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 “But if, on the other
hand, my art succeeds in planting the seed of peace within man’s heart
so that it may grow there, then my life will have had some meaning.”
Anhelo
“I am not trying to be the first
tenor in the world. ...I am just a good tenor - just that - a good,
honest musician who does his work.” (The Singer)
“I’d rather prove myself on stage
and think about what’s essential and basic: total, complete honesty and
absolute passion.” (Kurier)
“No good careers
are really sudden. It’s two or three years since the world has known
about José Cura, but there were another 20 before that. I wasn’t
invented by the media or my record company… I’m the result of hard work
and that makes me feel comfortable.” (Opera)
“The music world is
fond of labeling people, but at the end of your life you will have to
explain to that being who gave you your talents why you were so cowardly
as to not use them all.” (The Times)
"I like pushing things as far as
things they can go in one direction, then step back to find a balance.
How do you know what your limits are otherwise?” (Opera Now)
“I don't
understand why to be an opera singer you have to be ugly and why to be a
sex symbol you have to be an idiot.”
(Independent)
"I am someone who has suffered
and struggled, who has resisted and still managed to get to the top of
the mountain through the storm – and I am proud of all that. If being
proud of all I’ve done in my life after 25 years of hard work is
arrogance, then I am arrogant!" (Vima)
"There are artists who are technically
perfect but otherwise they don't give you anything. The performance
is over, you go to dinner and say O.K., that was nice but let's talk
about something else. On the other hand, when the performance ends
and people cry, don't stop to applaud but race backstage with the
wish to touch you, then it is a different story……" (Magazin
Pravo)
"I believe strongly that there is another way to do operatic theater
that is based around subtlety and nuance. That's modern opera. Not
Manrico entering on a Harley Davidson or Aida arriving on a flying
saucer. Actors really infusing themselves in the roles with depth and
characterization, that's modern opera."
(Latino Post)
"Operalia
was very important to me because it brought me to the public’s
attention. But it did not start my career. It had already started...."
(SME)
"Classical art will never die unless we kill it. If you put it under
a crystal lampshade, to prevent its pollution, the air under the
lampshade will be used up sooner or later with the final result of
art getting strangled, though our aim was to protect it. We all –
artists, music lovers, journalists - are responsible for classical
art preservation. Despite all differences we are all united by a
phenomenal thing – music – so by being respectful to it, let us help
keep it alive." (Neue
Merker)
“When you have the strength that I have, the conviction and
restlessness, the studies and experience, many people are afraid
because they feel my attitude shakes their little homes. For some,
routine represents security. For me, it is the beginning of death.”
(La Nación)
“Not being able to live in my land, Argentina, (due to the distance)
and being considered a eternal foreigner in my home, Spain, makes me
feel as a citizen of nowhere, almost an orphan.”
(Jose Cura Facebook)
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“Tradition should be respected, but intelligently. Leaving aside the questions
of taste or historical legacy, I don't see why every interpretation should
always follow the same lines, without deviation. Don't you think it's a shame
to lock the dramatic possibilities offered by certain characters within the same
cage, however gilded?” (Verdi Arias)
“What is it to be a servant of
the music if it is not to make everybody understand that this music is as great,
as fun, as any other kind of music?!”
(Electronic Telegraph)
'If you reduce Othello to some kind of
love story about a lost handkerchief, it’s dead. Shakespeare and then Verdi
and Boito are dealing with much greater issues, the story is their vehicle.
It’s about love, honour, race, politics, class.' (About the House)
"Yesterday I said to a journalist that we need much more
good than bad news in the media. If you have experienced the positive energy
at this opening ceremony and saw how focused the athletes are on their
sporting aim, then you know the big difference to those people who have only
senseless destruction in their minds. Perhaps we will have a lot more
positive news in the papers in the coming ten days." (Duisburg World Games)
"Opera
has a future, but it depends on us being modern...There's an idea today that
a modern production is one where the audience needs a manual of explanations
to understand what's going on. That's not being modern, that's not having
anything interesting to say about a piece and just being weird so at least
no-one will say you're copying. But from there to being modern is a long
way. Modern artists have always been those who understood their society, the
problems of their times and reflected them in their artistic activities, and
that's what we need to do."
(Musical
Criticism)
"To be the set designer and director for a production,
in which one personally gets on stage and sings, is as exhausting as any and
every fulfilling task. There is no room for giving in to fatigue; one has to
be the first to arrive at the theater and the last to leave. The only way
to survive is by having everything prepared very well in advance, and not
having to waste any more time and energy on issues which could have already
been resolved and handled earlier. You have to develop a sixth sense, you
need faith and confidence in your team and of course energy that never runs
out…" (Klappeauf)
“Artists, critics, even some of the public think all opera and classical
music should remain in the form as it was at its birth. I think that is
anachronism. In that moment, opera is degraded to a museum piece, forced
into a glass display case which kills it. Art must be able to present
reality to be credible, to create a real catharsis.” (Figaro)
“When a man is in a desert, dying from dehydration, and rain suddenly
falls down, it is luck; but if the man does not have a glass in which to
collect the water from the rain, it does not matter how hard the rain
is, he will stay thirsty.” ( Novie Isvestia)
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"I simply
threw myself into the Arena with a knife between my teeth and
yelled “banzai,” as the Japanese do." (La Razónon
on playing both Canio and Turiddu at the Arena di
Verona) |
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“I hate the
word tenor. I don't hate being a tenor, but what I don't like is
that 'tenor' puts a trademark on you, from which you cannot
move. You know how it goes: $10,000 reward! If you see this man,
kill him! He dared to move from tenor!” (Classic CD) |
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“I do in my
conducting what I try to do in my singing: I try to be as
modern as I can...I like pushing things as far as things they
can go in one direction, then step back to find a balance. How
do you know what your limits are otherwise?” (Opera
Now) |
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“One
who appeals to everyone cannot be original. One who appeals to
nobody probably does not do a good work. But if there are people
who hate you and others who really love you, the situation
cannot be wrong.”
(Budapest, NSZ) |
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“Opera, and
classical music in general, are not immediate arts. Unless you
take the time to prepare for what you're going to hear, you
won't enjoy it in depth.” (Evening Standard) |
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“People used
to say that I'm arrogant. But arrogance is the mask of people
who aren't prepared.” (Scoop) |
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“I think that
God was always surveying and controlling my life and saying,
‘You're going to be a singer even if you don't want to be a
singer. It will take time to convince you, but you're going to
be a singer’.”
(Opera
News) |
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“I’d like to
say that this latest CD of mine is dedicated to my country, that
our flag is on the cover, and that the CD is called “Aurora”
because the most important thing I want to express is that I
love Argentina. I want my fellow countrymen to know that to the
entire world and with a lot of pride, in an Argentinean
tenor.” (La
Nacion) |
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“Look at my
hands. Do you think these are the hands of a tenor? These are
the hands of somebody who is alive, which is more different and
much more interesting.”
(Interview with Birgit Popp)
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“One of the challenges of trying to keep opera alive is to make
it thrilling: you're taking dangers, you're taking risks,
you're making efforts to be different. Nothing is more
frustrating for an audience than having a singer standing
open-legged in the middle of the stage, trying to make sure that
every note is in exactly the same place. It's boring.”
(Classicalnet) |
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“Sometimes I have been criticised because I have not stood and
sung my aria at the front of the stage for the audience, and I'm
furious at this. Yes, of course, you pay for your ticket so I'm
singing for you, but my character certainly isn't-he doesn't
even know he's being watched!” (Audiostreet) |
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“The cost of
fame is high: you are always in the viewfinder of others, always
on the presentation plate.” (L'Arena) |
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“When I'm
recording, I forget about where I am, I try to be the
character. If I have to cry, I cry, if I have to sob, I sob,
and if I have to crack, I crack. The listener must take it or
leave it.” (Gramophone) |
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“If the artist on stage forgets the audience and is so absorbed
in his character that they have the impression they are
observing the action through a window, then for me that is an
ideal performance.” (Rundschau) |
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“But because
you sing in the tenor register, suddenly you become this
creature - - The Tenor. I'm a composer and a conductor.
But when I do those things, there is this suspicion, ‘Oh, but
he's a tenor.’” (About
the House) |
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“But you know there's one other thing needed for the real magic
and that is the audience's energy. If the artist feels after the
first 10 minutes or so that the audience can sense what he's
doing, he will give his blood to that performance...that level
of energy is the most perfect excitement you can have in the
opera house.” (Audiostreet) |
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“Samson
completely misunderstood his gift of strength. He thought his
strength was given to him so he could destroy anyone who didn’t
agree with him. He may have thought he was very spiritual, but
he was not. He reduced everything to simply killing and
taking.” (Lyric
Opera News) |
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“I think that human beings are like fruit. When the fruits ripen
past their prime and rot, they are thrown away. That goes for
humans, too. So, I think the best way is not to ripen fully.” (Interview) |
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"We are talking about problems of racism, mercenarism, treason,
apostasy. We're talking about serious matters, not a
handkerchief."
(Latino Post) |
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“...the purists say I scoop a note here and there. I say,
well I have been scooping notes all my life. I'm trying to
get better, but sometimes that is part of my way of singing.
It is my trademark, a certain kind of noise here and there.
I will never be a technically spotless singer.” (Madison) |
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“[Gran Teatre
del] Liceu has been the only theater to make me a proposal for
2010. I hope to be alive by then.” (ABC) |
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“In this
world, courage is viewed as a sign of arrogance. But the real
arrogance is not being prepared to be who they really are.”
(Chicago
Sun-Times) |
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“When all this started, the first thing I said to record
companies and mangers was 'I am a happy man: I have my family,
I have everything I need. I am not rich. I am not poor. I am
okay. So I beg you that everything we are going to do has to be
at a good time and it has to be a good thing. If not, we don't
do it.” (Opera Now7) |
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“A long time
ago I learned an invaluable lesson from a wine-taster. He said
to me 'never look at the label before tasting the wine'.
Basically, I am what I am, and I present it on stage and that's
it.”
(Audiostreet) |
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“In
Samson,
in the first act, I'm a roaring beast. In the third act, I sing
almost without voice. He is weak, blind, tortured, almost
surely castrated. His soul is talking with God.”
(The
Standard Times) |
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“You have to try not to be seduced by
the media machine - you are part of it but you don’t want to get caught
up in it, if you see what I mean. You have to focus on what you are
doing ... take care that you never compromise your integrity.” (Audiostreet) |
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“I am a composer and
conductor who has taken time out to sing. I will, hopefully, return to
what is my real vocation.”
(Independent) |
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“The
stage, in our souls and in our innocence, is a place of fantasy.”
(Bomb) |
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“Those who speak the
most do the least in their lives.” (Poland) |
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“Twenty years ago I
composed some songs. Even a Requiem, but it has never been performed. At
the moment that is impossible because it’s not the right time for large
new projects. With the need of an orchestra of 150 members, a double
choir and a children's choir this project cannot be financed. That is
why my compositions will only be performed in my bathroom.”
(Luister)
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“When I am criticised
as a result of my professional performance, that is OK. But when the
review is about the way I dress, the way I walk, the way I move my
hands, that is completely wrong.”
(Electronic
Telegraph) |
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“When I'm in an opera
what am I doing?.. . I'm pretending to be in love or pretending to die
or cry. It's fantasy time. Every artist does it. It's allowing
yourself to have innocent dreams.”
(Classic FM) |
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“You should have a
healthy, well-controlled vanity. Because if not, what the hell are
doing there?”
(Electronic
Telegraph) |
"In
coming to the theater," said Cura, "my thoughts went to the last two
legendary interpreters of Andrea, Franco Corelli and Mario del Monaco,
and I felt the heavy responsibility of having to make one’s debut in
this role in the country of such great interpreters, and to find oneself
in the hands of the son of one of them. I added it all up and said, “I
will find the first airplane and return to Argentina!”" (Il Resto
Carlino)
"I have a very expansive
personality. That is obvious! I have trouble being held within a
cage…there is much to do!" (Forum Ópera)
"I'm due to do a
Turandot in a couple of months in Germany and I heard they're planning
to finish with the death of Liú, which is another solution. One thing's
for sure, let me tell you: Calaf without the final duet is a piece of
cake! Yes, 'Nessun Dorma' is an appointment but it's solvable. The last
duet, though, is a massacre; it really is very tough to sing. So if the
fashion is to start cutting the last duet, there'll be a lot of happy
Calafs out there!" (Musical Criticism)
“I believe that it’s an obligation for
the artist to surprise and not to do what is expected from him but on
the opposite, to do what he feels like at that moment.” (Radio France)
"I am a very pensive and peaceful person. Today I’m turning 51. When
you approach a certain age when you are not old but not young
anymore, to be pensive, to have wisdom, is one of the most beautiful
things to achieve." (Neue
Merker)
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"There are artists who are
technically perfect but otherwise don't give you anything. The performance
is over, you go to dinner and say O.K., that was nice but let's talk about
something else. On the other hand, when the performance ends and people
cry, they don't stop to applaud but race backstage with the wish to touch
you, then it is a different story……" (Magazin Pravo)
“I am extremely disturbed when people are in the street screaming into the
phone and I am forced to listen when they are discussing family problems.
The mobile phone is slowly destroying the most basic respect for other
people. Why can’t you at least talk more quietly? If I am talking on my
mobile phone I am almost ashamed of myself. “
(Figaro)
“In never resting on the fluffy mattress of a career comfortably
dedicated to always singing the same things in, almost always, the same
theaters.” (in response to the question as to where his source of
motivation lies--Interview)
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“I make a
rough plan for the staging (of a recital), but the details
depend on the reaction of the audience, which is my partner.
When you tell the one you love that you love her, you don't
always think about what you will do next, do you?” (Daily
Yomiuri) |
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“I know
they’ll say ‘Aha! The photographs by the tenor.’ But I don’t
mind so long as people look at them with their eyes open.”
(About the House) |
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“If the
performer is the lion who hunts, then the critic can choose to
be either the hyena who picks at the carcass that has been
caught, or he can be the wind that helps the lion keep upwind
and hunt successfully.”
(Opera
Now) |
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“Singing Otello in
London, it's like singing Tango to an Argentinian!” (Audiostreet)
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“Take
flowers. [A] man and a woman are the same in every situation -
political, commercial, etc. But when a man and a woman are
alone, flowers make all the difference.” (offering advice on
dating, Evening Standard) |
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“That's as if
you would spit a meal, which your best friend has lovingly
prepared for you but which you don't like, back out onto the
plate.” (on booing a performer, Hamburg Welt) |
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“You can sing
very loud, but if you do not sing deep and dark and accent the
proper words, then the whole psychological impact of Samson gets
lost. It is the same in Otello...It is one thing to sing
all the notes with great volume, but if you don’t have the
proper color, then you lose that extra ingredient that makes the
character believable.” (Lyric
Opera News) |
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“There are people who have
been disappointed that I don't use more of a big sound in this
part, but that is simply not what Otello is about. You just
have to look at the score.” (About the House Spring)
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“Yes, I am a
diva on stage. Every artist must be. But at home I am a normal
man. I am a husband, lover and father of three. ...”
(The
Times) |
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“There are two
ways to arrive at the top of a hill. You can be put there by a
helicopter, and whoosh! The first wind that comes along whips
you down. Or you can arrive at the top by yourself, making
muscles as you go along, so that when you get there you are
strong. That doesn't mean you are invulnerable, but at least
you are stronger.” (Irish
Times) |
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“Nobody expects a writer to say that your performance was all
lovely and wonderful every time, but also we have a right not to
expect that writers use artists to take out their own
frustrations. Critics have a responsibility, because as such
they should know what they are talking about and so be able to
interpret what they see in the performance and tell other people
about it in an engaging way. This is an intelligent critic. But
there are many who are not, and it is the unintelligent writing
that kills the audiences, that puts a prejudice in their head
before they come, or stops them coming altogether.” (Audiostreet) |
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"I am a shark and I am excited by blood." (La Razón)
“Once [Calaf] seemed to me to
be a one-dimensional person but the music of Puccini is immense and it redeems
him.” (L'Arena)
“…if I have a performance I
won’t go out barefoot in the snow and challenge destiny, but I’m not a slave to
my voice. I eat when I am hungry, and sleep when I am tired, and wash when I am
dirty like anybody else.”
(Bomb)
“If there is one musical
experience I will always recall as the most extremely emotional of my life—as it
was the first time I was really awakened passionately to classical music—it was
when I performed Bach’s St Matthew Passion in 1984. I can remember now
exactly how much I wept.” (on his first
significant classical musical experience The Lady)
“I think that God was always
surveying and controlling my life and saying, “You’re going to be a singer even
if you don’t want to be a singer. It will take time to convince you, but
you’re going to be a singer.” (Opera News)
"I have a sense of
curiosity and an appetite to do what I have not yet done." (Pravda
SK)
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“It’s bad for a singer to think only about singing. It kills the voice and
deprives it of all charisma and in addition narrows one’s sense of perception in
general. One has to work against that.” (Kurier)
“Somebody called God decided
to give me all these gifts. It is my obligation to use them. It is
just a way of earning my life. It is not my life. My profession has
plenty of pressure but I know that is not my life. If everything finished
tomorrow, I wouldn’t die.” (Sunday Independent)
“The family base is so important. It’s the only way to keep yourself sane as a
human being. I mean, this life is very—no, it’s absolutely—crazy. When you
come off from a performance where there’s a standing ovation…and then you go
home and have to change the baby’s nappies, you learn to say. ‘OK, the opera was
fine, but this is fine, too.’ That helps me keep my feet on the ground.”
(Classic FM)
“The reaction of the house
does not depend on the audience but on the artist.” (Poland)
“Those that don’t want to
listen to the truth said that the incident was that of a capricious divo.
That’s not true. It was a valiant reaction against something that is happening
inside that theatre, something bad that has to be stopped.” (La Nacion)
“After
Manon Lescaut,
every opera is a lullaby for the tenor!” (Gramophone)
"I would not say “good luck,” because I don’t believe in
luck. I believe in being prepared. Luck is to be in the middle of the desert
dying of thirst and all of a sudden having a short shower on your head. That
is good luck! But if you don’t have a glass to gather the water, you lose
the water. The glass has to be prepared." (Classical
Singer)
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“When you dance with somebody who knows how to dance, you are very happy
to relax and to be guided by that person, because that’s the magic of
dancing. But when you dance with someone who is again and again standing
on your toes, you have to take a decision: Either you stop dancing, many
does, and leave, or you take the guide yourself.” (Neue Merker )
“To watch my wife become more
and more beautiful and to see my children grow.”
(on his hopes for 2001,
La Capital)
“Turandot is a work
that opens new horizons to the vocalist.” (L'Arena)
“Whatever stories may say
about me, they won't be able to say I have no guts.” (New
Standard)
“When you are 20 years old
physical beauty attracts you more than the personality. Everyone grows up. When
you are 40, your point of view is different. I'm a happy father of three. My
wife is a wonderful person. I'm more interested in one's soul now.”
(Przeglad)
“…What looks like a risk for
the audience, because it's the first time they see it, is a studied risk for the
artist on stage. You never do on stage what you didn't try before. One thing
is to take risk, another to be stupid.” (Electronic Telegraph)
“Boheme is a story of
every day--you can do it in jeans. But if I am going to do Aida, I want a
pyramid and an elephant. I don't want to do Aida with a tank. This is not
modernism; this is ridiculism. It is not a word, I know. But it sounds good.”
(Vogue)
“I am in the fortunate
position of being able to assure you that I am slowly losing my hair and that I
have also gained some weight. This enables me to hope that my critics will start
to think, well, he may not look as sexy as before, but maybe he is now a
musician who is to be taken seriously.”
(Rundschau)
“I am the son of a father
whose family came from Lebanon and a mother who is Italian-Spanish... but my
heart is all Argentine.”
(Alface-voadora)
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“I approach a role through the
drama. I study the libretto, analyzing the character, and then I look at the
music, trying to discover why the composer has used, for instance, a particular
chord. Then I put it all together.” (BBC
Magazine)
"I'm like a
racing animal. You can use it to do many things, but the moment it's in the
track, it's happy. I can sing concerts, pop music, do a movie, whatever. But
the animal in me feels complete, satisfied and fulfilled onstage." (USA Today)
"I began to
love all types of music because my mother was wise enough to introduce me to
them, almost like a DJ. She made me understand that there is only good and bad
music in the world. All other labels are immaterial. She moved from Beethoven to
Frank Sinatra without remorse." (Chicago Sun-Times)
"A singer
is not somebody with a crystal bird in the larynx, so [that] you can push a
button and all of a sudden the voice comes out!" (Classical Singer)
"No matter
how much love and courage you put into a performance it can still turn out
badly. Then the head that rolls is yours." (La Razón)
“He is a toad from a different swamp." (El Periodico, on
Otello)
"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." (Interview)
"At the beginning every talent is only one option,
one seed. I am convinced that after thirty years of
hard work a strong, mature tree came from that seed.
Everyone can decide whether he/she loves the cool
shade or fruits of this tree, but the point is that
I'm a tree, and not only a little seed."
(Gyorplusz)
"... a director should be in “complete control” even when he
has others doing the sets or the costumes, otherwise, the
result is a “disconnected” production in which the sets look
“foreign" to the action or the costumes look “out of place”
on the characters. Something that, alas!, happens more often
than what we think… I like to work in tight collaboration,
not only with my team, but also with the in-house’s technical people, as nobody
knows their theater better than them: to ignore this factor is
an arrogant mistake, no matter if you do one activity or all of
them." (Das Opernglas)
"We do not understand
today that the heavier the baggage of our
life experience, the richer becomes our
language of expression." (DziennikPolski)
"Working without a variety of possibilities, without a
multiplicity of options, is not for me. I know there are some people who are
not happy with this and ask: “Why does he have to do so many things?” But by
now I have come to answer that merely with another question: 'Why not?'”
(Das
Opernglas)
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“I try to use my voice
not only as a singer but as an actor, and to create 'suffocated' colours
in the voice.”
(Electronic
Telegraph)
“I was always bizarre.
Nobody was able until now to make me do things I do not want.”
(Birgit Popp)
“In Act One he is an Old-Testament
Ché Guevara. In the second act we see that Samson completely
misunderstands the spiritual meaning of his life. He was of the flesh –
a man filled with animalistic adrenalin – and that is why he was so
easily corrupted.” (Lyric Opera News)
“Operalia, which was
transmitted to 70 countries, turned a young artist who lived in a
restricted circle into somebody very well know and in whom many theaters
were interested. It was almost as if, after a long pregnancy, I was
suddenly born.”
(Opera Actual)
“The greatest
influence of the singer on the conductor is the fact that I pay
extremely close attention to phrasing, that the music is played
‘horizontally,’ not ‘vertically,’ not bar after bar, but in phrases
which create another kind of energy within the music. And as I have to
stick very much to phrases as a singer – because without phrasing you
cannot sing – the influence of the ‘singer’ on the ‘conductor’ is very
big.”
(Klassik Heute)
“Verdi was the genius. We are not. Our job is to be
expressive of what he wrote.” (Master Class)
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"I am ready to fight whoever insists that there are no
voices today as there were in the past. There are great voices out
there, and we just need to find them and help them." (Classical Singer)
“When I was very young and I
was searching for the kind of music I wanted to perform and trying to find my
style, I always turned to my mother . . .. I am so grateful to her.” (on his
early music influence, The Lady)
“When you have a conductor who
is prepared, you can discuss and have a wonderful communion of work. When you
have an asshole, there is nothing you can do.”
(Birgit Popp8)
“It is a complex
combination of courage, technique, professionalism and most of all charisma.” (on
the secret to becoming a great singer, RemarX Winter)
“Don't call me the fourth
tenor, it looks like someone who did not qualify for a medal. Just call me
D'Artagnan.” (Il Corriere della Sera)
“A real artist is always
serious about their work. But even when you reach the peak of your technique
you remain a child, you have to have a kid's 'fantasy.'” (Classic
FM)
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'Be
faithful to the work and to the text, that I think is the key to the theater.
We are only tools of the art.' (SME)
“A true art based on beauty and harmony elevates our souls and gives us hope for
the future.” (Moscow)
"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."
(Repetice)
“A star is a star. They are very far from the earth, with no real connection to
human existence. I am not a real artist, however, if I don’t have a direct
relationship with people. If I am only traveling in luxury cars or living in
luxury hotels and do not know the truth about real life, if I do not take note
of human suffering, then I am not a real artist. I am only a product of show
business.” (Figaro)
“I belong to that rare group
of human beings who used to be called kamikaze.” (London
Times Magazine)
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"Classical is a
dangerous word. It's an artform with very strong connotations of technique and
intellect. It's true, you can't digest it like a hamburger. [Classical is] not
an obvious music... it's not pre-cooked and frozen. Opera, wine, sex - the
common factor is patience. You need to take your time." (Belfast Telegraph)
"In
Argentina ...it was the first years of the new democracy and to live in my
country then was really an adventure. We had a child and I had four jobs and my
wife had two jobs and even then we did not have enough money at the end of the
each month. We took the risk and decided to go to Europe to see what might
happen ..." (Seen and Heard)
"An artist’s most essential attribute,
his most characteristic quality should indeed be honesty. I am more honest, more
genuine, when I am doing something that really engages me mentally, that touches
me on the inside. I have moved among a limited number of roles and role
offerings for too long [and] I am sensitive to the limitations, the finite
nature of my profession."
(Opernwelt)
“For years I inhaled the celebrity world until one day I had enough. I
decided that I would live differently, I would do real art which is only
possible to achieve through creative freedom.”(Figaro)
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"Those who are like me who are engaged in doing many things and are doing them
well and are successful, all of them make certain others very nervous. They do
not understand; they are jealous of it and ask, "How can you do so many things?"
Of course, the question continues like this, "Why do you deal with five things,
and not with just one?!" I do not think that I would be the best in everything,
but what I am doing with incredible persistence, diligence and talent, I make a
success of that, and that's what counts.
I believe it is better to die with happiness and satisfaction than knowing you've lived your life unhappy and
frustrated. Anyway, you can never do anything that pleases everyone; you can
never be the winner." (Gyorplusz)
"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."
(Opera Plus)
“I used to feel I wanted to be
the angel of revenge and to cut off the heads of all the people who were so
cruel to me, and the people who kept talking about me unkindly. Then one day I
thought the contrary and said to myself, “Maybe I should thank them for what
they did and said, because that all pushed me to go forward and eventually reach
where I am now. I think my memories of the past of full of positive
things....” (discussing the hardships in his early career, The Lady)
“If you have the luck in our
job to be physically nice enough and you don't take care of yourself--you are
stupid...What I am saying is that I might have been blessed with a certain look,
but I am also a former body builder, a black belt in Kung Fu, I taught gym, AND
I keep on training. And I make sacrifices... Looking after the way I look is
part of the job for me.”
(Opera Now )
“I'll be busy for the next
couple of years for sure. A week ago I arranged an orchestra rehearsal that will
take place on 5 May 2010!”
(Sukces )
“Some mornings I wake up and
wonder if I am doing the right thing for the artist and me, as opposed to the
career.”
(Time Magazine )
“The legend you know but this
is what really happened. I said: 'I am here to sing for the people. I am not
here for those whose behavior stinks.' One often says that in Spanish. It was
translated as 'these humans stink.' That is simply stupid. How could I know from
the stage how someone smells in the last rows? I am no dog.” (Kurier, in reference to Madrid Il Trov)
“The need to conduct was born
in me.”
(Il Piccolo de Trieste)
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”Whenever someone needs me, I
would like to be a light for that person.” (Prinsengracht)
“The Verdi tenor is a man who
lives on the border between the light and darkness which exist in all our
souls.”
(Verdi Arias)
“Before, if one was not
singing at La Scala, one would not have had a career. I have sung there several
times and cannot say that it has changed my life.” (La
Nacion)
“I
claim the right to be elastic in my career ... I don't want to behave like a
tenor 365 days a year!”
(Opera Magazine)
“I think the word 'secure' was
canceled from the dictionary.”
(USA Today)
“[Turandot]
is sung because the music is magnificent, because it is beautiful, because
singing it gives true pleasure.” (L'Arena)
“Anybody who can stand on the stage and
pretend he is someone else must have folly and the heart of a child in an iron
cage.” (Vogue)
“I consider my art to be a mixture of joy and love and sufferance - that's
life.” (The Singer)
“If you compare the performance with an act of love, singing is the moment
you are actually making love: You are sweating, you are crying, bleeding,
you are afraid, you have joy, to sing, portraying a character, it’s a very
physical experience.” (Neue Merker)
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 “A
career is like an iceberg, most of it under water.”
(Opera Magazine)
“Quite frankly, my only
perplexities regarded my acting for this specific role; I did not feel
comfortable standing in the middle of the stage with my legs wide open planted
there like an impaled potato.”
(La Stampa)
“The music world is fond of
labeling people, but at the end of your life you will have to explain to that
being who gave you your talents why you were so cowardly as to not use them
all.” (The Times)
“I am not so arrogant that I
will do it on purpose, just for the sake of breaking everybody's patience. You
do it to tease yourself, to provoke yourself, to investigate, to try different
things, to maybe find a new language, a new formula.”
Commenting on conducting and
singing simultaneously
(Electronic Telegraph)
“An artist is somehow like a
doctor who cures people's souls.” (Pravda)
“I can be as loud as I want if
I have to. But I don't think shouting is the solution to performing this role.”
(LSO Living Music re Otello)
“I have to be careful about
the press--if I have dinner with a girlfriend, they write that I'm having an
affair. If I have dinner with a man, they write that I'm gay, and if I'm seen
walking my dog they write that I have sex with animals.”
(The Times)
"In the beginning," he says,
"everyone was trying to put me in the shoes of the three tenors. In the
beginning, when I started, I was not myself. I was 'the fourth.' Trying to wear
the shoes of the fourth tenor. For a couple of minutes, I tried. But I couldn't
walk in those shoes. So I removed them....But the fact of not wanting to wear
those shoes doesn't mean I cannot walk." (Chicago Sun-Times)
"For me, opera is another musical
experience, one that I will be doing for as long as I can, the way I believe it
has to be done: with good acting and by giving it my all when I’m on stage.”
(Vima)
"Working without a variety of possibilities, without a
multiplicity of options is not for me. I know there are some people who are
not happy with this and ask: “Why does he have to do so many things?” But by
now I have come to answer that merely with another question: 'Why not?'”
(Das
Opernglas)
"The danger of
Otello is like the danger of being in touch with perfect things. It takes you
everywhere. It changes your life and what do you do then? You finish the opera
and you cannot get out of the character. What can you do? That is Otello."
(Interview)
“It’s a wonderful way of earning a living,
but real life is more important. I’m lucky to have the security of a happy
family to come home to. Yes, I am a diva on stage, but at home I am a normal
man. I am passionate; I have seen sadness and I am a man who cries very easily
. . .“ (Times)
"I give myself in every situation. As we're talking
here, well, I'm like this on the stage, the same way
as when I'm taking my wife out to dinner. I live my
life with passion. Because it is too short to do all
these with boredom, don’t you think?"
(Gyorplusz)
"The
task of the artist is to give people love and a positive feeling for life."
(MTI)
"From 1999 to the beginning of 2004, I [was] under the harshest
of … attacks from many different sources: people calling theaters to
convince artistic directors not to engage me, and journalists being paid to
write that I was history, that I was a falling star. But we
persisted....After four years of struggle, we are now successful and very
happy with our work." (Classical Singer)
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"How does the world
regard tenors? Like a piece of shouting meat." Master Class, Indiana
University, as reported by the Indiana Daily Student
"I moved from
Argentina to Europe in 1991. I worked for two or three years in restaurants—my
wife worked with me, washing dishes—and we did many things that a lot of people
wouldn’t even think about doing. We had a very hard life. We lived in a garage
for one year because we couldn’t pay the rent, and we heated the garage with a
small fire, with me gathering wood in the middle of the night!"
(Classical Singer)
“The
real Verdi voice doesn’t resemble what we are constantly told it should be.
To really know what it is we should read Verdi’s letters. He hated the term
bel canto and refused to refer to opera in that way. Instead, he called it ‘melodramma.’
So what makes a Verdi voice? It is the artist’s capacity of conveying the
message through his voice, even risking an ‘ugly noise’ when it is required
by the character. In this sense, the biggest challenge in singing Verdi may
be to go against the commonplace and produce a sound that conveys the drama
with the same intensity and freedom of colors that an actor of spoken
theater has. Stiffelio, for example, needs an obscure sound (in the
metaphysical sense of the word) to be able to effectively portray the
turmoil in the soul of the character. No room there for ‘sunny notes’” (Met
Opera website)
"I
am so happy when I have shows and so many young people coming at the end to
me at the stage door. Young people never speak about the singing, what they
say is that they enjoyed it because they believed it." (Aktualit)
'If we
continue to do Otello as they did it in the fifties, you ignore the
worldwide crisis of fundamentalism of today: in 2008, the fact that Otello
is a Muslim converted to Christianity opens up a whole world to investigate.
After 2001 and September 11, the whole approach to a fundamentalist opera
like Otello has changed.'
(Musical Criticism)
"Twenty years ago, one British critic wrote,
"Cura should take note that classical music
was not written for his amusement!" That is
why my critics don’t have a high opinion of
me, I do not belong to the canon, but
interestingly, I can still win young people
to my case! I’ve been at war with the
teachers of conservatories and the critics
for twenty-five years, and if God will
merciful to me, I can continue this fight
for another twenty-five years, and then
after I headed for heaven or even hell."
(Gyorplusz)
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