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npr music, February 16, 2013 |
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Jonas Kaufmann On Wagner: 'It's Like A Drug Sometimes'
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Listen and download from npr, in mp3 |
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Transcipt from npr |
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Jonas Kaufmann On Wagner: 'It's Like A
Drug Sometimes'
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
You're listening to WEEKENDS on
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden. And it's time now for
music.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LYDEN: This is - we'll say it
here, building on considerable evidence - the greatest living Wagnerian
tenor alive.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
JONAS KAUFMANN: (Singing in
foreign language)
LYDEN: His name is Jonas Kaufmann, and he's
currently in New York starring in the Metropolitan Opera's production of
"Parsifal." This year is the bicentennial of Richard Wagner's birth, and
Kaufmann is using that occasion to ask listeners who may have turned away
from Wagner at some point to give his music another listen. Jonas Kaufmann's
new album draws him across the composer's entire career, and it's simply
entitled "Wagner."
KAUFMANN: For me, it sounds almost like an
addiction, because I grew up with Wagner, my grandfather was playing it on
the piano - all the vocal scores - and trying to even sing all the parts
through. So I remember him sitting next to the piano and just listening to
all that, and it was very normal for me.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
KAUFMANN: (Singing in foreign language)
LYDEN: This exquisite
recording you've done, 11 different works here from Wagner's career, and it
features music from the beginning, from the opera "Rienzi" in 1842. You sing
the part of "Siegfried" more than 30 years later. Talk to me about how he
changed as a composer.
KAUFMANN: Well, Wagner changed very much,
almost like every great composer. But they were born - maybe - being a
genius, but they had to discover their special style and everything. And
what you do as a young artist, you try to imitate the others. His first
operas, they're very much in the traditional style of: now comes an aria,
now comes a duet, now comes a trio, here comes another aria. From then on,
he started to, like we say, he composed through. So it's - the flow of the
music never ends. There's not one number, and then there is a little gap,
and then comes the next number.
And "Rienzi" is, again, the last
example of having a real aria. And after that, you really have to take a
sharp knife and cut out from barre, I don't know, from barre 340 to barre
620 and call it an aria. Between the "Rienzi" and the ring cycle, he really
created something really new.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
KAUFMANN:
(Singing in foreign language)
LYDEN: Do you think that it's helped to
be German, to know German, to grow up listening to it? You know, you're
talking about having it sung into your ears as you're a child at your
grandfather's knee. Does that give you, do you think, more richness and
artistry in singing these lyrics?
KAUFMANN: I'm not sure. I don't
know. I think very important, obviously, is in every language, no matter
what you perform, that you actually know exactly what the real meaning is or
what maybe alternative meanings are. Because when we have a production with
several Germans, we always have discussions on what these words actually
mean, because Wagner had a tendency to actually invent things. He invented
the words because he had this idea that, obviously, he had always the rhymes
or he always tried to make two phrases fit to each other perfectly. And then
sometimes, he just wouldn't find the adequate word to finish a phrase, so
therefore, he invented combination words.
LYDEN: I hope I won't be
putting you on the spot, but is it possible for you to give me an example of
some invented Wagnerian phrase that he uses? Do you have any of those on
this album?
KAUFMANN: Let me think - on the album. There was one in
the "Siegfried" scene. He's talking about his mother - how his mother would
have probably looked like. And he says (German spoken).
(SOUNDBITE OF
MUSIC)
KAUFMANN: (Singing in foreign language)
Well, rehe is a
deer, and hinden(ph), I never heard. I know hunden, which is a female dog.
So I thought, a dog deer? I don't know. What is that? And then I looked it
up, and I found that hinden is actually a very, very old word for a female
elk. So he combined it. He said, well, it has maybe the statue and the proud
figure of an elk but also the beauty of deer. The only problem is no one in
the audience will understand when you sing that phrase what he actually
means. So...
LYDEN: Unless you think of old fairytales. I remember
from my childhood where, you know, the deer, the stag and sometimes called
the hind in English, H-I-N-D. There you have it.
KAUFMANN: Oh, OK.
LYDEN: Maybe.
KAUFMANN: Oh, yeah, yeah. Exactly.
LYDEN:
Maybe we even...
KAUFMANN: So probably...
LYDEN: Maybe we
dream this up. I don't know. People will let us know. I'm speaking with
tenor Jonas Kaufmann. His new album is called "Wagner." And I think a lot of
people are less familiar with the nonoperatic works. Please tell me about
those - I'm going to mess up the name - "Wesendonck-Lieder?"
KAUFMANN: "Wesendonck," exactly. There was a lady called Mathilde
Wesendonck, a married lady, who he - they had kind of a relationship. Nobody
knows exactly. I mean, you can say...
LYDEN: Infatuation.
KAUFMANN: ...she probably was his girlfriend. So she wrote some poems, and
he composed it.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WESENDONCK-LIEDER")
KAUFMANN: (Singing in foreign language)
There's one song called "Im
Treibhaus," "In the Glass House," when he describes the suffering of this
plant. Even though it has warmth, it has the sun, it gets watered and
everything, but it's homesick, which is kind of weird for a plant. But if
you then think of the situation of Wagner, who was in kind of exile in
Switzerland at that time, you can understand why he was so attracted to
these ideas.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "IM TREIBHAUS")
KAUFMANN:
(Singing in foreign language)
LYDEN: Why was Wagner in Switzerland?
KAUFMANN: He had some troubles. I mean, besides, what we all know, he
had a tendency of anti-Semitic ideas, but also, he was so extremely
self-confident. When you read the very first opera - I think it was the
scene that (unintelligible) he wrote, and he sent it to theaters. And they
sent it back, and said: No, we're not interested.
And he was so
furious that he wrote again, and he said: You're making such a big mistake
because I'm one of the greatest composers of all time. That's being said by
an unsuccessful, 18-year-old, want-to-be composer. So he didn't make friends
so much with all his ideas and habits and everything.
LYDEN: The
whole notion of the anti-Semitism that is still difficult, has - have those
wounds basically healed?
KAUFMANN: Well, it's difficult to let the
wounds heal because we're not only talking about Wagner in his time. We also
talk about the abuse of that music during the Third Reich. But it's a pity,
I have to say. It's really a pity. I totally understand that, for instance,
Holocaust victims never, ever want to listen again...
LYDEN: Just
can't hear it.
KAUFMANN: ...to his music because it reminds them on
all the terrible things they combined with this music. But it's one of the
greatest composers of all times. Unfortunately, now that I just mentioned
that he said it himself, 200 years later, we have to confess it's true.
LYDEN: Jonas Kaufmann. His new album is simply titled "Wagner." And
Jonas Kaufmann is currently starring in "Parsifal" at the Met. And if you
can't make it to New York, they'll have a live broadcast in hundreds of
movie theaters around the world on March 2.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
KAUFMANN: (Singing in foreign language)
LYDEN: And for Saturday,
that's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden.
Check out our weekly podcast. Search for WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED
on iTunes or on the NPR smartphone app. Click on programs and scroll down.
Or you can follow me on Twitter @nprjackilyden. We're back on the radio
tomorrow. Until then, thanks for listening and have a great night.
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