Audi 2008 Annual Report Download - page 53

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ondon, Covent Garden. The venerable facade of the
Royal Opera House shines in the midday sun. The
world-famous opera house is the setting for works
of great pathos, where dramas of love, jealousy and be-
trayal are played out night after night. Spectacular theater
that tells the age-old story of life and death, and the
struggle between good and evil. But opera is pure illusion
and backstage, there’s not quite the same kind of magic.
Instead there’s a hive of activity, people going to and fro;
a cardboard box full of scores here and over there, cos-
tumes hanging on a rack. Even the artists’ dressing rooms
look functional, a sink, a long mirror, a box of facial tis-
sues, two plastic chairs, a clothes rack and a piano. And
this is exactly where we have arranged to meet the new
star tenor Juan Diego Flórez for an interview.
He’s already there. He reticently shakes my hand – there’s
none of the joviality that many of his colleagues are known
for. Another rehearsal this morning – three hours long –
and in just a few days, Flórez will be back on stage as the
cocky tyrant Corradino in Gioacchino Rossini’s opera
“Matilde di Shabran,” a role that made him famous
overnight. “I’m probably the only one who sings this part,”
says Flórez not without pride. It’s a fierce role with numer-
ous coloratura and a high tessitura dreaded by many a
tenor.
No wonder the 36-year-old Peruvian is booked up until
2015. “Yes, yes, the high C,” says Flórez with a smile as he
strokes his narrow chin with its fashionable goatee. “The
high notes really electrify people.” But he can only fathom
a guess why. A tenor’s voice certainly sounds “different” –
for many even erotic. Flórez thinks it might also have
something to do with the tenor roles themselves. After
all, who wouldn’t fall for a nobleman, a prince or even a
hero? Flórez himself says that navigating the way through
his upper voice “is cathartic: It’s like entering another
dimension.”
Anyone who has ever heard this seemingly unpretentious
tenor sing “Una furtiva lagrima” from Gaetano Donizetti’s
opera “L’elisir d’amore” has gotten a peek into this other
dimension. Flórez’s artistry flows out during this intro-
spective romanza like a waterfall of emotions, cascading
down on his listeners – every note like one “furtive tear”
that drops back to the last row of the parquet. But all stops
are pulled out on this operatic heaven-on-earth when
Flórez offers up “Ah! Mes amis” – the well-known and noto-
rious aria from Donizetti’s “La fille du régiment” with its
many high Cs. Brilliant silver tones like those of a trumpet
appear on the horizon, igniting an absolute fireworks dis-
play of color and embellishments. How effortlessly the
tones seem to flow forth from a man that arts reviews have
come to call the tenor “the world has been waiting for.”
Rossini, however, would have seen it differently. In 1837,
when the composer heard the first high C emerge from the
mouth of the tenor Gilbert Duprez, he was so horrified that
he compared the tone to “the shrieking of a castrated roos-
ter whose throat is being cut.” As Flórez explains: “In the
Copy Teresa Pieschacón Raphael
Photos Michael Clement
Scaling the heights
The critics are raving, the audience is captivated: With incredible ease and
precision, the young tenor Juan Diego Flórez climbs up the scale. The infa-
mous high C is his specialty. A portrait of a vocal powerhouse.
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