- At the beginning of your career, you performed in a rock band in Mexico City ... Being now one of the best tenors in the opera, can you share some interesting ideas that you learned from your experience in a rock band?

- You know, my parents were singers, they performed wonderful works. By the way, every time in my concert I turn on the sarsuela. Zarzuela is a great Spanish music genre. We have different music and different dances in Spain in different regions. Unlike opera, plots in Zarzuela are not so dramatic. Drama is present, but no one dies. I studied on this. This is the first music I heard. When my mother was pregnant with me, she sang - she sang until the ninth month. Therefore, Zarzuela was the first music that I heard before I was born.

- Thinking of an opera, say, from Verdi's time, I ask myself: “What was it like? How did the audience behave? ”There were riots, and booze, and cheering cries ... During the opera, the audience sang along with the performers! I think then it was very similar to a rock concert. Perhaps the artists of the opera should relax a bit and restore the old customs?

- Opera is as popular among its fans as pop music. Opera lovers have the same passion for music as young people who are interested in pop music, rock music - depending on time.

I think the opera will exist forever - as long as there are romantics, while we experience some feelings, love for this music will not fade. The only problem is that not everyone understands it. Everything is simple with pop music: it starts to sound, and all at once: “ta-a-am ... pa-a-am” (depicts and snaps his fingers. - RT ) - this can be seen both on Red Square and on Trafalgar Square. Modern music will sound - and everyone will move.

It’s more difficult for us, opera, to conquer a new audience. Now, of course, acting is very important. Previously, opera performers simply stood on stage and did not move. But everything is changing. I have been performing for more than half a century, and the audience sees a great show with music, acting, lighting, costumes - a grandiose performance. I support this and I know that every day more and more people will love opera.

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- Which audience do you like? You once said that you love viewers who listen with their hearts. What about opera connoisseurs who notice the nuances and understand what thoughts the composer puts into music?

- It is important both that, and another. The connoisseurs who have been fans of the opera all their lives are wonderful: they come already in anticipation of an amazing evening. But it is very important to win a new audience. Therefore, every day we must find new ways to explain the opera of the youth, to teach it. After all, generations are leaving, we are aging - not only singers, but also connoisseurs.

But I must say, now more than ever, phenomenal voices are found in the most different corners of the planet.

For the opera composers are needed. And Russia has more composers than other countries.

Of course, opera originated in Italy. Italy, then France, England. Opera fantastically developed in Russia and so on. In general, it consists of many different styles. She has been over four hundred years old!

- What is the easiest way to start acquaintance with the classics, if you have not touched it yet, but want to figure it out? How to get to her better?

- Of course, there are operas whose names are well known to everyone. Say, “Bohemia”, “Barber of Seville”, “Carmen”, “Longing” or “La Traviata” ... For starters, we can advise you to go to them. If someone wants to come to opera for the first time, to join it, it is best to start acquaintance with these very famous ones.

- We - whether it be Russians, Spaniards, Italians or even Americans - classical music as if in blood, this is our heritage. Even when we hear it for the first time, it touches our heart. But what happens if an aborigine from a tribe first heard her?

- Under my leadership, the opera contest "Opera" has been held for 27 years. Every year we choose a winner, and they can be a person from anywhere in the world. Among them is the soprano Pretti Yende from South Africa, not even from Johannesburg, but from a small town.

Once she heard a duet from the opera Lakme and immediately asked: “What is this?” She found out that it was an opera. I came to my competition and won.

So our winners are people from all over the world. Something must respond in us. It is inherent in man. Of course, you also need a voice. If you want to become a singer, you need to have the ability and develop it. Need to learn and so on. But everyone can love music.

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- Is music an instrument that shapes the face of the world and changes it, or is it just a means to take a break from life's problems?

- I believe that music helps us in different difficult periods of life. So, it seems to me now ... listening to music has become more complex. Previously, people came home, and it was enough for them to put a phonograph record and listen. There was no television. Today everything has changed.

Of course, there are people who study and love music, and they still go home and listen to it even at home. They do not need to go to the theater for this. But now there is so much of everything: television, all kinds of spectacular events, sports and so on. And before people came home and listened to music.

- Is music capable of changing the perception of a person for better or for worse? Not only to be kind and sincere, but, for example, to become a powerful means of expressing the ideas of totalitarianism?

- I believe that if music takes you for a soul, you won’t understand if its composer was a wonderful person or not. The music you love does not need to be analyzed. You feel one music, because you are able to perceive it, merge with it ... and to the other all this may not be. It may turn out that the composer is almost a saint and the most wonderful person in the world, and his music will not find a response in you. So a person in relation to music makes a choice that does not depend on which author she has.

- In all the great musicians with whom I spoke, they made a remark in the spirit: "And still, first the music, then the words ."

- This theme is played out in the opera Capriccio.

- What do you think? What influences the soul more - words or music?

- One is combined with another. Especially in the opera, where characters with different fates are created. You can be in the role of a poet or revolutionary, a drunkard or a king ... emperor ... In one of the operas I got the part of Rasputin.

The task is to create a character, and for this, music alone is not enough. Text is as important as music. One is inseparable from the other.

And so the plot work turns out. Otherwise, just a concert will come out ... And it seems that you and I are acting like a duet. You turn to me, and I answer you, but I do not speak my answer, but sing. When the text sounds in vocal performance, it turns out much more sensual. And it is good.

I have ever performed parts in Verdi's operas on Shakespeare's stories. So, I read Shakespearean texts, and they are phenomenal, but in Verdi’s works and understanding of the librettists they make an amazing impression. The combination of sound, music and text becomes something magical!

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- When we think of a powerful combination of classical music and classical text in opera, we usually see arias filled with pain and mental suffering - something that deeply affects us, but does not always bring joy. Opera is more often about torment ...

- Yes Yes.

“But it was always interesting to me how these torments and sufferings of the character, laid down by the authors, through performance reach me, the listener.” For example, when you perform Lensky’s aria ... He’s unhappy, right? Why then do I feel so happy?

- Do you feel happiness?

- Yes, when I listen to Lensky in your performance, I feel happy. And I don’t understand why - I should be sad.

- This is because you are listening about the tragedy of a person (sings Lensky’s aria. - RT ), you kind of ... This is a combination. You see a saddened man, but he plays such a text with such beautiful music, you really like it. The poor fellow is about to die - in five minutes - at the hands of his friend. But in general, you like it.

- Yes, that’s true. I know that after each performance you bend over the stage and sing to it . How do you sing the spirits of the opera? Or is it some kind of superstition among opera singers?

“I am doing this simply because I hope to be back there, on that stage, in that city.” I thank God and hope to return there.

- In the cinema there is a bunch of director - actor. To some extent, the actor may be himself, but to some extent - his game must convey the director’s message. I was always interested in what is the right balance for opera singers: to what extent do you convey what the composer has prescribed for you, and to what extent can you express something of your own?

- We are all different. We all have to perform the same pieces, but they will all be different. The execution of each will touch you somehow in its own way ...

Well, let's take an aria - any aria ... Donde Lieta Usci from Bohemia - and put on a record of Maria Callas, or a record of Renata Tebaldi, or Mirella Freni, or Montserrat Caballe, or Galina Vishnevskaya, or any of the wonderful new voices. And each will perform in its own way.

The music is the same, but the interpretation and quality of each voice makes a difference, each time it is a discovery. And sometimes you think: “Oh, what a wonderful performance!” And then you hear someone else and understand: “Yes, this is amazing!” But, besides, we are talking about individual feelings and feelings.

- That is, for example, are you sad at this moment or fun?

- Yes, and it is also important how much you know and understand. One of your first questions was: “What do you prefer - the opinion of an expert and a true opera lover or the person who hears you for the first time?” What can I tell you? Let me know what the person who heard me for the first time will say. I understand that I have already won the heart of a connoisseur. I know it. I know that he heard me many times and so on. And this new person who has come here now, after the performance, I would ask how he felt, not knowing about the qualities in advance.

- They say that, especially in classical music, the terms of success - This is both talent and hard, hard work. You are one of the best performers in history and have been singing for over 60 years. Tell me honestly: is it possible to fill in the lack of talent with any amount of practice?

- What can I tell you ...

- Honestly!

- What can I say ... The public ... The public has a taste, has ears.

Art people come in different levels. There are singers who reach a certain level (shows levels by hand. - RT ), while others rise higher or even higher, and this is the difference. But I believe that there is something in them.

I don’t think that people without any makings could perform as professional opera singers in famous theaters! It's impossible. Something must be in them.

But, of course, the singers, all of us, have some difficult moments in life. Suppose that the year was not the best in your life - and you have to recover. Everything happens in life: illnesses occur, and year after year is not necessary. But the level is important. The level should be high. I’m talking not only about singers, but about any field: there is no talent - and nothing will work.

See the full version of the interview with Placido Domingo on RTD.