“Rossini could only be born in Pesaro” – Newspaper Kommersant No. 149 (7350) of 08/17/2022

Famous Russian tenor Dmitry Korchak performs this year at the famous Rossini festival in the Italian town of Pesaro. In Rossini’s Otello, he got the part of Rodrigo, the one who caused the conflict in Shakespeare’s tragedy. On the geographical conveniences of the festival, the complexity of his part in Othello, and the reasons for Rossini’s productivity Dmitry Korchak told Vladimir Dudin.

– You have been performing in Pesaro for a long time. How interesting, universal and modern is the model of this particular festival?

— Yes, I have been performing at the festival for more than ten years, I have performed many operas by Rossini, and I once made my debut in his famous Stabat Mater. Then he also sang in the “Little Solemn Mass”, there were also solo concerts. Pesaro is an unusually interesting place. In addition to the fact that Rossini was born here, it is also a very well located resort town on the Adriatic Sea. And although Rossini’s creative life was more connected with other cities – Bologna, Naples, Paris, it is difficult to choose a better option for a summer festival than Pesaro. Of course, there is everything a tourist needs in summer, but the main thing is that in addition to car accessibility, there are several significant festivals at once – Salzburg, Arena di Verona, Bregenz, Macerata and many others, which in a logistical sense is very helpful for opera lovers. And for young artists, a definite plus is the opportunity to appear to all directors responsible for casting artists, and agents who are sure to come to premiere performances.

— But the festival is already over forty years old. Has his concept changed over the years?

— The concept is absolutely precise and does not allow to significantly deviate from its idea — the Rossini Music Festival. After the departure of Alberto Zedda, the reins of government were transferred to Ernesto Palacio, a magnificent tenor, agent and connoisseur of Rossini’s work, and he continues to strengthen the established traditions. Two operas are invariably staged; one production may be repeated from previous seasons, but always with a new line-up of performers. Every year the titles of the operas vary, and the huge number of operas that Rossini wrote, even a replay of the performance is still a unique event, especially since few of the visitors saw it in the previous performance. There is also the Rossini Academy, created to train young singers who undergo practice, lectures, individual lessons with teachers, master classes, concerts and, of course, participate in the production of the opera Journey to Reims. And then many students become participants in the main program of the festival. As for the challenges of the current and recent times, first of all, these are, perhaps, covid and post-covid restrictions. Last year, in the midst of the epidemic, the festival still took place, but with some changes. I then participated as a conductor in a new production of the opera The Marriage Promissory Note. If we talk globally about the modernity of this music and the festival, then with great confidence I am inclined to believe that Rossini is absolutely modern – today we are witnessing a global boom in his operas. More and more directors are showing interest in Rossini’s music, more and more singers are emerging who are fluent in the technique and style of performing this music.

— What does the festival show this summer?

– This year there are two new productions of major operas – “Comte Ori” and “Othello”, as well as the resumption of “Newspaper”. A special event will be the final concert of the festival participants in honor of the famous opera director Pier Luigi Pizzi, who is very loved and respected at the festival, as in all of Italy.

– You are part of the circle of Rossini singers. Their morals are very different from other specialist singers – from Wagner artists, for example?

— I have always liked this festival for its unique atmosphere, precisely because it is a kind of brotherhood of artists, here you can feel the solidarity of like-minded people doing one thing that they love, and able to appreciate the quality and difficulty of performance. And in their free time they play football, tennis, meet on the beaches, in museums… As for the performance of Rossini’s music, it really has a lot of very peculiar things, it requires the performer to have excellent technique, coping with tessitura, coloratura, cadences, phrasing, as well as acting talent and endurance as well. It would seem that all this should be applicable to the works of Verdi or Wagner to the same extent, but Rossini wrote many parts for certain people with extraordinary abilities, and this is what today is the main problem when searching for artists.

– Russian singers have recently been actively pushing Italian singers in an effort to master Rossini’s style. Successfully?

— I can say with pleasure that Russian singers (or, let’s say more broadly, Slavic ones), for whom this genre seems to be far away and who paid little attention to it earlier, today demonstrate simply incredible quality of performance of this music. Moreover, they are indispensable Rossini artists for the best theaters in the world. And in Pesaro this year, the festival also has several singers from Russia in the main roles.

– How do you work with Rosetta Cucchi, who puts on Othello?

— Rosetta Cucchi is a director whose work the singers look forward to, and this is still a rarity in modern opera directing. In the way she approaches stage thinking, in the elaboration of images, in the large-scale vision of the stage, a great experience is obvious, she is absolutely immersed in the score, understands the nuances, and respects the composer’s intention. Naturally, she has the right to her own reading of the plot or shifting emphasis, but at the same time without breaking away from the logic of the score. Although we went to an understanding of its concept in dialogues, and sometimes in disputes.

– And how hotly did you have to argue?

— You know, it turned out that it is always easy to agree with a person who penetrates musical material so deeply, who understands what is inherent in music, to understand his point of view, based on the mirror effect, variability and the search for different colors of the same sound.

The difficulty with Othello is that there are six tenor parts in this opera, three of which are the main ones, and the director must make each of these three different. Othello is the most understandable character, but the voice required to perform this part is unique, there is a tessitura of about three octaves. Iago is also understandable in character: a cruel intriguer. Rodrigo’s part is more romantic, but also incredibly complex, one of the most difficult among those with which I have ever dealt, very high, dynamic and virtuoso. In this performance, in order to find the necessary contrast, we added notes of confusion, uncertainty, confusion, and in some moments, rudeness arising from psychological instability and helplessness, fear and at the same time desire to the image of the character. All these facets of the characters play in the play thanks to the element of competition, written in the score itself.

— What is the main secret of Rossini’s music and, for that matter, Rossini’s high creative productivity, for you?

He loved life, knew how to live and enjoy it. Rossini composed with ease and often used excerpts from already written operas in new works. At the same time, we should not forget that all 39 operas were written by him before the age of 37, then he put down his pen and did not write operas until the end of his life … But this was already in France. It seems to me that everyone who comes to Italy and visits the festival in Pesaro will understand the atmosphere of this place. Rossini could only be born in Pesaro, another person simply could not be born here. Everything here is full of light, sun, sea, delicious food, beaches, mountains, cultural values, historical sights. Each stone has a thousand-year history. Theaters are in every village. It seems to me that genetically it lays in the nature of people a similar attitude to life.