs roots, even if only to be free of them.

Marion Lignana Rosenberg Blog Post:  I heard Mr. Cura’s Puccini recital some time ago and was much taken with his expressive power, musicianship, and gorgeous, dusky timbre.  I felt he still had some technical issues to work out:  the registers sounded ill-knitted, and the high notes in particular seemed poorly integrated with the rest of his voice. 

In any event, the Puccini recital did not prepare me for the wonders of Anhelo, which is one of the loveliest recital discs I have ever heard.  What a thrill to hear a heroic voice like Mr. Cura’s scaled down to nimble, velvety washes of sound—and an artist so acutely sensitive to poetry giving voice to texts by Pablo Neruda and other masters of the noble Spanish tongue.  Blasphemous though it may seem (and I have no wish to reopen the celebrated “tenore gaucho” debate), Mr. Cura’s singing in Anhelo reminds me of no one so much as Tito Schipa.  Don’t get me wrong:  in terms of vocal quality and technique, it would be difficult to name two more dissimilar tenors.  But Mr. Cura, like Tito Schipa, sings this “popular” and “semi-popular” music without a hint of condescension or preciousness, creating the illusion of conversing with the listener while demonstrating a mastery of phrasing, dynamics, color, and so on that is the stuff of supreme vocal art.  Marion Lignana Rosenberg, Posted 28 December 1998

A Look at José Cura
 

American Record Guide

Marion Lignana Rosenberg
September / October 1999

The last few months have not been easy for opera's most recently anointed superstar, tenor José Cura, due to make his Metropolitan Opera début as Turiddu in Cavalleria rusticana on opening night of the 1999-2000 season. London critics lambasted his recent concert performances of Otello, alleging melodramatic excess: "the ego has landed," sneered The Independent, while Rodney Milnes, in The Times, pronounced Cura's performance an "insult to Verdi." In Italy, Cura's every mention seems to rate a dig at his athletic physique: "the wrestler of opera," "the most macho tenor of the moment." To be sure, some degree of backlash was probably inevitable: Cura, after all, is young (only 36), talented, successful, handsome, heedless of limits (a composer, a conductor, an instrumentalist, and an accomplished interpreter of popular music as well as a primo tenore) and, if his press is to be believed, not a little self-important. Such an impressive combination of gifts is bound to arouse envy, particularly since, unlike some of his fellow superstars, Cura (an Argentine based in France) appears uninterested in pandering to the stereotype that paints Latin singers as dopey, uncomplicated extroverts.

Somewhat less controversial was his performance in La Scala's new production of La forza del destino earlier this year. The lengthy (and hardly disinterested) sniping in Opera News to the contrary, the Scala Forza was triumphantly received in the European press, not least because of Cura's Don Alvaro. The premiere found him in less than scintillating form dramatically. While his professed ambition is to be "the Olivier of opera," his acting - earnest, well-intentioned, and woefully stiff - brought to mind Al Gore more readily than Sir Laurence: proof that even one so prodigiously gifted as Cura has room to grow. Musically, though, he certainly delivered the goods, his rich, burnished tones ringing out with assurance, smoky in the lower register, laced with metallo on high, negotiating the tricky intervals in "O tu che in seno agli angeli" with admirable finesse. More importantly, Cura's singing conveyed all the affliction and fire of what is, with Ernani, Verdi's most arrabbiato tenor role. All in all - and this is offered with some trepidation, based as it is on only a handful of hearings - I would rate Cura's as the most exciting lirico-spinto voice I have heard in the Italian repertoire.

Those interested in seeing him in top form need look no further than the Scala video of Puccini's Manon Lescaut. In addition to an incomparably beautiful reading by Riccardo Muti and the La Scala Orchestra (the last act, tinged with the ashen colors of death, is almost unbearably painful), the video preserves Cura's remarkable début as Des Grieux. When asked what made his Manon different from Massenet's, Puccini indicated that it was the prominence accorded the young chevalier, replying that he had "invested all [his] emotion in the voice of that man, wounded in his heart." It is precisely this quality of vulnerability, of devastating emotional honesty, that sets Cura's Des Grieux apart. Though Manon Lescaut has hardly lacked for distinguished tenor protagonists (Pertile, Bjoerling, and Domingo among them), this young man has already made his mark on the role: his soaring cries in Act IV, thrilling though they may be, transcend mere vocal beauty, conveying a desperate, almost animalistic anguish. To be sure, Cura takes some time to warm up, both musically and dramatically, but the overall performance makes one anticipate all the more keenly his forthcoming Erato recital of verismo arias by Mascagni, Giordano, Catalani, and Franchetti. Cura will conduct the recording, and also assay a well-known baritone aria: the prologue to Leoncavallo's Pagliacci.

Cura's other recent recordings speak to the wide range of his musical accomplishments. One might quibble about certain aspects of the Samson et Dalila (Erato), in which he is paired with the luscious Olga Borodina: his rather approximate French, an occasional tendency to bark his way through declamatory passages. The millstone scene, though, begun in an abject mezza voce, burns with all the devotion one would expect from someone whose preferred reading runs to Jesuit theologian Anthony de Mello. And the climax of "Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix" is surely one of the steamiest scenes captured on disc, though its sexiness has nothing to do with buff physiques and everything to do with gutsy, compelling musicianship: the creaminess of Borodina's instrument and, from Cura, the half-tints of an heroic voice breathless with longing, caressing Saint-Saën's sinuous vocal lines, surging to a exultant B-flat that speaks as much of erotic rapture as it does of a tenor nailing his money note.

Cura brings a similar degree of eloquence and of willingness to set aside tenorial clichés to Anhelo, a collection of Argentinian songs (Erato). Though Anhelo has attracted less attention than Cura's début disc of Puccini arias, this hypnotic recording is one of the finest vocal recitals of recent years. Once again, Cura scales down his beefy voice to a lithe, translucent instrument, delving with the soul of a poet into texts by Pablo Neruda and other great writers. His rhythm and phrasing have a Schipa-like suppleness, and he serves as both conductor and arranger of the 20 selections, several of which he also composed.

What's left, then, for this remarkable young man? Recent years have seen several promising young tenors crash and burn, undone by the pressures of today's operatic scene. And Cura has been known to affect a less than reassuring ennui, recently confiding to one interviewer: "I'm 34 years old, I'm about to sing Otello with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Claudio Abbado… And then? What am I supposed to do for the rest of my career?" Now that his Met début approaches, one can only hope that Cura will take some time to ponder the motto of the great state of New York: Excelsior, "ever upwards."

 Review Highlights

With this recital, Cura underscores impressively that he is no doubt the most accomplished musician among his tenor colleagues at present. Whoever is willing and able to come to terms with this music and its texts will surely be enthusiastic about this CD.  Opernglas

With a mature range of coloring and power at the core, the Argentinean José Cura stands at the threshold to world fame. Cura makes his own, tasteful arrangements (and compositions!) exercises in understatement- and lets the beauty of his voice take effect.  Scala Nr.5/98

José Cura is unique among singers of international standing in that he composes, arranges and conducts, and was doing so long before his name became famous. Anhelo shows him assuming all these roles in a program of Argentine song which focuses on lyrics of nostalgia and longing. It is obviously an undertaking close to his heart, for it is carefully organized and rendered with great tenderness and passion. Many of the composers represented are not well known outside Argentina, but that may change. The songs of Carlos Guastavino, of which there are eight here, possess a distinctive bittersweetness which is truly haunting. There is also one song by Argentina's best known avant-garde composer, Alberto Ginastera, as well as a piano arrangement of tango master Astor Piazzolla's  Adios Nonino.  This is far from your usual superstar tenor's crossover project and is, in fact, a most valuable addition to the catalog.  CDConnection

Anhelo on the Erato label is a wonderful collection of traditional folk songs performed by the Argentinean tenor, José Cura. Not the usual cross-over recording that is quite prevalent these days, this was a major under taking where Cura not only conducts and provides the arrangements for the orchestration, he also composed two of the songs and the opening orchestral introduction. Joined by guitarist, Ernesto Bitetti and pianist, Eduardo Delgado, both known from childhood, Cura's voice captures the beauty of these songs usually with very sparse arrangements, highlighting such instruments as recorders, clarinet and bassoon. These are songs that deserve to be more widely known. Cura's love for this music is evident and one cannot help but be caught up with the beauty of the music on this disc.  Japan Traveler Magazine

 Almost all of the pieces forming the sequence are yearningly melancholy, with the tone set by the opening instrumental piece by Cura himself....Though the recording acoustic and close balance do not allow the full bloom of Cura's fine tenor to emerge, these are warmly expressive performances, not just from him but from his associates too.  Gramophone Magazine

Though Anhelo has attracted less attention than Cura's debut disc of Puccini arias, this hypnotic recording is one of the finest vocal recitals of recent years... Cura scales down his beefy voice to a lithe, translucent instrument, delving with the soul of a poet into texts by Pablo Neruda and other great writers.  American Record Guide

José Cura is unique among singers of international standing in that he composes, arranges and conducts, and was doing so long before his name became famous. Anhelo shows him assuming all these roles in a program of Argentine song which focuses on lyrics of nostalgia and longing. It is obviously an undertaking close to his heart, for it is carefully organized and rendered with great tenderness and passion.  This is far from your usual superstar tenor's crossover project and is, in fact, a most valuable addition to the catalog.  AllMusic

José Cura's first crossover disc, Anhelo, is quite the exception. The tenor not only sings but has orchestrated and conducted several numbers as well, which is only the most tangible evidence of the thought and feeling he's put into this. The emphasis is on ballads--which is only fitting for an album whose title intense, suffocating desire--though there are also folk-like songs and instrumental cuts, one of which Cura composed himself in a neo-Puccinian style. Some of the songs have orchestrations, but the instrumentation is mostly spare: often acoustic guitar or piano and, in one cut, only solo voice.  Clearly, this disc didn't just arise out of a career strategy but as a sincere desire to communicate. And it does--  Amazon Review

This is a classy production; the wistful, whimsical lyrics of these featherlight songs are by the greatest of Spanish-language poets-Neruda, Alberti, Quevedo-the instrumentals are crisp and clean and the original compositions, a three-minute instrumental prelude and settings of two of Neruda's Sonetos de Amor y Muerte catch the mood of tender melancholy to perfection.  Gorgeous from start to finish…  The Irish Times

In this exquisite CD of Argentine music, you will not hear José Cura sing with the full power of his magnificent operatic voice, but rather with a gentle beauty that is captivating. He shows us his heart in these songs, and what he is capable of doing artistically as well as his commitment to excellence, beyond his career as an international opera superstar.  Wrapping his big, rich, meltingly warm barti-tenor voice around each ballad of heartache and romantic longing, Cura beautifully conveys the emotion at the heart of the song; its meaning comes clear even for us listeners who aren’t up on our Spanish. Especially impressive are his top notes, which he deploys either forcefully or very soft and intimate, like a lover’s whisper in one’s ear. Simply put, Anhelo is a beautiful album and one which deserves a place any serious music lover’s collection.  MusicDownload

The credits after his name say it all.  What can’t this rising young tenor do?  Anhelo is translated as a hope or desire so intense that is suffocates or torments.  All of these songs from Argentina have that in common, but Cura and guests perform them with such grace, elegance, and naturalness that the agony is sweet indeed.  Wet Paint

With a hauntingly inviting orchestral prelude of his own composition, tenor José Cura transports us to his native Argentina.  Despite some recognizable influences—Faure , Schubert, Puccini—the widely varied selections on this enchanting recording, all by Argentinian composers of this century, have a distinctly “south of the border” flavor.  The raw naturalness of Cura’s dusky tenor, the poignant tugs away from tonality and the pastorally poetic texts conspire to capture the shifting moods and colors of anhelo.  This is a captivating introduction to the Argentinian song repertory.  Opera News

Cura emerges as a comprehensive musician, who aside from singing, is also responsible for the orchestrations and some conducting and composing, too.  But it is above all his creamy tenor, a most welcome guest at the leading opera houses of our time, which captures you from beginning to end.  This rewarding album contains some great Latin American music performed with sincerity, aplomb and vocal panache.  Cura emerges as a great singer who pays a graceful tribute to his own musical traditions.  Jerusalem Post

The handsome young singer is a true triple threat:  in this attractive collection, he sings, conducts and arranges—in one instance, he even composes!  Alternating warm orchestral settings with guitar and piano, Cura presents a dark, low-ranging tenor that brings an immediacy and communicativeness to these songs, convincing the listener that many of them belong in any recitalist’s basic repertory.  Denver Rocky Mountain News

José Cura in laid-back, easy-listening mode.  His fans will want this disc.  Classical Net