Aix-en-Provence (AFP)

If he is not the most publicized, he is one of the most requested baritones in the world. Faced with the pandemic, Christian Gerhaher worries about the fate of young artists, calling for a review of contracts so that they do not become "cultural slaves".

The 50-year-old German is much less known than his compatriot Jonas Kaufmann, considered the greatest tenor of his generation, but his timetable, pre-Covid, was none the less full.

For one of his rare appearances in France, he should have sung in July at the international festival of Aix-en-Provence the title role of the opera "Wozzeck" then in a recital. At the end of June, he went there despite the cancellation of the festival to sing a recital by Alban Berg and Franz Schubert which will be broadcast Sunday in France on France musique and Arte concert.

Gerhaher is considered to be the current master of "Lied", this Germanic poem set to music and sung by a voice generally accompanied by a piano, somewhat the ideal format in a context of social distancing. He is also equally remarkable in his opera roles.

After a career built with his lifelong accomplice pianist Gerold Huber - an exceptional 32-year collaboration - he says he feels anxious to see the young generation build his own at a time when the arts have been greatly weakened.

- "Too individualistic" -

"Freelance artists are in great danger, especially the youngest," he admitted in an interview with AFP.

According to this Bavarian who had abandoned medical studies for singing, "some are treated as cultural slaves at the moment; they are told + you don't need to be paid, it's already a huge opportunity for you to sing + in these times. It's unacceptable. "

If he regrets the missed meeting in Aix, he does not feel sorry for himself.

"I live well and during confinement, I had a kind of sabbatical year that I had dreamed of for a long time, it's been 20 years that I feel overworked and each year I say to myself, I stop (...) but for many artists, it was catastrophic, "says this father.

He especially deplores the lack of protection of vulnerable artists in the event of force majeure. "There is no regulation, there is no union which represents us because we are too individualistic, too competitive".

If he participates for one evening in a streamed concert, he is suspicious of this medium "in the harmless appearance but which poses a real problem (...) when the artists are not paid ". "It is not clear, there is still no law for remuneration".

"We are not just + streamers +, we do an activity that requires a lot of talent", says the singer who recalls that a recital of one hour and thirty minutes is "very physical".

The baritone, whose every recital, in Munich, London or New York, is an event, said he was even open to gestures of solidarity.

"I do not have dream pills but I am paid well. And if it is necessary to decrease a little the big pills to increase the basic pills, I will not be able to say no", says the one of whom we said that he formed with Gerold Huber "the best classical music duo" of our time.

A stranger to the "star system" of the lyric world and to social networks, the baritone, who deplores the regression of musical education even in his country, defends his art, which has become rare.

"Yes it is a niche and it does not matter," he says. But for him, the pandemic is an opportunity to recall that without the arts, "we would be without substance".

© 2020 AFP