6
Juan Diego Flórez... Quote. Unquote.
Juan Diego Flórez on communicating with the audience (Interview for National Public Radio, 12 May 2002)...
"You know, I try to connect with the audience. That's one of my goals also. I mean, you're performing for an audience and you are singing for them, you want to move them, you want to make a change in them, something different. You know, they come to see the opera, and I think they have to leave the theater thinking different or feeling something different. I try to sing not for inside myself. It's a little bit an image. But I try to sing from my voice out for the public in a way sometimes.
I want to--that they feel what I'm feeling, in a way. Of course, sometimes, it's not always possible, really, because you can have a cold or you can have stomach aches, and that's more difficult to communicate in those points. But when you're feeling relaxed and comfortable, then you are feeling the music, you're feeling what you're singing. And then you just communicate. And that's the most beautiful moment because you feel--the audience can feel what you're really feeling. And that's wonderful.
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Valéry Fleurquin in the magazine Forum Opéra on Flórez's recital in Coruña,
7 July 2002...
"Est-il utile de préciser que l'enthousiasme devient hystérie collective et que le public ne tient pas à quitter son fauteuil? Il ne le fera qu'après un dernier bis: "una furtiva lagrima". J.D.Florez a conquis le public par sa voix mais aussi par un contact très naturel et sympathique."
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Jacques Duffourg in a review of the Rossini Arias CD in Res Musica...
" [la présente anthologie] ne va pas peu contribuer à la jeune gloire de ce ténor « de grâce et d'agilité » rayonnant. Lequel vient rapporter avec gentillesse au Vieux Continent, une bonne rasade de l'or des Andes, que des conquistadores ont oubliée en partant."
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Oreste Bossini in Del Teatro on Flórez's performance in La Sonnambula, La Scala, January 2001...
"Elvino è un ruolo molto bello, se il cantante ha in gola facilità di canto, espressione drammatica, un bel timbro di voce e l'acuto sempre in canna. Juan Diego Florez ha dimostrato di avere tutte le qualità per essere un Elvino superlativo, alla Kraus; in più, la natura gli ha regalato anche un bel fisico asciutto e un profilo affascinante come un tango."
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Juan Diego Flórez on the course of his career in an interview with Avui between rehearsals for La Donna del Lago in Salzburg [in English translation by J. Peccei from the original Catalan]...
"You never 'arrive', if you think that, you never improve. You always have new operas in which to debut, theatres to return to, to sing better. A career needs to last a long time, 30 years as a minimum. But I never thought that things would happen so quickly. And what people say becomes ever more inflated. They expect much more each time, never less, or even the same for that matter. Each time the challenge is greater."
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Stephen Hastings in Opera News (July 1999), on Flórez in Maria Stuarda at the Teatro Regio, Turin...
"In its second twentieth-century revival of Donizetti's Maria Stuarda (seen March 16), the Teatro Regio fielded a middling cast whose brightest element was Juan Diego Flórez as Leicester, a high-tessitura role with no solo arias but plenty of melodic substance. The Peruvian tenor took every opportunity to display his finely chiselled line, dynamic control and excellent diction."
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OperaClick on the Rossini Arias CD...
"Immaginate una strada oscura ed un viandante che cammina curvato sotto un peso davvero notevole. Il tempo incerto, minaccia di piovere e c'è un' atmosfera di sospensione che non promette nulla di buono. Un inizio vagamente dantesco? Ad un tratto però le nuvole si diradano e appare un sole gagliardo che con la sua forza mette gioia ed invita il viandante a
fermarsi. Anzi è proprio il viandante che si ferma e si ristora dinanzi all'inatteso spettacolo. Spettacolo che è naturalistico, ma che per noi amanti dell'opera ha un volto un nome, ma soprattutto una voce: Juan Diego Florez. Un giovanotto venuto dal Perù con il sangue nel quale scorre lo spirito del Pesarese."
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This page was last updated on: February 28, 2007
