An opera legend in Athens

by Athens news
George Gilson
Montserrat Caballe is accompanied on the piano by Vangelis in Athens’ Kalimarmaro Stadium in 1997 She abhors the word diva, but even Montserrat Caballe cannot deny that she is a phenomenon. At 79, she gives dozens of concerts a year to sold-out houses and declares proudly that she has no intention of ever stopping. Universally recognised as one of the best sopranos of the 20th century, she remains remarkably down-to-earth, sincere and kind, with a wonderful sense of humour. Often described as the successor to Maria Callas - La Divina herself, when asked by a journalist who the new Callas is, replied “Only Caballe” - the soprano speaks of her friendship with Callas in an interview with the Athens News. Caballe spoke frankly about her early years, her technique, her work as a Unesco goodwill ambassador, her belief in God and philosophy of life and her collaborations with composer Vangelis and rock star Freddie Mercury - a complex mesh that reveals a multi-faceted personality. In a September 17 concert at Athens’ Herod Atticus theatre, Caballe will sing works by Puccini, Bizet, Jimenez, Barbieri, Serrano and Massenet, the 100th anniversary of whose death is marked this year. Athens News: You have sung several times in Greece. Have you enjoyed your visits? Montserrat Caballe: Yes, it was wonderful every time. In 1992, I met Vangelis and became acquainted with him and his music. He composed several pieces for me. One of those was for Unesco, for the peace prize. The other was the opening ceremony for the sixth IAAF World Championships in Athletics in Athens in 1997, when I sang with Vangelis and a chorus and orchestra “March with Me” [with music by Vangelis and lyrics by Caballe], and the song “The Pray of the World”, with my daughter, Montserrat Marti. We have a wonderful video of that. I have sung Vangelis’ songs all over the world. I sang “March with Me” in the Kremlin once, and its bells sounded for the first time in 72 years, and also at a beautiful concert for the union of the two Germanys, at the doors of parliament. What is Vangelis like as a person? He is a very simple person. He is a wonderful musician. He plays Beethoven as well as Chopin. He has wonderful hands. He is a composer that gives me great inspiration. He has the greatness of a composer that does not dream only of success; he dreams of grasping something of the truth. You can hear it in his music. You are coming to Greece at a time when the country is in a major crisis. But your country, Spain, is also in crisis. Both countries suffer great austerity, with high unemployment and wage and pension cuts. How do you view this situation? I try to help people that need help - that is all. This is what I do, not only in Greece but also in other countries, like Ireland, Portugal, Spain, of course, and even in other countries where everything is going down. We get in the opera houses of Europe, as in North America, a sense of the crisis, through the fees. We don’t receive the normal fees, but only a small percentage - 10 or 15 percent - of the revenue of the concert hall. This is the way that I and many other colleagues are working in these times. It is the only way that a concert hall can bring artists to their audience. At 79, you still manage to have a very busy concert schedule. What keeps you going? Is it your technique that has allowed you to continue singing for so long? I think so, because my technique is based on the body, not on the vocal chords. It’s a matter of how you breathe, where you have the strength in the musculature to bring the air up so you don’t have to force your sound. This is how I have sung all my life, and I continue the same way. It is a matter of knowing your body. Anyone can be born with a voice, with sound. Learning how to use it is something different. You have to know your body, a little like a doctor does. How did Spanish culture influence your approach to music and how you see the world? My teacher was Hungarian and I learned her wonderful technique. Music is either something that you love or not. Music doesn’t have a country: it’s universal, for everybody and for every composer. When you like only the music of your country, this means that you are not musical, that you don’t understand music. Music is for everywhere. Whether it is classical or modern, it has to be music, not just rhythm. I like some Spanish music - Albeniz and Marianne Martinez, a Viennese friend of Mozart, who included one of her compositions in his Don Giovanni. But I like all the real musicians, who composed for music and not for success. The world at the moment is chaos all over, from the North Pole - where the arctic icecap is melting due to climate change - to the South Pole. There is a tremendous number of people in many countries that don’t have drinking water. I see the world as very disastrous at this moment. People don’t understand what dialogue is. They know only monologues. Dialogue is very important, not only for governments, but also for respecting the way other people live and see the future, their religion and the personality of their countries. There were two big world wars in the last century, and we suffered a lot. But they have not learned from that. People have forgotten what a human being is. We don’t want to return to the time of slavery. We see some countries that don’t think of others, but only about money. Can you tell us a bit about your parents? They were very simple people who worked very hard. They lived through the Civil War in Spain and the Second World War in Europe, so they knew war. They helped me very much. They were very musical and they imparted to me this love of music when I was young. Papa was a wonderful fan of music and he sang a little, for himself. My mother tried to teach me music and a little piano, because she had studied piano - she was from Valencia. So I began to love music through them. Then I studied at weekends and I had a grant from the conservatory that helped me study there, because we didn’t have the money. My parents taught me not to be ambitious, to be patient and to never try and rush to obtain anything. Papa always said that patience is the key to success. When did you first realise that you had what it takes to be a great singer? I never thought so - I think that is a very stupid thought. I only wanted to sing the best I could and look for new music throughout my life, either in recitals or opera. I am very proud that I have brought so many operas to the stage that young singers today sing. These were operas that were at the bottom of music library stacks. That is something I learned from my teacher - to look and know a composer not from one song or opera, but from all his work. That’s what made me develop things from Donizetti or Bellini that no one knew or sang. Today there is a wonderful register of Bellini operas, whereas before only two were sung - Norma and one other. After 50 years in opera, what do you think is the secret of your success: God-given talent, hard work… luck? I think it is work. I do my gymnastics every day, tending to the architecture of the sound. Like a pianist moves his fingers, I do the same with the voice - not as many hours, but an hour every day. The idea is to be flexible, to have your sound, the proper position and all that. Of course, I try not to catch a cold, and all the rest is okay. Do you believe in God, and what role does that play in your life? Yes. God for me is the creator of the universe. He has given human beings so many possibilities to develop this wonderful planet Earth. When I need a little strength sometimes for things that happen in life, I ask for him to give me a little strength. It’s very hard to see how your parents die, how your son is so ill that he is almost dying. Right now, in my position as a Unesco goodwill ambassador and working for children who have nothing, I see so many sad moments. When I travel in missions to bring medicines, water and things needed for survival, it is very hard to see the hardships. I come from a country that is wonderful, but where people are not happy, almost like Greece. But then you see other countries where they don’t have drinking water. You see the children in Spain and Greece playing in the streets. But the children cannot play in Somalia or Sudan because so many are dying every day. This is a sad moment for the earth. What would you say is your philosophy of life? What makes you happy, sad or angry? Angry no, sad yes: sad for everything that happens in life, to see how unhappy people are, or to see the real form of life today. It has nothing to do with what I thought when I was younger. This is something that makes me sad, because I wish that the people on earth not destroy the planet but rather help to keep it. How many more years can the earth support these tensions? Life has to be lived in a way that respects others. This is my philosophy - to respect others’ thoughts, ideologies and religions and to have the opportunity to talk. You have to accept others; when you do not, you are an absolutist. Today, there are millions of absolutists in the world. This is what I think. What do you like to do in your spare time? I like to paint when I have the time. I have thousands of pictures, but my husband Bernabe has placed many in a house we have in the mountains. He says they are “sooo terrible” and he doesn’t want anyone to see them. But this is my way of seeing a flower, a face or a landscape. You’ve worked with some of the greatest tenors of the 20th century - Pavarotti, Domingo, Carreras. Who was the most fun to work with? All three, really. Each one had his own wonderful stage manners. Domingo for me is the best interpreter, not only musically, but also as a personality. He lived his stage character. Luciano was also a very good musician, a very good singer and he tried to be very real in his interpretation. Every time I sang with him was really a joy. Carreras was also a wonderful tenor. He was happy sometimes not to sing a wonderful aria, but to sing a wonderful top C. That is the difference. Who is your favourite conductor to work with? Zubin Mehta. Why? Because he is the best. Your work with rock star Freddie Mercury - recording the song Barcelona for the 1992 Olympic Games in your hometown - made you known to a much wider audience. What was that collaboration like? Working with Freddie was very good, because he was such a good pianist, a good musician. Of course he sang his music well, but what is more important is to be a good musician. When you are a good musician, you don’t produce sound only for the rhythm - you sing. All the songs he sang, like “Exercise in Free Love” and many others with his group, had musical strength. This is what made him great. The idea was to inspire young people to come to the Games. For the opera people, I was doing something horrible and was strongly criticised. We recorded other songs on our record, but “Barcelona” was the very famous one. The record sold very well, and we gave the proceeds to the Pasteur Institute in Paris for Aids research. I did not understand why at the time, but later he told me he was seropositive. So I sang one concert in Paris for the Institute Pasteur. He died before the Barcelona Games, but he was on the biggest screen all over the world. Do you think he had a good voice? Yes. He was a baritone, you know. I asked him why we don’t do a small number of baritone-soprano opera duets and he refused. He said, “No, when my fans see I have that voice, they won’t want to listen to me anywhere.” He always said it was his dream for us to sing together. Can you imagine your life without singing? No. Sitting in a salon and waiting for death? No, no. Who do you think was the greatest soprano of the 20th century? Maria Callas (photo). She was the best, both as an artist and as a musician. I met her in Paris in 1968. Later we saw each other. When I sang Norma in Paris, she was there. She embraced me. She was so beautiful. She gave me her earrings from her Norma at La Scala. I remember when I sang at La Scala in 1972, I wore them at the dress rehearsal, but I could not wear them at the premiere. It felt as if I did not have the right. I have them in my home in a special place. But, you know, she was a woman of great intelligence. In music her advice was very, very healthy and good, both for the voice and for the person. What was she like? You cannot believe it, but she was very simple. The way I saw her, in New York several times or in London or Paris, she was always a very normal woman, speaking as woman to woman, not as singer to singer. She always told me how lucky I am to have a husband that is so good to me. She told my husband, “Bernabe, take good care of Montserrat because you have something very special in her.” She was very, very sweet, very, very good, and very different from what people think. What do you think Callas’ legacy is for opera? Callas helped to project interpretation, not only in a role on stage, but in the voice - the test and the real feeling of the composer, the way he has done it. This is her legacy. Not everyone can see it, but this is the legacy of Maria. Maria has left us the real interpretation of the feelings of a composer. This is something very great and very rare. Biography highlights Born: In Barcelona on 12 April 1933 First appearance: Gran Teatro del Licieu (1953), won gold medal Major breakthrough: Last-minute replacement of Marilyn Horne in Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia, Carnegie Hall (1965) results in extensive standing ovation First appearances: Metropolitan Opera in 1965, La Scala officially in 1970 and Covent Garden in 1972 Singing traits: Speedy learning of parts, extensive repertoire, beautiful vocal control and vigour, outstanding musicianship Married: To tenor Bernabe Marti; daughter Montserrat, also a soprano (Source: David Patmore/Naxos) Performance info 17 September 2012, 9pm - Herod Atticus Theatre (Irodeio) Tickets: 40-135 euros Purchase: Festival Box Office (39 Panepistimiou stoa, 9am-5pm Mon-Fri, 9am-3pm Sat), or 210-327-2000; at the theatre (9am-2pm and 6-9pm); Public stores; Papasotiriou bookstores; online at www.herodeion-events.gr