Rolando Villazón "I like the psychoanalysis"

Traducción de Huhas1 (THANK YOU!) a la entrevista publicada ayer dia 20 en sueddeustche.de

How long will it sing this high clay/tone? Rolando Villazón speaks about exhaustion and the soul of the music.

In many pictures Rolando Villazón sings at the beach against the sea noise. Paris today : The sun radiates, spring already broke out here completely. Rolando Villazón is wearing black Jeans and a lilac-colored T-Shirt, which harmoniert in merry way with the Brokattapete of the Hotelsuite. Firm handshake, friendly smile. He sits down, for a moment quietly, - then however he goes loosely: With Rolando Villazón in the discussion to be is like that, as if someone would have paid a crate Flummis and would have called: " Catch! " Villazón jumps, gestikuliert, sings. Only with questions to his time-out he becomes calmer.

Sp: Mr. Villazón, I would like to speak with you about the soul.
Rolando Villazón: The soul, agreed. My soul?

Sp: Which otherwise! They must have nevertheless much say about it - four times per week you speak with your Psychoanalytiker in Mexico.
Villazón: And for fourteen years. My God!

Sp: Which. ….
Villazón: … second: What is the difference between a Psychoanalytiker and a Vampir?

Sp: No notion?
Villazón: The Vampir releases sometime!

Sp: Since you decided to this form of the therapy, you had however obviously never the desire to be as rapidly as possible released.
Villazón: No. Because then I would probably have made a behavior therapy, with which it solution-orients happens accordingly faster. But I play gladly chess, I read gladly books, I love to sing operas I like the psychoanalysis. I like things, which need time. One must accept that this long way is the actual adventure. Otherwise one never pulls from it what I pull straight from this.

Sp: And which is that?
Villazón: To have myself never ask more: Which strange, under-conscious power decided straight for me? The analyst helps to learn the spirit. Without judging. That is nevertheless a large adventure, a great. ….

Sp: … is not received however now times everyone. What brought you to the analysis?
Villazón: My wife.

Sp: She found that was necessary?
Villazón: As I said: Let us marry! She answered: Yes! But you go to the analyst. There we were seven years together. She was 15, I was 16, when we fell in love.

Sp: And why exactly should you go to the analyst?
Villazón: My wife found me chaotic. " Bring' all this energy, which streams out in such a way from you, together" , she said, " make something from it, do not leave it not simply verpuffen."

Sp: And you agreed immediately?
Villazón: What? No! I protested: I thought I had no problems! What are you talking about? No, really, I did not make! It did not react at all. Then nevertheless I started with the analyst. And it actually changed my life.

Sp: They said once, your voice is your soul. What exact did you mean with it?
Villazón: I can explain it only in such a way: I can do much that involved my soul, understand, if I hear myself.

Sp: They are valid you for years as one of the best tenor of the world. Then, in the year 2007, it went your Singstimme suddenly badly. What communicated at that time your soul to you?
Villazón: That I was exhausted.

Sp: Too little slept? Too many concerns? Burn out with 35 years?
Villazón: Up to then for me was all course-flown, in a marvelous, innocent way. But I reacted ever more, that I acted. How a child, who is asked: Hey, you can catch this ball times evenly? And it dribble and then completely fast further-throw, because then the next already comes? The child gives everything, with whole energy, but at the end of the day it feels suddenly with an impact: Now I cannot do no more! That how I was after ten years career. Then I granted myself a time-out.

Sp: You said good-bye with the words: " I will withdraw myself for some months, in order to regain the whole life power, Did you make yourselves in this time large concerns?
Villazón: No, I always knew that I was far from it distant, to be able never sing again. Sometimes I ask myself whether I was at that time too open to admit my exhaustion. Since then all critics are about fast to ask the question: Oje, is it now past?

Sp: And which you answer to those?
Villazón: For me this phase is final, and I would look gladly forward.

Sp: They said thereafter once, your time-out had been great. How did you spend it exactly?
Villazón: Probably much less spectacularly, than some mean. I have the time with my family, my wife and enjoyed my two sons.

Sp: In addition, after your return again doubts arose whether you would have your whole Power again back. Last at the beginning of of 2009, when you in the New Yorker Met beside Anna Netrebko in " Lucia di Lammermoor" .
Villazón: I was there afflicted with a cold.

Sp: " With occupied voice and failed point tones he fought himself more badly " , at that time a critic wrote. Rightfully?
Villazón: It would have been retrospective perhaps better, if I would have appearance called off. But on the evening I decided: I will do it nevertheless! At first I sang without problems. It happened in a scene without music. There were thus these eight seconds silence. … - By the way, probably it was one of the greatest moments of my career.

Sp: Calculated that?
Villazón: I felt the energy of hundreds spectators. Positive energy! I had not before ever felt such a signal of the public, if on the stage somewhat went wrong.

Sp: What do humans send you in such a way for signals?
Villazón: The majority of the spectators does not wait for the fact that one makes errors. They are for other reasons in the opera. To them it concerns the emotional experience by the happening on the stage into another world to be pulled. Briefly said, it concerns to them the art. It is crucial that one puts its whole heart into its stage play and binds humans thereby.

Sp: And why does the remaining part of the public go into the opera?
Villazón: Because of the achievement sport. These people interested particularly about: How long will it sing this high clay/tone? But I am not on the stage, in order to drive achievement sport. I make art.

Sp: Do you pressurize the criticisms at your voice much?
Villazón: One must free oneself from this if it is not always easy.

Sp: They took up a straight album with airs of George Friedrich Händel.
Villazón: And promptly a critic said to me: " But you have no baroque voice! "

Sp: Ah, already again such a critic. Did that annoy you very much?
Villazón: I found it rather amazingly and answered: Wow, you have a baroque voice belonged to that time? Honestly: Do we know, for which voices Händel wrote? We orient ourselves with our idea of baroque voices at the first recordings of 20th Century. Nothing else.

Sp: Why did you select Händel?
Villazón: In the year 2000 I heard Vivaldi album with Cecilia Bartoli and was enthusiastic. Then I came to the baroque music. I thought, it must such an energy give for singing this music it have a special amusement. My soul jumped off 4tand on! At that time I believed however that I would never sing such a repertoire.

Sp: Why not?
Villazón: If one is a baroque tenor, then he rather leaves the fingers of Verdi, and if one, as I, originally in the repertoire 19th and 20th century , actually rather leaves the fingers from the baroque.

Sp: And how you then you started?
Villazón: In 2006 the Pianist Emmanuelle Haïm, together with their Monteverdis " Combattimento" convinced me to take up. " If Monteverdi or Händel would live today, they were write" for you; she said. I sang Monteverdi, and it was one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life. Afterwards I wanted more. That how I came to Händels arias.

Sp: A composer, the soul life of his artists cared that obviously not much….
Villazón: What do you mean ?

Sp: The Soprano Francesca Cuzzoni threatened once to throw it from the window because it " the appearance air in; Ottone" not to sing ever.
Villazón: Oh, geniuses have often difficulties to see the needs and borders of others.

Sp: Sounds however rather rabiat for a representative of the beautiful arts.
Villazón: For Händel counted probably only: Which he heard in the head, was, like the music if the sky. I can imagine the composer, who says: I got from the sky, these notes for your voice . They must be exactly the same! Thus mach' long run, but does not sing…

Sp: What was the most drastic method, with which a stage director tried ever to induce you to something?
Villazón: Before my second singing teacher I sang an aria from " Lucia di Lammermoor". I was technically very well prepared, and proud for myself. When I was finished, he packed me at the collar, vibrated me and cried: " I felt nothing! You down-sang your voice sound to let, but only notes beautiful. Bring your heart into the aria! " Another time he even frightened me.

Sp: Ask which? And you did not feel insulted your honor?
Villazón: On the contrary! Encouraged. Okay, naturally I was also a little injured, but he was right. Then I only thus began to feel the pieces. And therefore it goes.

Sp: It seems to happen more frequently times roughly in your circles.
Villazón: On what do you mean?

Sp: On another Händel anecdote: In his opera " Alessandro" he wrote for two Primadonnen equal large roles. The ladies competed on the stage first only with their voices, became then however palpable. How do you feel beside other strong voices?
Villazón: There are colleagues, who feel best, if they are surrounded by less good singers, so that their own voice stands out. That is not my model. It leads only to the fact that is missing to the whole thing . The better the others are, the better is the entire performance.

Sp: Placido Domingo, boss of the opera houses in Washington DC and Los Angeles, is considered as one of the best and most versatile tenor of our time. It became often praised and compared you with him….
Villazón: I would never compare myself with him. Domingo is now already, for lifetimes, a legend.

Sp: With him to sing?….
Villazón: …It was inspiring. Nothing about competition! It is like an artistic father for me. Really, Domingo stands over all.

Sp: Which opera changed your soul?
Villazón: " Tosca". It was the first opera, which I saw on the stage. And " Pagliacci" of Ruggiero Leoncavallo - even with Placido Domingo in the New Yorker Met. I was overwhelmed by the intensity, with which he played. Afterwards I knew: To lead humans so perfectly into another world and cause in them, which I had felt straight - exactly what I wanted to do also.

Sp: Is there times one tries to win the heart of a woman by singing?
Villazón: Naturally, that my wife! When I was 16- I emerged in the morning at three o'clock before her window and sang - with a Mexican Mariachi ensemble in the back!

Sp: Really? In your homeland is the usual kind of impressing women?
Villazón: It was my kind! And it functioned. In Paris today I still sing for her.

Sp: Did you have actually already a few embarrassing moments on the stage?
Villazón: There it were some. Once during " Les Contes d'Hoffmann" I lost my pants. Ander them I had red Boxershorts with a sample from small robots. Completely mad, in combination with historical costume! Another time, I dont remember in which opera it was, anyhow there was this scene, in which my opponent had to stop me. We fell thereby inadvertently to ground. The public kicherte there already. We rappelten ourselves, I tried, to pull my sword….

Sp: It was probably a dramatic scene?
Villazón: It should actually be one! But the sword had become bent somehow, and I did not get it from the covering. I pulled and pulled. Finally I attacked loosely without sword on my opponent. The sword meanwhile had curved in such a way that it stood behind my back highly. With my coat, which hung over it, I looked like an amusing animal with a long tail. The others on the stage could in-get themselves hardly from laughter. The public held itself also the belly.

Sp: And you?
Villazón: I noticed this later, what was loose.

Sp: Last question: Does Mrs. She find today, after 14 years analysis, that you are actually less chaotic?
Villazón: She would probably say that I am as chaotic as on the first day - however I can deal much better with it.

Rolando Villazón was born 1972 in Mexico town center, where he began his music training. He was 11 years old. 1999 it was " with Placido Domingos singing competition; Operalia" several times excellently. Its European debut gave the exception tenor in the same year in Massenets " Manon" in Genova.
Villazón is today one of the most famous opera singers of the world. He and Anna Netrebko, with which in " 2005 with the Salzburger festivals was famous La Traviata" , are considered as the pair of dreams of the opera scene. Unmistakable, it is called over Villazón, is it because of his artistic intelligence, his play mood, passion, belcantistischer Eloquenz - " and certainly also because of his Latin Lover image and the erotism of its performances".
Villazón lives with his wife, a Psychologin, and their sons Dario and Mattheo in Paris. Now ia coming his album; Rolando Villazón - Händel" (German Grammophon). Together with the Gabrieli Consort it arises to 30.4. in Berlin (Philharmonic Concert Hall) and to 8.5. in Hamburg (Laeiszhalle).