TENOR JUAN DIEGO FLOREZ — FROM PERU TO PESARO

Fresh from his recent string of Barber of Seville performances at the MET, tenor Juan Diego Florez sat down with executive editor David Hurwitz last month to discuss his career, the joys of Rossini singing, and the state of opera today. David Hurwitz: I'm going to start with a stupid question: Have you always liked opera?

Juan Diego Florez: Yes, very much. But I'm not a fanatic about it. I love the music, but not to the exclusion of everything else or all other kinds of music.

DH: But surely you didn't begin life saying, "I am going to be an opera singer?"

JDF: No, of course I didn't. When I first entered the conservatory to study voice, I was drawn only to the music itself, and I really had little idea about the stage, the audience, and the dramatic or theatrical aspects. That only came later. I saw my voice was good and so I began to study; but I am not a fanatic regarding what you might call the operatic surroundings. What I really love simply is to sing this great music.

DH: So you didn't come to opera or singing from some other field of music. You were always a voice student.

JDF: Yes, that is why I entered the conservatory originally. But I wasn't one of those people with a pile of CDs and recordings of great singers of the past, with the great roles in mind that I knew in advance I wanted to do. I didn't say to myself, "I just have to sing Tosca or else!" That wasn't my approach at all. I was curious as to what my voice could do and I let that guide me.

DH: What other kind of music do you enjoy besides opera?

JDF: Well, I'm a normal guy in that respect. I love Peruvian music a lot, since it's what I grew up with in my native country. I like rock music--The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC--that sort of thing. But even then I can say I had a tendency to like the classics, whether opera, rock, or any other kind of music. That's what my band played--classic rock.

DH: You sang in a rock band?

JDF: Well no. Actually, I played the guitar, a little keyboard, and very little drums, very badly. But I think there's good music and bad music in every style and form, and I try to enjoy the good music of all kinds. I think that's the healthiest way.

DH: So coming from a "normal" background, and by that I mean one in which you weren't told that you were destined for an artistic career from the day you were born, when did you realize that opera was in your future?

JDF: Well, my father is a singer, not of opera, but Peruvian music. So I sang informally and in choirs when I was young and I knew I had a good voice. It wasn't really until I got to the conservatory in Lima that I began listening to opera, to Pavarotti especially, and I just loved what he could do, and the music that he sang. You know, I had a cassette of Verdi and Donizetti arias and I just said to myself, "Wow! I like this music and I like the way this guy sings." So I started to concentrate on that repertoire, and as my voice developed it became clearer what I could sing well.

DH: You came to the United States to study at Curtis with the famous Rossini tenor Ernesto Palacio.

JDF: No, actually that is a mistake. I know it's in the press materials, but that's not what happened. At Curtis I studied with different teachers, especially Marlena Malas, but I met Ernesto Palacio in 1994 when I was on vacation. He heard me sing and he came up to me and said, "I want to help you. I want to teach you to become a singer." And from there my life changed because he started to give me guidance in the roles I was working on, over the phone, or if I could go to Italy to help prepare new parts that I was about to sing. With his vocal guidance I started to sing much better. I resolved all of the problems I was having.

DH: What were the problems?

JDF: Well, they were problems of technique and of style. I was singing very roundly and cavernously, trying to be a "big tenor". I was pushing too hard. Palacio taught me clarity, agility, to relax and open up the tone, to sing with more focus and project the tone better.

DH: How would you describe your voice?

JDF: I am a lyrico-leggiero, that's "light lyric". I would say that the lyrico-leggiero par excellence is Alfredo Kraus. The great straight lyric tenor is Pavarotti. Domingo is a "spinto". Dramatic is Corelli. Plain leggiero is Luigi Alva. I have specialized however in Rossini, whereas Kraus did Verdi and also French repertoire. But I enjoy Rossini right now because the agility and range suits my voice best. Actually, when Kraus was at his peak, there really wasn't much Rossini to sing. There was The Barber of Seville, and once in a while something like Cinderella, but they were all regarded as vehicles for the great sopranos. If I had come along at the time of Kraus I would have sung a lot of Donizetti, many Lucias. Fortunately now you have the opportunity to specialize, because the repertoire is so much larger than it was and the audiences want to hear the music as it was originally written rather than as it has been adapted to suit singers who couldn't do what the composer wrote.

DH: Who was it that led the Rossini revival?

JDF: Well, first it was the women, probably starting with Callas but particularly Joan Sutherland, Marilyn Horne, Teresa Berganza--the great mezzo-sopranos. And conductors like Claudio Abbado were tremendously important, as is the Rossini Festival in Pesaro, which performs the critical editions of the scores. That was where I made my debut, and that is how I was able to add to my repertoire not just the tenor roles in Barber or Il viaggio a Reims, but also Otello, La donna del lago, Semiramide, and others that are not so well known. For example I sang La donna del lago in Pesaro, and now they want it in Barcelona, and I'm going to sing it in France. People want to hear good singing, and today we have the voices to do these operas.

DH: How do you respond to people who say that we live in a terrible period because there aren't any great Wagner singers, or Verdi singers?

JDF: I think such people are living in the past. I think it's a great time for just about everything, because you can see more repertoire than ever before, performed with more care and at such a very high standard. Of course, there's no way to explain why suddenly you may have this crowd of great singers in one area of specialty, but just because we may be strong today in, say, Rossini tenors and mezzo-sopranos, or Mozart and Baroque specialists, that doesn't mean we can't do Wagner or Verdi and there aren't fine singers. Maybe not as many, but they are there, and their time will come again. Domingo told me once in Vienna that when he was starting in the early 1960s, he had to compete with Corelli, and del Monaco, and di Stefano, and Björling. It's true that there were many tenors then all singing the same roles. It's certainly not like that any more, and when I asked him why, he had no explanation. I think there are simply cycles that we go through.

DH: I understand that you were one of those "lucky break" artists who got his first chance when a colleague fell ill at the last minute?

JDF: It was Bruce Ford, who cancelled his appearances in Matilde di Shabran in Pesaro. I had a small part in the same opera, and they were speaking well of me and my voice. They couldn't find a replacement and they were desperate. The tenor part is incredibly difficult, much more so than Barber or the comedies. This is an opera semi-seria, and Rossini's serious operas have much more vocal display than many of his comedies, where much of the brilliance and difficulties lie in the ensembles. So I foolishly agreed to do it, not realizing just what I was getting into. But it was good, fortunately, and the directors of other theaters saw the production because many come to Pesaro to look at the new singers. So there were many important people there, from the MET, La Scala, Vienna, and after that my calendar filled up very quickly and I immediately sang at La Scala with Muti, the first night of the season! It all happened faster than I could really think about it, which was probably a good thing because if I had time to let the reality hit me I don't know what I would have done. The role was in Gluck¹s Armide, not a big part but a good way to start, especially in such an important theater.

DH: How many performances do you sing a year now?

JDF: Sixty or seventy, but of course there are rehearsals between and then groups of performances. I don't want to do more than that and put too much strain on my voice.

DH: Where is your actual home?

JDF: (laughing) Right now everywhere! Technically I live in Bergamo but I hardly ever see it except for a few days a month.

DH: So you think that Rossini offers enough variety on which to build a career? I mean the opportunity for you to grow artistically and have personal satisfaction?

JDF: I think yes, there are great opportunities in Rossini if you have the chance to sing the widest range of music that he wrote for the tenor voice. But even so, I don't just sing Rossini. I sing a lot of Donizetti, for example, and Bellini, and Fenton in Verdi's Falstaff. I also enjoy Mozart and composers of the Classical Period, by composers like Gluck, Cimarosa, or Paisiello. Actually, I feel very lucky having this kind of voice because of the huge repertoire available. There's the entire 18th century, then both the Italian and French bel canto tenor roles, including composers like Auber, Meyerbeer, Spontini, and Mercadante. I think that right now I sing Rossini best, but given the desire for novelty today and the opportunities to revive rare or unknown works, I don't see any real limit to what I'll have the chance to do in the future.