Juan Diego Florez - Articles & Interviews, August-September 2007

Der 34 Jahre alte Sänger aus Peru ist gegenwärtig der beste Vertreter des leichten Rossini-Tenors. Juan Diego Florez brilliert regelmäßig mit ganz hohen Tönen und wird dafür gefeiert. Im Gespräch mit WELT ONLINE erzählt er von sportlicher Kondition und von erlaubtem Stimm-Doping.

Mit der Präzision eines Drillbohrers, aber mit viel schöneren Geräuschen schraubt sich der peruanische Tenor Juan Diego Florez für gewöhnlich auf der Tonleiter nach oben. Doch auf seiner jüngsten CD Arias for Rubini", einer Hommage für den Tenor Giovanni Battista Rubini (1794-1854), dem er viele seiner schönsten Rollen verdankt, lässt er auch viel Gefühl zu. Außerdem ist eben eine DVD aus Zürich mit ihm als Ernesto in Donizettis Don Pasquale" erschienen (beide Decca). Juan Diego Florez gibt am 24. und 27. September sowie am 1. Oktober Arienabende in München, Wien und Köln.

Florez: Wenn ich Sprudelwasser, besser noch Champagner getrunken habe, gar nichts. Dann perlen die Cs von selbst! Im Ernst: diese Arie braucht sehr viel Energie, davor muss man sich aufladen, indem man sich unauffällig schont und konzentriert. Besonders, wenn man sich in einer Inszenierung viel bewegen muss, dann kann das schwierig werden, und wenn man mit Natalie Dessay singt - die läuft einem nämlich immer davon! Andererseits beschwingt es mich auch, macht mich locker, ich strampele mich also auf der Bühne warm. So bin ich beschäftigt, komme kaum zum Denken und starte dann einfach ohne Skrupel. Und wenn es gut war, wiederhole ich es auch gern, das ist ein purer Adrenalinschub, und die Leute warten drauf, sogar in Japan. Nur kürzlich an der Scala, da, waren ein paar Menschen erbost, weil da seit 75 Jahren keiner ein Encore gewagt hatte. Nur der Chor, der darf in Nabucco" immer zweimal singen. Ich kam sogar in New York und London in die Schlagzeilen. Wegen ein paar doppelter hoher Noten!

Florez: Es ist wie bei einem Raketenstart. Es bricht los, man kann nicht mehr umkehren, ich werde zur Rampe für meine Cs. Aber ganz ehrlich; die hohen Töne sind einfach da, die sind für mich ein Klacks. Die sitzen bombenfest. Da hatte Mama Natur bei mir einfach einen guten Tag. Nicht alle Cs sind immer schön. Damit muss man sich abfinden. Hauptsache, sie sitzen richtig. Ich finde freilich die zweite Tonio-Arie in der Regimentstochter" viel schwerer. Da geht es nicht um Pyrotechnik, sondern um echte Gefühle. Diese Intensität zu erzeugen, die Emotionen dieses Bauernburschen in möglichst vielen Farben und Nuancen über die Rampe zu bringen, das ist für mich der wahre Kampf. In dieser Arie hört man wenig von der Orchesterbegleitung, da rutscht man verdammt schnell aus der Tonart. Abräumen aber tut man nur mit dem Gestrampel da oben.

Florez: Zugegeben. Aber das habe ich jetzt lange genug gemacht. Ich bin kein Wundertier. Ich möchte, dass man wahrnimmt, was ich dazwischen singe. Oder gleich am Anfang: Wie in der Italienerin in Algier". Ich komme raus und muss gleich mein schwerstes Stück abliefern, in einer kneifenden Lage. Es ist sehr hoch und delikat, dabei immer im Pianissimo, im schnellen Teil mit vielen, aber unauffälligen Cs'. Da braucht es Kondition aus dem Stand heraus. Das ist wie im Sport. Und dann kommen der Mezzo und der Bassbuffo, und der Tenor hat den ganzen Abend über kaum noch was zu melden. Trotzdem liebe ich diese Oper. So viel Spaß, so viel sprachliche Verrücktheit. Rossini war wirklich der erste Dadaist.

Florez: Technik mit Gefühl. Das ist es. Und das ist so schwer! Das merke ich immer stärker, je länger ich singe. Am Anfang trällert man naiv drauflos, freut sich an seinen Kunststücken, dreht die Virtuositätsschraube immer weiter. Das reicht mir längst nicht mehr. Ich bin kein Stabhochspringer im Zirkus, sondern ein Künstler auf der Bühne, in einer Rolle. Außer in Peru. Da kennen mich die Leute, da habe ich Narrenfreiheit. Da singe ich sogar manchmal Popsongs. Anderswo aber will ich den ganzen Abend über ernst genommen werden.

Florez: Als Sängerdarsteller, nicht als Stimmbesitzer. Mir ist Schauspiel sehr wichtig, ich lasse mich da auch gern fordern. Vielleicht probiere ich auch deswegen jetzt meinen ersten eleganten, nicht heroischen Rigoletto"-Herzog in Deutschland aus? Offiziell - in Peru übe ich aber vorher. So viel Zynismus und sexuelle Offenherzigkeit muss ich erst lernen. Mein Problem ist: viele Leute wollen mich hören, aber mein Repertoire wurde eher für intimere Theater komponiert. Ich fülle auch die großen, ich hab genug Stahl auf den Stimmbändern, aber alles ist dann viel gröber, Feinheiten gehen verloren. Das schmerzt mich, auch wenn die Leute jubeln.

Florez: Ich darf nicht meckern. Ich hab heute eine wirklich luxuriöse Repertoirefreiheit, muss mich nicht mir Traviata" oder Lucia" quälen, wo die Rollen für schwerere Tenorstimmen komponiert sind. Ich kann an manchen Häusern Stück eigens für mich wählen, habe La Donna del Lago" in Salzburg gesungen, Le Comte Ory" kommt an der Metropolitan Opera und den Rodrigo in Rossinis Otello" habe ich in Covent Garden gesungen und werde es jetzt in Pesaro tun. Ich versuche innerhalb meiner relativ engen vokalen Grenzen viel zu variieren.

Florez: Leichter. Er kennt meine Stimme besser als ich und er hat mich immer gut beraten. Ein Sänger kann seine Stimme selbst nie genug kennen, weil er sie ja nie von außen hören kann. Ich kämpfe auch mit Ernesto, aber die Verletzungen bleiben sehr gering. Stattdessen nehmen wir meine Stimme sehr oft auf, in Proben und in Vorstellungen. Das wird dann analysiert und teilweise werde ich sehr zerrupft.

Nel cast le tre epoche della rassegna, il passato e il presente: con Flórez, Greg ory Kunde (Otello) e Chris Merritt (Jago), è lo spettacolo dei tre tenori. Sul podio Renato Palumbo. Nella sua regia Giancarlo Del Monaco ha ideato uno spazio astratto, metafisico, «un incubo di mare», dice l'appassionato sovrintendente del festival Gianfranco Mariotti. Nel serbatoio musicologico che travasa le edizioni critiche non c'è più Philip Gosset, massimo studioso rossiniano. Altro nodo: il taglio di 180 mila euro dalla legge speciale per il Rof. Ma si va avanti a testa alta, la qualità qui è di casa come Rossini.

Rodrigo che tipo è? «Un romantico innamorato di Desdemona, pensa solo a lei, "sarò felice" lo ripete tre volte. Ha un po' di invidia per Otello, hanno scelto lui come condottiero. Sembra che Rodrigo non abbia carattere, invece duetta col Moro, vuol battersi con lui». Il peruviano Flórez parla un italiano assai forbito. Ha preso villa nei dintorni di Pesaro, non lontano da Luciano Pavarotti. «Giorni fa siamo stati insieme a cena, abbiamo parlato di Rossini e mi ha fatto tante domande sulla mia carriera». Come l'ha trovato fisicamente dopo l'allarme poi smentito? «È in forma, sta recuperando bene, generoso, curioso, gli piace avere tante persone, anche a tavola». Dal debutto del '96 non ha mai tradito il festival, i suoi sovracuti d'argento limpido sono partiti da lì. «Vocalmente sono cresciuto, più sicuro, ci sono responsabilità e pressioni, tutti si aspettano chissà che cosa». E Pesaro è cambiata? «Spero che costruiscano un Auditorium degno di questa rassegna, che non si debba ricorrere ai palazzetti dello sport». In alternativa al piccolo Teatro Rossini, chiuso il pericolante Palafestival ci si ritrova all'Adriatic Arena fuori città, risistemato con poltroncine nuove, senza platea come nei teatri greci. «Si vede e si sente bene ovunque », rassicura Mariotti.

Flórez è il tenore che a febbraio, durante la Fille du régiment, ruppe il tabù alla Scala e diede il bis. «Non sapevo del veto da 74 anni, alcuni si scandalizzarono. Il coro tempo prima aveva dato il bis e nessuno aveva avuto da ridire, sono cose che fanno bene all'opera». Tornerà a Milano: un concerto il prossimo anno, nel 2010 per lo storico Barbiere di Siviglia allestito da Ponnelle e l'anno dopo per La donna del lago. Un momento del Barbiere l'ha proposto in tv a New York allo show di Dave Letterman. «Ero con la compagnia del Met. Ci ha detto: non sapevo che eravate così tanti, come faremo a pagarvi tutti?». Anche lui è un maestro: dell'ironia.

Last January, the Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Florez starred in a new production of Donizetti's La Fille du régiment at Covent Garden, alongside the French soprano Natalie Dessay. Both singers triumphed, in an opera that hadn't been seen at the Royal Opera House in 40 years. Shortly afterwards, Florez made international headlines when he became the first singer since the 1930s to be permitted to sing an encore in the same piece at one of opera's most hallowed halls, the Teatro alla Scala, in Milan, the scene of Roberto Alagna's ignominious walkout from Aida just two months earlier.

Donizetti's French comedy has a leading tenor part that boasts one of the most spectacular arias in the operatic repertoire its thrilling payoff, demanding a string of nine high Cs, the virility symbol of the romantic. When Pavarotti sang the same role at the Metropolitan Opera, in New York, the applause continued for 14 minutes and he was dubbed by the media "king of the high Cs". Florez, too, has made a party piece of the role. Although his is a lighter voice than the youthful Pavarotti's, his extension at the top end of the tenor's range is even higher. His record company, Decca, is now marketing Florez as "king of the high Ds". This may not be a witty pun, but the implication is clear: when it comes to singing in the stratosphere, the young Peruvian can outsing even the late, great Luciano.

Florez comes to London in October to give a recital at Cadogan Hall, in a series promoted by the opera-loving solicitor Ian Rosenblatt. He will perform a selection of numbers from his new album, Arias for Rubini, and party pieces from his stage repertoire. Although he has sung relatively frequently at the Royal Opera House since his debut in 2000, his concert appearances in Britain have been few though earlier this month he appeared alongside Lesley Garrett at the BBC's open-air Proms in the Park gig in Hyde Park.

We met last month in the Italian holiday resort of Pesaro, where Florez was singing Rodrigo in Rossini's Otello the role of his Covent Garden stage debut at the Rossini Opera Festival. Pesaro gave Florez his big international break in 1996, when he substituted at two weeks' notice for the tenor lead in Rossini's rarely performed Matilde di Shabran, and he has been loyal to the festival ever since, returning every two years. Like Pavarotti, who made Pesaro his summer residence, he is building a house there, with superb views over the Adriatic.

He makes it sound so simple, which it isn't, and audiences around the world have been acknowledging the bravura of his performance by demanding repeats of the nine high Cs. "Well, in La Fille du régiment, I have already done encores in Genoa, Lecce, Bologna, Vienna and Japan," he admits. "At La Scala, it was the first time since Chaliapin [the Russian bass], in 1933. After that, Toscanini [La Scala's famously dictatorial maestro] put a ban on encores. I got my agent to ask the management what would happen if the public asked for an encore, and they said, 'Well, we have never had one, and it's a delicate situation [vis-à-vis the other soloists]. But after the first performance, the applause went on for so long that they came to me in my dressing room and said I could do it if I wanted."

What was unexpected, however, was the media reaction. Even though Florez's encores had become something of a tradition elsewhere, when something like this happens at La Scala, it makes big news. Even Pavarotti made the front pages after he was booed at La Scala in Verdi's Don Carlo.

For Florez, however, the publicity was all good. "The next day, it was in all the papers," he recalls, "and they wrote nicely about me singing, but the big story was the breaking of the La Scala ban. Some Italian papers were shocked and wrote that it shouldn't have been allowed to happen,because of the great traditions of La Scala. Then The New York Times and the Frankfurter Allgemeine ran stories, and people started phoning up from all over the world even the gossip magazines and football papers, because they know I support Inter. They wanted to know what it meant. 'Was it like scoring a goal?' they asked. I said it was better than scoring a goal! I found myself in the middle of a hurricane of media interest."

Confounding the popular image of an operatic tenor, Florez could well pass for a footballer, with his slender physique, his taste for stylish casual clothes and his love of fast cars. The elegance of both his figure and his singing marks him out as a special singer in operas written for highly trained virtuosos, expected to perform feats of vocal athleticism and high-wire acts that most tenors are relieved not to have to attempt.

His new album is inspired by one of the most fabled tenors of the bel canto (beautiful singing) era, Giovanni Battista Rubini, whose name is for ever linked with the tenor roles written for him by Bellini. "Rubini was a very high tenor," Florez says, "and on the album I sing a beautiful aria from Bellini's Bianca e Fernando, with high Ds and even an E flat."

For most tenors who sing later Italian composers, such as Verdi and Puccini, high C is usually the limit and it is often transposed down to B flat. Beyond that crucial note lies a no-go area. Rubini sang a high F in I puritani, but few of his successors, even Florez, have emulated him, preferring to stop at D and E flat. Even Rubini didn't sing his high F at full voice. Instead, he used what Italians call voce mista: a "mixed voice", possibly sounding like something between falsetto and a heady croon, a hangover from the heyday of the castrati.

"Now, nobody uses that technique," Florez explains. "I don't think it would sound right. It was a technique of the 18th and early 19th centuries, when they knew how to teach it. It was like a secret or mystery that the old singers had, and teachers guarded it fiercely."

Still only 34 years old, Florez is approaching his prime and looking forward to new challenges. Next year, he will sing the Duke of Mantua in Verdi's Rigoletto one of Pavarotti's early show-stoppers for the first time in his home town, Lima, then in a new production in Dresden.

"It's an experiment, let's see how it goes," he says with characteristic caution. "It's one of those roles that many tenors have sung light ones, heavy ones but it is high, so a lot of tenors don't sing it towards the end of their careers. I have sung the arias in concerts for a long time already, and it doesn't have a big orchestra. First I will do it in Lima.

For a tenor at his peak, and apparently immune from the vocal vagaries and tantrums that have afflicted some contemporaries, Florez seems to lead a charmed life, and all the great opera houses are queuing up for a slice of his busy but carefully planned schedule. Luckily, Covent Garden has been quick to sign him up for the next few seasons. So, what can we expect to hear him sing here?