Interview with opera singer Ferruccio Furlanetto

The world-famous bass Ferruccio Furlanetto performed in St. Petersburg (where he sang the role of King Philip II in Verdi’s Don Carlos on the New Stage of the Mariinsky Theater) and Moscow (with a concert on the stage of the Zaryadye Hall). At 74 years old, he has no intention of retiring from his career and is making plans. About the happy years of youth for the art of opera, how to maintain your voice, and management problems in modern opera houses Ferruccio Furlanetto told Vladimir Dudin.

— Does your vocal longevity have personal secrets?

— No secrets, but I’ve been singing for a really long time, starting with Verdi, from the Italian repertoire. But at one fine moment in my career, at the age of 37, when I sang Don Giovanni and immediately after him Figaro, I devoted the next 25 years to Mozart, and his music is pure medicine for singers. When performing it, you do not need to look for some artificial style of singing, you just need to sing with your natural voice, which you received from nature – this is medicine. Today, when I have physiologically – not only vocally, but also as a man, as a person – moved into another phase, I am interested and more age-appropriate, along with the big Verdi roles of Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, Massenet’s Don Quixote.

— Do you no longer sing Mozart on stage?

— I didn’t leave Mozart for vocal reasons; I continue to sing him in concerts – I adore his music. It’s just that the characters, especially in Mozart’s Italian operas, belong to young heroes, and at a certain point it is no longer possible to pull off these roles. Today I have at my disposal persons who constantly reflect: to the above-mentioned I would also add Thomas Beckett in Pizzetti’s “Murder in the Cathedral” – a role that became a discovery for me. But my favorite is still Don Quixote, in which purity, kindness, and the divine nature of man are concentrated. Here is my vocal history in brief, in which the foundation was a long period of performing Mozart. And I came to opera from pop culture: I played the guitar, but began to study with maestro Campogagliani in Mantua, with whom Freni, Pavarotti, Capuccilli, and all the great Italians studied.

From the very beginning he saw me as a bass player, and that is very important for a young singer to know who you are.

After my debut in Don Giovanni, Campogagliani came up to me and said incredibly important words: “You no longer need me, the real teacher for you is now you. Now you can fly with your wings.”

— I know that you are studying the role of Dositheus in Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina for Klaus Guth’s production at the Berlin State Opera under the direction of Simone Young. This is an opera about one of the most difficult periods in Russian history. How successful were you in understanding it?

— I am familiar with this opera because I sang the role of Khovansky, and I must say that the production at the Vienna Staatsoper directed by Lev Dodin was a very serious, strong work. Under Dodin’s leadership, I gained a special, sophisticated and profound experience. I like my characters in this opera from the point of view of both vocal drama, melody, and from the point of view of interpretation – these are heroes with whom the performer has room to develop. Of course, I read about this historical period, as with Don Carlos when I was studying the history of the Spanish King Philip II, or the preparations for Boris Godunov. And you know, about “Khovanshchina” I had the same feelings that I had after reading the stories of Philip and Boris. These are dark periods, troubled times, difficult for everyone without exception – both for the poor and for the rulers of the world.

If we remember Boris, he was the ruler of his huge empire, but the moment came when the king lost his composure and control over the situation. No one from a historical point of view will tell us whether Boris really ordered the death of the prince.

When he realized that imminent death awaited not only him, but that the same fate would befall his son Theodore, he was greatly frightened. There were turbulent times, but tell me, when were they calm? However, I always remain optimistic.

— In your opinion, is opera still somehow capable, excuse me, of educating a person, instilling in him “high humanistic ideals,” or has it not been about that for a long time?

“Opera is capable of many things; in the opera house a person receives a unique, incomparable experience for many centuries. The only trouble is that today theater directors are appointed by those who have nothing to do with music. When I started my career, which was 50 years ago, the managers were people of incredible intelligence and personal caliber. Their erudition in theatre, music, opera, and art was very high; they belonged to the theater soul and body, and knew how to competently structure the process. And today directors are chosen by politicians who understand nothing about music or art. We see this all over the world at the level of the world’s major theaters, which seem to be in a fog and indulge in absolute ignorance, in which sometimes they cannot even distinguish a male from a female voice. Yes, I was lucky to grow up among the best things imaginable. My formation took place in the world where Giorgio Strehler worked, in whose production of Macbeth at La Scala I made my debut, and conducted by Claudio Abbado. My first Figaro was directed by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, and I did my first “Boris Godunov” at the Salzburg Festival together with Piero Faggioni, with whom I still communicate and who suffers greatly from the inability to continue his directorial work.

Therefore, the current situation in the opera house is more like a tragedy.

Well, judge for yourself. Two years ago I performed in the premiere production of “Forces of Destiny,” I won’t name the director. “Force of Destiny” for us singers is something like a holy book, an operatic Bible. And the director tells me that the finale of the opera takes place after the Fourth World War. I ask: why after the Fourth?! “Because after the Third World War everything was destroyed.” When Padre Guardiano gives Fra Melitone food for the beggars, but there are no more beggars in this “new world”, there are only gorillas and chimpanzees, one gets the impression that today’s directors seem to be deliberately trying to go against the composer, they want to rape the opera.

— You found the opportunity to come to Russia now to receive the non-competitive award “From Russia with Love” at the Onegin Prize. Are awards really important to you?

— We, artists, vitally need recognition when it comes to the stage, be it an invitation to a ceremony or an invitation to perform. This gives you the opportunity to feel 100% like an artist, it is recognition of what you have done in life. I will never forget how, many years ago, together with Alexis Weissenberg and Jesse Norman in Toulouse, the honorary ambassador of the UN presented me with a music award. Weissenberg and Jesse were as happy as children, because it was truly something special, because they received an award for their services.