Carmen - Early Performances

José Cura, The Makings of a Hero

Diapason

Emmanuel Dupuy

February 1999

[Computer-assisted Translation // Excerpt]

A strong physique and a voice that ventures without risk into the heaviest repertoire allowed him to climb the steps of fame with astonishing speed. He is currently Don José at the Paris National Opera.

We discovered him somewhat by chance three years ago at the Bastille: in Verdi's Nabucco, he made Ismaél much more than a supporting role, with voice and presence to match. There was no doubt then that we would soon be hearing from this almost unknown tenor. And we didn’t have to wait long: a few months later, in Turin, Cura sang his first Otello at the age of thirty-four with the Berlin Philharmonic under Abbado! News of his triumph spread around the world, instantaneously making him an international star in one fell swoop. Since then, further successes in major theatres and recordings have confirmed the immense potential of this all-round artist, singer as well as conductor and composer. But do we really know him? Fortunately, José Cura is a man who likes to talk, and to find out who he is, all you have to do is ask him...

I began studying music in Argentina at the age of twelve: first classical guitar, then a little later composition and orchestral and choral conducting. By that time I was already singing a lot, mostly early composers - Palestrina, Gesuáldo - or songs by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Billy Joel... Then, at university, I was assistant choirmaster. One day, as I was preparing the tenor section, the director heard me singing and advised me to work on my voice. At the time, I enjoyed symphonic works and religious music; opera didn't appeal to me at all. But I still took singing lessons to complete my musical training. That's how it all began. I had several teachers, some good and some bad. At the age of twenty-six, in Buenos Aires, I finally met the one who put my technique in place. It's a good thing it happened so late, because by then I was physically stronger. And as I already had a dramatic voice, I could tackle roles that might have been dangerous when I was twenty or twenty-two.

You have just mentioned your training as a conductor and composer. In fact, in your latest recital album dedicated to Argentine music, you conduct some of your works. How would you define your style?

I don't really think I have a style. I compose rather intuitively. The songs on the record you're referring to are traditional in style. I tried to write a fairly easy melody that enhances Neruda's poems and doesn't make them lose their force. But in the past, I've also composed somewhat more complex works, such as my Stabat Mater, Magnificat or Requiem, with the use of cries, slightly bizarre things...

Do you have any role models among today's composers?

If I have to identify with a movement, it would rather be with the first contemporaries or the last romantics; Janacek for example. I also greatly admire Penderecki's second period, that of the Te Deum or the Passion according to Saint Luke where he became more neo-romantic than at his beginnings.

Erato has just released your first full-length recording of an opera, Samson et Dalila. Do you attach much importance to recordings?

Obviously, because through the record we are immortalized, especially in this age of compact discs. Recording is a way of saying to the world: "I've been here and this is what I leave behind." But for an artist like me, who is used to performing live, it's also presents frustration, because the record can't capture the physical aspect of the performance. In the future, this may be possible thanks to DVD which will allow you to record both sound and images.

Compared to the stage, there is also an artificial side to making a record. Does that bother you?

It all depends on the spirit in which you do it. For Samson et Dalila, for example, the sessions only lasted five days, which is not very long considering the length of the work. Originally, this schedule had been drawn up for financial reasons: these days, it's impossible to mobilize the London Symphony Orchestra, a choir, a conductor and an international cast indefinitely. As a result, we were obliged to record the scenes one after the other, making very few corrections. In the end, the result is quite spontaneous and retains a certain dramatic continuity. In my other recordings, I also wanted to retain a certain impression of naturalism. In my Puccini album, for example, there are moments when I cry, when you can hear my breathing and the tension in my voice. I wanted it that way to achieve a kind of compromise between the stage and the studio.

You took on dramatic roles at a very young age: obviously Otello, but also Samson and Radamès. Aren't you sometimes tempted to return to more lyrical roles?

This classification - dramatic or lyrical – is more folklore than reality. Radamès for example: for me, it is a lyrical role, even if we have often heard tenors sing it in a very shouted way. It's only in the duet with Amneris in Act IV that it becomes truly dramatic, becoming vocally heavier and even a little baritone. The rest of the opera, Celeste Aida, the love duet with Aida, the tomb scene, etc.: it's all very lyrical. In Otello it's a matter of choice - I could do it the traditional way by trying to sing louder than my partners. But personally, I have a more internalized conception of the character. My Otello certainly owes more to Shakespeare and Orson Welles than to Verdi and Boito. What interests me is his psychology, the pain of a man who was a hero and who is now at the end of his life, broken. From the point of view of artistic commitment, it is very demanding: singing Otello’s death as I did with a thread of voice is much more difficult than screaming. We forget that Otello is not verismo but dramatic bel canto which requires authority of coulcur and accent.

Aren’t you afraid you took on the role too early?

No. All the great Otellos of this century - Vinay, Del Monaco, Vickers, Domingo - sang it for the first time when they were in their mid-thirties. If you have the voice for the role and above all the intelligence to understand how far you can go without burning yourself out, without trying to copy others, this is the ideal age. Because it takes at least four or five years before you become a great Othello.

How do you see your repertoire evolving in the coming years?

A famous tenor of the past once said that the voice is like a blanket: if you cover your feet, you uncover your head, and vice versa. This simply means that when you enlarge the midrange, you lose ease in the higher one. Whereas if you work more on lightness, it's the lower register that suffers. So there's a choice to be made, by style but above all by temperament. Personally, I'm more of a dramatic, romantic type, with a physique to match. I can be a comedian, but I don't think the public spontaneously identifies me with that type of job. When they see me on stage, they expect something strong to happen. That's why I've chosen a repertoire where the center of the voice is used a lot. So my future lies in Otello, Samson and Canio, roles in which the midrange and lower register are used more than the high.

Do you think you will later turn to Wagnerian jobs like Plácido Domingo?

I don't speak German, and I don't think you can sing in this language without suffering if you haven't mastered it perfectly. Domingo does it today, but only he could say what expressing himself in a non-Latin language costs him in terms of concentration. In the same way, when Russians or Germans approach French or Italian opera, it's clear that, with a few exceptions, they come up against limits. This is normal.

After Samson and Don José, are you tempted by other French roles? Les Troyens' Aeneas would probably suit your voice type.

I've been offered the role. But I won't be doing it for another three or four years, because it's a very long work and right now I don't have the time to work on it. Before Berlioz, there's another experiment I want to try: Werther. In recent years, this is a role that has always been sung by lyric or light tenors. Yet there is a strong dramatic content to this character, and I believe that a voice like mine can bring a different dimension.

Clearly, you do everything not to let yourself be pigeonholed...

Labels are useful because you have to put people into [vocal] categories, otherwise you don't understand anything; it's obvious, for example, that I'll never sing Don Ottavio! But you also have to be open-minded. The dramatic quality of a role is not determined by the amount of decibels you produce, but by the situation, the psychology. I can experience a tragedy, see my child die and speak to him very softly. Conversely, I can scream to the four winds that I love my wife, and that's the most romantic situation ever. If I were a woman, I'd definitely prefer a tenor who sang Che gelida manina to me in a dark, Latin and virile way.

You have a reputation for being an excellent actor. How do you reconcile your stage work with the demands of singing?

Ideally, the two should be mutually enriching. But certain dramatic situations can jeopardize the sound production. This is the case in the millstone scene in Samson et Dalila, where the hero is chained, mutilated and tortured, on the brink of total collapse. If you really play the character with intensity, as I do, some of the notes may be a little unorthodox. But it's in keeping with the spirit of the situation: how can you expect a person going through such an ordeal to sing like a bird? These days, if you want to enjoy music in all its perfection, you stay at home and listen to records. When we go to the theater, it's to see on stage the pain, the joy, all the feelings behind the notes.

You have worked with some great conductors - Abbado, Muti, Colin Davis. What did you learn from them?

These encounters obviously counted for a lot. But in this profession, you're always learning, and not just from the great conductors. A few months ago, I gave a concert in Tokyo. At the end, I sang an encore of the first song I'd learned as a child: Yesterday by the Beatles. After a few bars, the last cellist in the orchestra stood up and began to improvise on my voice. He was quickly joined by one of the second violins and a violist. In a matter of seconds, a wonderful atmosphere of immense musical quality was created.

To create such moments, you need a certain charisma...

Of course. For me, the most important thing is the relationship with the audience. Whatever theater you perform in, if you give a lot of love, you're bound to get a lot back. When I sing, I really give my all. I recently broke my finger slipping on stage at the Washington Opera! You have to take risks. I'm sure that many of my colleagues are technically better, and some have more beautiful voices than I do. But I don't know many singers who give as much love as I do.

Carmen, Barbican, July 1998: “It was chiefly a vehicle for the rich talents of the Argentinian tenor José Cura as Don José and the mezzo Olga Borodina as Carmen. As an example of two singers in prime vocal condition, it was impressive in terms of timbre. Both Cura and Borodina knew how to tailor their singing to a particular episode or situation, but depth or development of characterisation were communicated only sketchily. There was some physical communication between the two, inasmuch as the cramped concert stage allowed it, but the absence of theatrical space and spirit seemed to be an impediment to the full blossoming of their fated relationship.” Telegraph, 18 July 1998, Geoffrey Norris

Carmen, Barbican, July 1998: “This was Bizet confined to the concert platform. But Sunday’s Carmen carried a fire and finesse that outclassed many a staging hung with all the trappings of a Seville the composer never visited. José Cura’s brigadier [was] careful to develop his José gradually and not give away too much too early. His tenor is fast developing the baritonal qualities of Plácido Domino and Cura uses them to powerful effect, making José end as a gored bull, tormented beyond endurance. Behold the humble prototype of the Otello that Cura is about to sing around the world.” The Times, 15 July 1998, John Higgins

Missing in action

The Spectator

Michael Tanner

25 July 1998

Every now and then I come across an opera lover who has no time for Carmen, something I find incomprehensible. Even if what you are looking for is depth, sometimes it is wonderful to remain on the surface, and no surface, surely, is more seductive than that which Bizet provides in his masterpiece. Could one love music and not fall for the superb melodies which Carmen notches up at a faster rate than any other opera I can think of? Even if the character of Micaela is a tiny bit boring, isn't the melody to which she tells Don José about his mother dreaming of him night and day the most beautiful ever written, the one which makes me inclined to believe in a platonic heaven of tunes, to which Bizet was granted access? Well no, apparently not.

Although I enjoyed a lot about the concert performance of Carmen at the Barbican last week, I could glimpse, for once, why one might remain uncaptivated. Colin Davis conducted it as a work of extremities, with a stunningly loud and fast Prelude, followed by an inert and too restrained scene between Morales and the soldiers, and a flaccid account of the scene between him and Micaela. The dynamics, together with the Barbican acoustics, suggested one was listening to a CD, while the tempi continued to sound contrived; the climax of absurdity was a Card Song taken as a dirge, nothing threatening about it because all life had already departed.

Carmen herself is a well-aired mystery, even if the solution is that there is nothing to understand. Olga Borodina inhabited a time-warp, roughly Hollywood in the Thirties; her diamante shoes, spangled black dress and curled lip only conjured up B-movie memories of vamps. She was fairly seriously underpowered most of the time, and otherwise shouted. Her rival, Andrea Dankova's Micaela (it was a heavily Slav cast), was all smiles and confidence, tall and sexy in a current mode, so that one wondered what José saw in Carmen that he didn't find in her. She sang ardently, sweetly, and her Act III aria for once had some dramatic force. The only unproblematic element was José Cura's José, getting the applause that befits someone on his way from the wings to centre-stage as reigning Italian (-style) tenor. He didn't try to portray José as a psychopath, a notion which has to be imported into the part. Rather he remained the mother's boy with a surging libido, and insofar as there was any team to collaborate with, he was the ideal member.

Perhaps Carmen is unusually resistant to concert performance, with minimal acting. It is an action-piece, and to have Carmen merely lodging herself on the edge of the podium and sneering while José pleads with her, or staring dolefully into the back row of first violins when she should just have been stabbed to death, seemed inadequate. There was some amazingly sloppy playing from the LSO (this was the second performance), as well as some that was magnificent. It was an unsatisfactory evening in a peculiar way.

Carmen

Opera

Rodney Milnes

September 1998

[Excerpts]

This is a perfectly enjoyable evening as long as you forgot all about Bizet. The LSO had cost their nets far and wide for singers: a Turkish tenor for Remendado, a Bulgarian Toreador, a Slovakian Micaela and a Chinese Morales—this without mentioning the leads, the Russian mezzo Olga Borodina in the title role and the Argentinian tenor José Cura as Don José. The full LSO was on parade—eight double basses pounding away—and the LSO Chorus was to be counted in hundreds rather than tens, all this for a piece written for the Opéra-Comique. And Sir Colin’s reading was distinctly Teutonic—bags of heavy-breathing rubato, restless changes of tempo, culminating in a finale that sounded newly composed by Mahler. Of Gallic detachment (and wit) there was barely a trace.

Borodina’s smoke mezzo was well suited to Carmen and she sang with style, defeated only by Sir Colin’s grotesquely slow speed for the Card Song. Cura could sing José standing on his head, in which case who sanctioned his screaming that pianissimo B flat at the end of the Flower Song? His singing in the Micaela duet was by way of contrast gentle and expressive. Even in concert terms, his account of the finales as if play by Seth Starkadder (jacket discarded, three shirt buttons undone) was a collector’s item.

Note: This is a machine-based translation. We offer it only a a general guide but it should not be considered definitive.

Don José

Scala

Jurgen Kesting

June 1998

[Excerpt / computer translation]

Argentinean singer José Cura is facing a dream career. Scala met the "Tenor of the 21st Century" with the macho image.

Could I at least spare him a few of the usual questions?

"You know what I mean," says José Cura, "whether I am the fourth tenor? Whether I am the successor of the three? Or whether the pressure I am subjected to can be endured at all? This pressure that others seem to feel for me," he says ironically. "I am not burdening myself more than I can shoulder."

Well, his shoulders are broad, very broad even; they are those of a former bodybuilder. This Argentinean has nothing in common with the small, fat tenor type. The slender face, the dark eyes, the dark hair growing from the forehead - this is what the playmaker of an Argentine football team looks like. Cura is an athletic 6 foot 1 inch; his self-confidence is at least as big. He wears the black belt of the kung fu fighter - and the title "Tenor for the Next Millennium."

He is eating in the cantina of the Vienna State Opera; he has a rehearsal behind him, the interview in front of him and is expected at a signing for his first two records. He hastily forks a carrot, celery and bean salad with a little sheep's cheese; takes a cheeky macho look at the thighs of a waitress wearing an extra-short skirt and talks again to Beatrice Uria-Monzon. From her, a beautiful French woman with medium parted dark hair, every man would like to hear that love is a wild bird. But she only tells it to Cura--on stage.

Half an hour earlier, when she was still George Bizet's opera hero Carmen in the rehearsal room, temper animated her. In a scene in the second act, Carmen begins to understand Don José's possessive love. According to direction, she picks up José’s sword to throw it at his feet. But somehow the trajectory goes awry and if he had not reacted quickly, Partner Cura would have been hit in the head. "Excuse moi," she says again and again but he was thrilled.

He is still excited. "That's exactly what it should be like," he says, "what Carmen is really like, only in the theater we replace the action with an illusion. But what we need on the stage is real passion. Conventional demonstrations are not enough, and not just beautiful singing. A performance is only convincing if it creates a modern reality." When asked how he imagined a passionate and realistic depiction of the scenes in which Desdemona is assassinated by Otello or Carmen by José, he replies with a laugh: "Of course there is no real action on the stage, but there is a depiction that convinces by energy, by passion."

He asks with a mild rebuke if I didn't notice that during the rehearsal in the scene, when Zuniga wants to arrest the struggling Jose. "What happens there? These are two excited animals fighting each other. You can't gracefully wield your sword with them."

He had performed the angry and nasty fight by literally lifting and tossing his French colleague, a lightweight, off the ground. "Both are singing blood," he says, "I don't want to fake that, it takes passion."

He uses the word "passion" at least 20 times during the conversation in the Ana Grand Hotel. Passion - that seems to be an idée fixe for him. He knows it matter if he gives less as the tenor than the toreador. Opera, he says, will only have a chance in the future if credible characters are on stage. People who love and suffer, cry and laugh. Who play "passionate" characters, convince with passion. As in old times, this also includes a few sobs and a lot of time for fermatas. In addition, he also likes to accept a few "dirty notes." Who expects that singing is always beautiful and precise when it comes to passion? Critics perhaps. But critics, he says, are people "who think they know everything but know nothing, but that's an issue in itself."

That is, albeit unspoken, the hint that he does not want to be asked any further on this topic. He understands the secret law, under which everyday chatter about the role of the star, the superstar, the megastar exists: that indiscreet questions are allowed, but indiscreet answers are one of the greater risks of the profession. When asked what his new position in the hierarchy of opera life meant to him, he replied: "Everyone is now taking the time to listen carefully to my words."

SCALA listens to the [singing] voice first. Using an Anglo-Saxon term, Cura is a "natural." A singer with a naturally placed voice. He is reminiscent of Franco Corelli. His is dark, voluminous and powerful, although not, as the Italians say, "squillante" - not radiant like a trumpet. The high C is a note for Sundays only. But the sound! It's an aggressive macho sound - or, as the Italians say, "a tenor with eggs."

The best tenor in the world? At least the most manly at the moment.

The Argentinean, born on December 15, 1962 [sic], was very late in starting his career, but then he started at the top. After training as a guitarist, he made his debut as a choir director at the age of 15; studied composition with Carlo Castro, received piano lessons from Zulma Cabrera and attended, in 1982 when he was not yet 20, the art school at the university in his home town of Rosario. The vocal studies that he started at the age of 21 on a scholarship in a youth studio at the Teatro Colón did not advance him. On the contrary, it harmed his voice. He continued to sing in choirs for a few years. In 1988 he began to study voice again with Horacio Amauri.

When he was rejected after an audition at the Colon Theater in 1991, he bet everything on one card. He went to Europe and found a new teacher in the tenor Vittorio Terranova (born 1945), who sang at all leading Italian theaters. In 1992 he made his debut in Verona in Hans Werner Henze's Pollicino. Two supporting roles in Carmen (Remendado) and Simon Boccanegra, a lead in Jan A. Bibalo's Miss Julie at the Trieste Opera, a performance in Leo Janacek's The Makropoulos Affair at the Teatro Regio in Turin (December 1993 ) directed by Luca Ronconi - everything was just an interlude. In 1994 he sang his first Verdi roles (Ismaele in Nabucco and Alvaro in La forza del destino) and won Placido Domingo’s Operalia.

Good news travels quickly in the opera world - and there is no better one than finally, finally, the long-sought successor of the three has been found. After all, Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras aren’t getting younger, let alone getting better. Within three years, Cura debuted on leading stages in Italy, England, Austria, France, the USA, Australia and Japan; if you draw red lines between the cities in which he will sing over the next three years, the map would be like the flight network in the Lufthansa magazine.

How does he approach a role, especially when it is as difficult as Verdi's Otello, which he sang in Turin under Claudio Abbado at the age of 34? Of course he heard "all the big guys" who sang the role, but there is no model for him, no "classic interpretation." Those who saw his Otello in Turin - and on television - could not have missed the fact that it was "new, modern and different. It is not based on the amount of sound, but on energy, on the unexpected, on colors, on presentation. Some who saw me found it unfortunate that I did not sing loudly. But it says so in the score, it’s just that nobody has followed that yet."

Of course, Arturo Toscanini always emphasized that half of the score is written piano. "Exactly," says Cura, "but nobody sings it that way. Nobody. It would be much easier for me with my voice to sing loudly all the time. But volume has to be metered. We have a wrong idea of the figure if we accept that he screams incessently. Otello is not a warrior, he was a warrior. Otello - those are the last 24 hours in the life of a man who was a warrior. 'Otello fu' - this is the key to opera."

He does not accept the objection that these words are among the last, that Otello sings them during his death monologue. "We see an Otello who used to be a hero. Already with his Esultate he is looking back on his last act as a warrior. Then we briefly see him as a loving man and then only as a destructive man - a self-destructive man. He's an outsider who can only be strong as long as he's useful to society."

He sees a "modern Otello" in the heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson. "They used him, made money with him and dropped him when he was having trouble." He wipes away the objection that Tyson has committed criminal acts, knowing that even his foolhardy comparisons will be listened to and easily turn into headlines. "You don't understand me," he says with a frown, "Friends must stand by you even if you have problems."

For 2001 - on the 100th anniversary of Verdi's death - he wants to record the Otello, preferably under Carlos Kleiber. I wonder if there are any concrete plans? "You should never question me!" He will not give indiscreet answers. He doesn't consider Otello to be the most difficult part of his current repertoire, but instead Des Grieux in Giacomo Puccini's Manon Lescaut. Otello is, of course, difficult because it is necessary to present a "credible character" but Des Grieux is very high, "the tessiture is terrible." It's understandable that he sees the role as a "killer": it does not suit his dark, baritone tone.

He will not sing the much higher roles of Arnoldo in Rossini's Guillaume Tell and Raoul in Myerbeer's Les Huguenots. He rejected the Aeneas in Berlioz Les Troyens - and he had to reject Radames, for whom he was under discussion in the recording of Aida planned under Nikolaus Harnoncourt - he was already booked and he is one of the exceptions in the capricious singing community who has so far kept his commitments.- he had already been booked and he is an exception to the capricious singer community by insisting on meeting his commitments. He finds Verdi's Alfredo (La traviata) and Puccini's Rodolfo (La Bohème) uninteresting as characters, at least in "Conventional Interpretation." He sings Che gelida manina in a whispering half-voice and asks: "Should it be sung like a twelve-year-old?" He puts passion in his voice: Che gelida manina. "If I were a woman," he says, "I would ..." He doesn't finish the sentence, but you get the feeling that he is somehow suggesting erotic experiences.

How does he transfer the passion to the record studio, where there are no listeners? How does he act when no action is possible? "I have listeners. I sing for the orchestra's musicians, and I keep acting as I sing. It's a performance where you experience your feelings and your actions internally. You can film me in front of the microphone. I can't move like on stage, but I perform in front of the microphone. At a recording I set up the microphones so that I look into the orchestra. I stand and sing and act in front of the orchestra - the musicians are my audience and listeners."

Since he makes music all day, he has little desire to listen to records. However, as a fully trained musician - he composes, orchestrates and conducts - he begins by studying the score. Only when he comes to the question of execution, when it comes to difficult passages, does he sound "how others have solved this in terms of voice technology." His Puccini recital, he admits, is not perfect, "a few phrases are 'out of tune,' but every aria is alive." Why did he hold the high B on "Vicero" in Nessun dorma so long? " Would you please pick up the phone and call Franco Corelli? You can ask him the same question." This is a clever counterattack, but no answer, and so he comes to speak of the attitude of the critics ("If you do it, it will be held against you as a sin") and the psychology of the audience: "If you don't, it is held against you as a failure: "Oh, he lacks the high notes."

In Vienna, he tried to sing the first aria of the Cavaradossi in Tosca largely piano, "like a dreamy inner monologue by the painter. I hit the B flat, then turned to the picture, and quietly finished singing, "Tosca, se tu." No applause. Icy silence, almost a few boos. The next performance I sang out and there was an ovation." The same thing happened to him when he sang the star aria (E lucevan le stella) lying on the floor, really quietly, as a painful farewell to life. "Silence. Total silence." In the next performance he sang out in full and was cheered.

He is happy when listeners form the judgment about a singer they have heard on records and in the theater. He doesn’t want to be one of those singers who work almost exclusively in the studio and then appear on stage - "I won't give you a name, but you know who I'm talking about.” He feels like a man of the theater and it is as a man of the theater that he goes to the record studio.

And conductors? There are those who do not understand voices and the others who are jealous of the success of singers. This is, of course, another topic of its own and not one for indiscreet answers. It is always crucial, he says, which singer a conductor has in front of him. "If my professionalism as a musician corresponds to the conductor's expectations, there are no problems."

Even with the Italian staff dictator Riccardo Muti, he had "brilliantly worked together on the first collaboration, in 1996 in Cavalleria rusticana. He was open, respected my work and gave me all the help I needed."

Carmen Sings on the WWW

Il Resto del Carlino

8 June 2000

[Computer-assisted Translation // Excerpt]

RAVENNA - The Ravenna Festival launches a challenge: opera online. It will be Carmen, broadcast live (with the gap of a few minutes) from the Festival's official website in streaming audio and video made thanks to Nextra. This, for the initiated. For mere mortals, it means that a new era begins for opera as well, and that from now on it will be possible to turn on one's computer and watch the opera as if you were sitting in the theater (or in front of a television). Also for the initiated, the information says that, via a navigation menu, they will be able to go to the other pages of the site (protagonists, subject matter, libretto, press releases) and especially to the webcast, from where they can choose what kind of technology to use to view the event live according to the characteristics of their computer and connection. That said, let's get to the show.

The Carmen being staged in Ravenna (Pala de André) is obviously not a mere online phenomenon: the entire production of Bizet's hugely popular masterpiece will be a technological phenomenon, from its setting (there is no real stage and the spaces will be managed mainly on the basis of light effects) to the acoustic rendering (singers will have microphones so as not to create imbalance with the size of the spaces) to the functional one (the orchestra music stands are fiber optic). "It is a show we have been thinking about for six years: now we are finally able to realize it," says Cristina Muti.

The director is a regular at the Festival, Misha van Hoeche, who this time forgets his main role as choreographer and even deletes the dances from Carmen. “It will be a Carmen with the participation of the entire audience. Spaces without constraints make it easier for me. There will only be a symbolic platform where the show will come to life, establishing multiple relationships between singers, choir and audience. There won't even be extras."

Musically, we return to Giraud's version, with sung recitatives, rather than the opéra-comique scheme with dialogues envisaged by Bizet. A choice in agreement with the director Patrick Fournillier, who will direct the Arturo Toscanini regional orchestra.

The leadss are names known and dear to the opera public: the fascinating black contralto Carolyn Sebron and the very famous José Cura (who have performed together in Samson at the Regio in Turin); they will be joined by Mark S. Doss (Escamillo) and Chiara Taigi (Micaela). Two performances, tonight and Monday. Sold out, of course.

Carmen, Ravenna Festival, 2000: “This was the best performance I have yet seen from Cura, with wonderfully spontaneous reactions, showing quite a talent for comedy in Act I. Vocally, Cura injected desperate passion in the voice, almost bursting with a sexual sob, as he sang 'Carmen', when he gives into his passion. The Flower Song was performed as a sweet and impassioned plea, with lyricism and sensitivity of phrasing.” Opera Now, November/December 2000

Misunderstandings and Rarities around Ravenna

Die Presse

Walter Dobner

12 July 2000

[Computer-assisted Translation // Excerpt]

It is difficult to defy the forces of nature. Sudden rainstorms made it difficult for the protagonists of this Carmen performance in Ravenna to make themselves understood. Furthermore, Micha van Hoecke's production didn't make it easy for the performers. He presented the fates in a particularly striking way: a black Carmen is loved by a white Don José. The director largely abandoned the leading characters and relied on choreographically choppy visuals. This all took place against a backdrop that essentially consists of a staircase divided by three tunnel exits. This creates opportunities for entrances and exits but not much atmosphere. José Cura as Don José struggled at first against these conditions but gained in artistic stature over the course of the evening and soon sang freely even if some of the passionate attack was missing. Of course, his performance put him far above the other soloists…and the conducting of the lackluster orchestra.

The Wind and the Lion

L’Opera

Giancarlo Landini

November 2000

[Computer-assisted Translation // Excerpt]

José Cura, the Argentine tenor who is at once one of the best-loved and most talked-about singers of the current generation, talks about his career and his concept of the modern opera house; inarguably a character, he is poised between humility, determination, imperiousness and, at times, conscious arrogance

I met José Cura in Ravenna after the premiere of Carmen at the Palazzo De André. Cura is an intelligent man who does not shy away from confrontation, who engages eagerly in discussion and arguments and sustains them with a lively conversation skill, and who displays undoubted musical competence. These qualities enable him to contextualize opera theater, its modes and characteristics, and the needs of today's audiences.

Having entered the star-system in his own right, he is made the object of "either immense envy or deep pity" (as the poet put it). He does not go unnoticed; he leaves his mark. His remarkable voice, his conducting skills, his attention to the overall construction of his character that displease the voice-obsessed fans but appeals to the audience in this age of media, make him the heir of the three tenors and in particular, at least in my humble opinion, of Plácido Domingo—the one of the three who most cared for the artistic-interpretive dimension over mere vocal needs. His conversation is always brilliant, but not vain nor fatuous. He is both courageous and interesting, skillful and astute, with something Levantine and raw. He is a fine blend of humility, humor, determination, imperiousness, sometimes arrogance. In short: he is a character. No doubt about it.

We just attended a production of Carmen in which amplification was used; was it necessary? And what are the consequences of such solutions?

The amplification of this Carmen has a specific reason due to the acoustics of the room. It was not adopted to increase the volume of the voices but to compensate for the echo and reverberation. Under normal weather conditions the result would have been entirely positive but a storm hit Palazzo De André and created quite a few glitches. The use of microphones that allowed the voices to overcome the noise of the storm in turn, unfortunately, amplified the rain.

This Carmen was constructed as a musical. It was an effective and functional solution, especially considering the stage of the Palazzo De André. The wonderful choreography, the movements of the mimes, replaced the traditional scenes that could not have been mounted in such a place.

Doesn't such a concept penalize an opera singer?

Not if the opera singer knows how to be a modern artist, capable of immersing himself into theatrical experiences.

What conception of Don José did you bring to Ravenna?

I would say I brought two. The first is musical. I sang Don José in a purely French style. I avoided those portamenti or solutions that are foreign to the French style. I used mezzo-voice to go along with the vocal profile of the character. Although I possess a dark voice, quite different from that of the first interpreter of the character at Opéra-comique, I believe that it is necessary to honor and highlight the lyrical moments of Bizet's score.

The second is theatrical in nature. I focused on Don José’s character in light of his origin. Don José is a Basque who acts with the temperament that is specific to these people, an impulsive one who eliminates anyone who stands in the way of his love. He kills Zuniga and he would have killed Escamillo if he hadn’t been stopped. This jealousy is typical of a Basque. A Parisian would joke about his woman's suitors. A Basque would kill them. He doesn’t care if the rivals include his superior. He is a man who meets his destiny the moment Carmen throws him the flower in Act I. He is a man who kills his woman and immediately afterwards, before the curtain falls, declares he loved her. He is sincere in both cases. This, however, is the compelling side of the character and, more generally, of human nature, overwhelmed by passions. By loving a Basque, Carmen knows what kind of man she attaches herself to. She knows how they treat women. She knows that she will not be able to escape her own destiny. She senses this from the moment she throws him the flower. That gesture is the signature of her death sentence."

Let’s go back to the beginning and retrace the steps that have shaped you into the international star you now are.

As a boy I played the guitar. I sang, but I never thought I would pursue a musical career. My father was an accountant: a gentleman who wanted a solid and secure job for his son as all fathers do. However, he knew how to listen the guidance of my guitar teacher who first noticed my aptitude. He arranged for me study music and allowed me to gain the necessary fundamental knowledge.

The second moment may seem simple, if not trivial. In reality it was important. It involved an epiphany. At fifteen I was entrusted with organizing the musical part of the celebrations of the patron saint of my town. I realized that I liked being at the center of a theatrical event, organizing and composing music. I knew I wanted to deepen my musical knowledge, that I wanted to conduct, that the local school was not enough, that I had to go to the Conservatory to learn more about harmony and counterpoint.

The third moment dates back to my college days. This is where I studied singing. I was part of the school choir and it was our director who suggested I get a technical foundation for my amateur [singing] activity. I didn’t have an easy voice. I had a light, lyrical tenor voice. The first piece I studied was the tenor-soprano duet from Matrimonio segreto. But at that time in my musical life I didn’t particularly like opera. I loved symphonic productions. My vocation was conducting. I was persuaded to sing only because my Maestro told me that those who did not know how to sing would never be able to conduct an orchestra properly. He said such a conductor would never possess the phrasing, the abandon, the instinctive naturalness of the music.

The fourth moment corresponds to the entrance examination at Scuola del Colon in Buenos Aires, where I was accepted somewhat begrudgingly. I had some knowledge at the time but nothing else. I didn’t know how to sing. There was no rapport between me and the teachers. I lost vocal spontaneity, I couldn’t find the essence of my voice. Some said I had a lyric-light tenor voice, others a baritone voice. I should point out that these difficulties are quite normal. Identifying a voice is not an easy task. Often particular voices with strong personalities end up perplexing the teachers.

And Italy?

Italy was the solution to the moment of disorientation I was in. It was difficult to have auditions, to be heard by the right people. Eventually I found two people who knew how to guide me. To them I owe a great deal. The first was the theatrical agent Alfredo Strada. He understood the potential of my voice, the importance of the material. He told me, however, that I lacked style and adequate vocal training. The second was tenor Vittorio Terranova. Strada placed me into the very intelligent hands of this maestro. I was twenty-nine years old. The voice had become impressive, but it was uncontrolled. Terranova put the controls in place and gave me the necessary technical foundation.

The accusation, if we can use this term, of being an imitator of Mario Del Monaco dates back to those years. Do you think this is a fair comparison?

It is not true that my voice resembles Del Monaco's. Del Monaco had a metal and an edge that my voice doesn’t have. I wish it did. There is also difference in phrasing, which is due to different stylistic climates. Del Monaco phrased with an accent dear to postwar Italian taste, while I phrase with a more circumspect attention and refinement. I realize that coming from me this may sound like an arrogant observation. I believe, however, that the comparison is well-founded. The flattering juxtaposition to Del Monaco is more grounded in the courage of the attacks, in the momentum, in that powerful approach to the notes, in seeking the sound with the dramatic nature that in opera one must have.

What are the qualities in addition to your voice and musical knowledge that have allowed you to command the attention of so many? What makes you, in such a very short time, a star or, better yet, a modern icon of opera?

If you read all the interviews I have given over the years of my career, you will notice that I have never allowed myself to claim that I was supposed to be the tenor of 2000 or the singer of the new generation. Nor that somehow I was or am the heir to any of the three tenors of Caracalla, that is, the three tenors who in the imagination of the international audience represent opera. Let us not argue about whether it is fair or not fair; whether there are not other singers more deserving or less deserving; whether the mass media contributed to this fame and to what extent. The reality of the facts is this. I repeat, I have never made such remarks. I have worked steadily and tirelessly to achieve important results. That is, to achieve the visibility that is indispensable in entertainment today, whatever genre it may be. To achieve this, I have never overlooked any detail. I have surrounded myself with a staff of very efficient collaborators who oversee every aspect of my art and who carry out continuous monitoring in order to produce ever more precise and profitable work. A singer, but I would rather say an artist, cannot limit himself to his art, in my case to singing, but must look after the totality of his image. Getting to the top of the mountain may not even be difficult. It is much more difficult to stay there. On the mountaintop, the wind blows hard and in all directions.

Among the winds that blow we can also include criticism. What do you think of the criticism?

I will answer you with a metaphor from nature. The critic, or, to use an expression I prefer, the commentator on musical facts, can decide to be either the hyena or the wind. When the lion hunts, he makes a great effort, exposing himself personally to danger and expending himself and the other members of his pride. After the lion has hunted, hyenas come and eat the lion's leftovers, even his vomit. These are repulsive animals, these hyenas. The lion does not need hyenas to hunt but instead needs the wind to bring him the smell of prey. The intelligent music commentator should live like the wind. He should help the singer understand where he needs to go, what he needs to improve, where he has made mistakes. The critic or, rather, the music commentator, has a sacred duty to raise valid objections. They should not wait in the audience like a laughing hyena for an artist's downfall. The critic or, better, the music commentator, must know how to advise by giving pertinent advice that is within the context of theatrical life.

It makes no sense in the year 2000, when opera is opening itself to new and diverse experiences, from musicals, to film, to director theater, to compare a modern singer to, say, Cafariello. It is legitimate and sacrosanct to study and examine the past and the evolution of styles but only to better understand the present and to move forward. Opera today cannot be done with manners and techniques of the past time.

Is this the case with the televised Traviata?

Yes. I want to be clear. I am not defending the musical result of the effort. Everyone can judge that as they see fit. I am defending the experiment of bringing opera to a worldwide audience. I am defending the experiment of interpreting opera through the language of film, which today is the one most capable of striking an audience. I disagree with the vulgarities of those in Italy's leading news outlet who said that microphones are like Viagra: it gives the illusion of virile potency even to the impotent. I beg to differ. La Traviata is an opera, not a silent Chaplin film. Microphones are needed to record and broadcast it. I assert that all of La Traviata was performed "live" and in real time. From this experiment there was supposed to have arisen discussion about the aesthetic conception of the experiment, the use of the television medium, and the appropriateness of it. Instead, there were moralistic positions dictated by the desire to denigrate and destroy. Why has no newspaper done a poll to monitor the public's opinion? Perhaps with different sampling, from the regular opera goers to the occasional audience to the exceptional audience, that is, those who don’t go to the opera and who stumbled across Traviata when turning on the television? Did this audience understand the story? Did it understand what was going on? Here is a way to initiate a constructive debate."

What about Cura and La Scala?

La Scala is a great theater with which I have collaborated in the past. At the moment, we have no plans but this is the normal way of things and careers. I look forward to the possibility of projects in the future.

And the Met?

The Met is a theater that plans many years in advance. My busy schedule and the American theater calendar have made it difficult to find convenient dates for each of us. It is true, however, that both the theater and I wanted to make my debut in that important theatre so as to present to its audience a tenor who is in demand today. As often happens at the Met, I entered an already tried-and-true production and sang some performances of Cavalleria rusticana. It must be noted that the theater reserved for me the honor of making my debut in the season’s opening performance. It is a recognition granted to few tenors and I am very proud I am one of them. The audience paid me a very lively tribute. Now my return to the Met is tied to my schedule. I foresee a return for the 2004/2005 season.

What is the difference between working at the Met or La Scala?

The difference is not so much between one theater or another, but between one country and another. In Germany one can ask for the rehearsal plan two years in advance. In Italy, the rehearsal plan is often decided from one day to the next. Regarding the audience, on the other hand, there is no difference. The audience always recognizes a good artist.

What characters do you intend to debut?

In the near term we are talking about two Verdi characters: Manrico and Don Carlo. Manrico's vocality scares me, less so the character. I believe, however, that Manrico should be removed from the current stereotype, to the rhetoric of the "Pira" and the high C. By the way, as I have already stated to the Spanish press, I will do a natural B. It is the solution adopted by many great tenors. If you compare today's diapason with that of the 19th century, you would find that Baucardé's C was a B. But Manrico is more than the C in Pira. It must be grasped in all its modernity. Manrico is a character with Freudian implications, as the verses of 'Mal reggendo all'aspro assalto" prove. Manrico's continuous tension, his being always conflicted, right from his first words to Leonora, "Infida!" derive, at least in my humble opinion, from the intuition that around him there is a horrible secret, a tragic knot that is untied only by death. His vocality is all full of invitations to a nuanced singing, made of chiaroscuro, like the lights and shadows of his mind. Nothing is farther from Manrico's dramatic truth than stentorian and exhibited singing.

Don Carlo, which I will sing in Zurich, is a challenge, especially for the actor. Don Carlo is a tormented figure. Think of the love duet in Act II, during which he falls into a swoon. A modern Don Carlo must find a way to portray the character's neurosis. Then again, why did some great tenors of the past declare that he was not an interesting character? It's simple: the role cannot be resolved by singing a few high notes, sending the galleries into hysterics. This is a character to be dug into, to be explored. It requires dramatic study as if by a real prose actor. To resolve him otherwise is to impoverish him.

No Puccini debut?

I'm pursuing La Fanciulla del west. There are ongoing contacts with the Metropolitan and Covent Garden, but at the moment there is nothing definitive.

Verdi or Puccini? Which composer suits you best?

So far Puccini. Otello aside, I am working to approach Verdi's theater in an increasingly correct and relevant way. Relevant and correct mean modern, outside of conventions with the intent of building a character. Today the theater requires a modern approach.

Interview with José Cura on Carmen

Arena di Verona

4 July 2003

José Cura: The great Argentinean tenor, as well as composer and Orchestra Conductor

Q: Your European debut as an opera singer was actually in Verona in February 1992: you interpreted the role of the father in Pollicino by Henze in a production of the then Ente Lirico Arena di Verona (opera association of the Arena di Verona) at the Teatro Nuovo. More than ten years later, you are back as the principal protagonist of the Arena Festival. Do you feel a particular bond with the city and with the Arena?

JC: Yes, particularly with the city. In 1991 I arrived in Italy from Argentina and I went to Santo Stefano Belbo, in the province of Cuneo, where my maternal grandmother came from, to look for my relatives. I couldn't find anyone, maybe because they were wary of any poor relation who had come from America. Then I thought that they would introduce themselves when I became famous but that didn't happen. Maybe this was because there was actually nobody left from that side of the family or maybe because they are very proud people and if this is the case I appreciate the fact that they were consistent...

My wife and I decided, therefore, to come to Verona because, while we were on the flight from Argentina with my two-year-old son, we made friends with a couple from this city who left us their phone number. It was the only contact we had in Italy. We called them and they put us up at their house. Subsequently we decided to settle in Verona and one week later we were living in Cerro Veronese, near Verona, where we ended up living for four and a half years and where we have our 'Italian family.'

When I performed the role of the father in Pollicino the tenor Cura didn't actually exist, only the desperate foreigner who was trying to feed his family. My agent at the time told me that they were looking for a tenor for that part. He said that it had to be a tenor who was of heavy build to back up the fantasy that Pollicino was small and it had to be a musician as well as a tenor because the part is very challenging musically. He offered me the position and I accepted it. This is how I made my debut as an opera singer.

Apparently there is a legend that at that time my relationship with the Opera Association wasn't good, but now is the time to clear things up. My first intention, once I became settled here, was to sing in the Arena di Verona Chorus. I introduced myself to the Artistic Management and they told me that, as I was only in the possession of a tourist visa, I wasn't able to become a member of the chorus. The only way it was going to be possible to sing for the Opera Association was to be a soloist, a free-lance artist…the rest is history!

Q: It was in this way that, in 1997, José Cura was called to the Arena as the substitute tenor for José Carreras in Carmen…

JC: At the time I was singing in Le Villi and Pagliacci in Zurich. I had two days rest between recitals and I was at home in my house in Paris. The Arena di Verona called me to tell me that José Carreras and Agnes Baltsa had backed out of their commitment to sing in the recitals which were supposed to be held in the Arena and that those who had bought tickets began to become agitated, and expected a reimbursement. They told me that only two tenors would be able to save the situation from a marketing point of view: Placido Domingo and myself….Notwithstanding my doubts they managed to convince me and I found myself catapulted onto the immense stage in the Arena without even knowing if it was going to be a version of Carmen which was sung or both sung and spoken.

Q: What has changed in the Don José you interpret today compared to then?

JC: I have studied the character in more depth. The error that is often made is to see him as a romantic character. By studying the original book by Mérimée I learned that Don José is not at all romantic. He is a madman who kills anyone who gets in his way. He enrolls in the army to escape prison, where he had been placed after having killed someone from his town just because the person had contradicted him. He meets Carmen and instead of actually being in love with her, he is really overwhelmed by her. In the book Don José kills Zuniga who humiliates him in front of Carmen.

Arena: He is obliged, therefore, to run away. He finds another boss, Dancairo and kills him as well. It is for the same reason that he becomes Carmen's assassin. She humiliates him in front of everyone and he can't deal with this public humiliation. The important thing is that the language is French, the opera is French but Don José is Basque. Humiliation in public is something that Latin people don't digest very well like, for example, in Cavelleria Rusticana. This is the true Don José.

Q: This year you made your debut in the role of Calaf in Turandot. How was it making your debut in a role which is notoriously difficult to interpret in the Arena di Verona?

JC: Certainly, for a deep voice like my own which is similar to a baritone's, Calaf is a difficult role to perform. The gravitational center where my voice happily floats is a few tones deeper. Calaf's voice is very high-pitched and to interpret him I had to use certain skillful devices. I tried to make the sounds less deep and more radiant and bright, more direct, clearer, a little like the sounds I used for Manrico in Il Trovatore or for Des Grieux in Manon Lescaut at Teatro alla Scala in 1998.

Q: Did the greatness of the amphitheater influence your performance in the role of Calaf in any way?

JC: No. There are numerous closed theatres whose acoustics are much worse than those in the Arena. The only problem which arises in the Arena is that it is not suitable to my acting style which is not the traditional style of a tenor. I use the bare essentials with regard to movement and gesticulation. My style is much more suitable to the cinema. In the Arena it doesn't work like this. All of the acting carried out in the amphitheater is executed on a much larger scale: gestures and movements are enlarged. This is more of a problem for me than the singing aspect. All of the vocal dynamics are raised by two or three degrees, overall with Puccini's orchestral density: 'piano' (soft) in a closed theatre becomes 'mezzo-forte' in the Arena.

In 1997 the psychological impact of the amphitheater on me was remarkable. I had been the substitute for Don Carlo in 1992 but I didn't end up singing. When I arrived in the Arena in 1997 I found myself straight away with 16,000 people on the steps with the candles already lit. I hadn't been able to try out the acoustics….I sang the first performance, overall the Air de Fleur (Flower Song) in the second act, with the approach used in a closed theatre, and nobody could hear me!

I began to understand, however, how the acoustics in the amphitheater worked and in the second performance I approached the recital in a different way. It was also like this for Turandot: in the first performance I didn't sing with the same force as I did in the second one. I was making my debut in a new role in the Arena di Verona without having taken part in the dress rehearsal which had been cancelled due to rain! I planned my debut prudently: how many inexperienced 'lions' have lost their skin in the first act of the opera in the Arena? The debut, the première, was our dress rehearsal! I approached the second performance in a different way and the results were visible.

Q: How much of yourself did you put into Calaf's character? Which aspects of this role did you prefer to focus on?

JC: I didn't add anything of my own character to this part because Calaf's character is exactly the opposite of everything I have ever believed in my whole life. I have arrived at where I am today thanks to the sacrifices I and my family have made. I have never hurt or used anyone and if the people who tried to damage my career didn't really succeed it is because they didn't find a weak point to work on. Calaf, instead, is a social climber who doesn't hesitate to endanger the lives of those he loves just to obtain what he wants.

Turandot is a fable and thus there is a moral to it which is manifested in Calaf: the misery and egoism of human beings is demonstrated. He doesn't stop even when Liù dies, he keeps trying, until the very end, to obtain what he is searching for: power. The most important thing is that he never tells Turandot that he loves her: he is only interested in her power, in the same way that Radames sees the power of Amneris in Aida. Radames, however, is redeemed. Calaf isn't. The end of the opera, notwithstanding the fact that it is accompanied by highly emotional music, holds a terrible and relevant message: social climbing can be successful in the end!

Q: Your participation in the festival in the Arena will conclude with the eagerly awaited Gala La Traviata: An opera in semi-scenic form in which you will sing alongside Angela Gheorghiu and Ambrogio Maestri. In your opinion is the Arena only suitable for spectacular performances or can a semi-scenic version also interest the audience?

JC: One thing doesn't rule out the other. The greater the spaces the more need there is to fill them to justify the desired dimension. The layout of the stage in the Arena is part of a tradition. It is part of the visual custom of the Arena. The audience who comes to the Arena doesn't only come for the music but also for everything which is associated with being present at a magnificent performance such as those in the Arena di Verona. When the grandeur and the fireworks are missing, obviously the stage is filled with something else: charisma. A charismatic artist can step onto an empty stage in the Arena di Verona, and still give a performance.

Carmen in old Verona

Diario La Prensa

Carlos Ernesto Ure

31 July 2003

[Computer-assisted Translation // Excerpts]

A good performance by the Argentine tenor alongside the mezzo Marina Domashenko. The Italian festival is marked by a program of the highest quality.

There were no stars in the sky, because it was cloudy (and happily a very cool night), but there were stars on the stage of Piazza Bra in Verona.

Well handled in all its dimensions, the representation of Bizet's Carmen was generally developed with class, not only with the talented work of Franco Zeffirelli, but also with the outstanding performances of the mezzo Marina Domashenko and our compatriot José Cura.

It is indeed a strange feeling to attend an opera performance in this ancient Roman circus but the truth is that five minutes after the performance begins, the spectator is trapped by the magic of the placid Veneto sunset, the candles lit by a crowd always faithful to tradition, the immensity of the stage and the flow of voices, which by a rare acoustic phenomenon, are projected with the greatest clarity throughout the venue without the need for microphones.

It must be said that the tenor from Rosario, José Cura (Don José), who the audience demanded encore the Flower Aria, delivered a magnificent performance, displaying a well-covered voice with a strong lyric "spinto" timbre, sometimes combative, sometimes beseeching, depending on the circumstances. At his side, Marina Domashenko (Carmen) showed a register of exquisite color and sang with elaborate inflections and splendid notes, homogeneous throughout the tessitura while the Korean soprano Hei-Kyung Hong (Micaela) exhibited a crystalline and pleasant brass and good legato. Bass Samuel Ramey (Escamillo), on the other hand, was less successful. The chorus did a truly excellent job.

Leading the Arena Orchestra, which played with competence, Alain Lombard produced a version of Carmen "à la française": arbitrary, not well defined, conducted with a muddled manner. But this was of no great matter: once the performance was over, the merry “Spaniards” of the ballet continued to sing and dance on both sides of the stage box, accompanied by the singers.