“Unterwegs zu neuen Ufern”
“On the way to new shores”

Interview with Jörg Königsdorf for the German opera magazine “Opernwelt”

The interview took place in Berlin in November 2009, and is published online

Translation by Petra Habeth

After innumerable appearances as Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Almaviva the Canadian Bass Baritone Gerald Finley has enlarged his repertoire continuously but with caution. Tchaikovsky’s Onegin, Debussy’s Golaud, Verdi’s Iago, Adam’s Oppenheimer and soon Wagner’s Sachs are proof of his delight in trying new things which exploit the potential of the voice without overshooting it.In his interview with Jörg Königsdorf Gerald tells us how he pushes his vocal development without damaging himself, why Guglielmo and Papageno are not (any longer) parts for him, why he would like to do Philip once and would wish for composers who know more about singing.

Mr Finley, you sing Schumann’s “Dichterliebe” not as a hot blooded experience of love but as a mature man looking back. Do you also sense a fundamental change of perspective in your operatic roles?

Of course, this is due to experiences with directors. You gain new insights into what the part is about. That’s why it is fun for me to keep coming back to these parts. Take Almaviva in “Nozze”: as a young man I portrayed him as a human being without feelings or sense of duty. From my current viewpoint this is quite plain, because it only shows power  without vulnerability. Thus no interesting character can be created. It helped me a lot that I then sang Figaro. Today I want to show that Almaviva knows what Figaro is up to, that he’s got the calmness to wait and that he trusts that everything will develop in the way he wants it. I didn’t notice before then that the count in the third act is marked by Mozart and Da Ponte with almost British humour, when he does not understand why the things turn out totally differently than planned and he stands there with his pride but looking disgraced.

Does the bigger distance from the roles lead to a better understanding of them?

Of course! The challenge to us as human beings consists just in trying to understand the reactions of the others and being able to put oneself in their position. And I try to play this out on stage. The older I become the more I like it when the characters try to understand each other. What would happen if I was in my counterpart’s situation? And what would happen if I did something unexpected?

Then Iago, which you sang in London for the first time, must be the perfect part for you. Iago is only able to be that evil because he understands the others so well and is able to predict their reactions.

The interesting thing for me is that Iago understands himself so well. He understands his self-hatred, his belief that his actions will have an effect but that this does not matter. “la morte e nulla”. It is fun to analyse and to play such a person because in every minute on stage you feel that you have the possibility to be nice and nevertheless poison the others – and to enjoy it.

Was Iago also a big step from the vocal point of view?

The first impression is like that but it is more the sum of my possibilities. Iago pulls together a lot that I have worked on for the last years. The sonority and the possibility to sound really dramatic at full voice. Also the knowledge about precise recitative declamation which grew with the Almaviva years. Because of this preparation Iago was not a big step, but of course one to a new repertory. Previously I was not mature enough for the Italian repertory, neither vocally nor in the head. Of course I do not know if I will become in future a true Verdi baritone. But Iago is a wonderful way to try this out.

Wouldn’t the way to the Verdi repertory have been easier with a part like Posa? Your colleague, Simon Keenlyside took this path.

Simon is a higher baritone than me. Althought the lyrical part of my voice is the key to many of my roles, a lot of Verdi parts are a trifle too high for me. Germont – although I have sung him-, Posa, Luna lie outside my reach. Macbeth [is], maybe, only a little bit too high. I am Falstaff instead of Ford, Boccanegra maybe possible in future. Vocally I am more the type for the dark Verdi parts.

However: You reach a brilliant high G in Schumann’s “Ich grolle nicht” without difficulty, which fills a room like the chamber music hall of the Berlin Philharmonic without struggle.

This is an isolated tune. In Verdi‘s music the main problem is the general position of the parts in the ensembles. In them Verdi suspends his singers from a high point and leaves them there, fidgeting.

You will be 50 very soon and when one looks at your schedule for the next years, one gets the feeling that Iago is part of a general reorientation – in Glyndebourne you will sing your first Sachs in 2011.

The truth is that I always wanted to go towards these parts. But I was occupied for so long with my Mozart parts that I did not get around to wondering about where I wanted to go as a singer and what my voice is best able to. There was no break until some years ago and I knew that I did not want to go directly from Almaviva to Alfonso, you want to do as much as possible. I am just now discovering that there is much more for me than I had ever thought. The turning point was for me my first Onegin five years ago – there you also have the high G at the end, on which you rest as a singer once you start to sing your first tune. After this Onegin I suddenly knew where I wanted to go. At this time I went back to the vocal basics and optimised the evenness and natural fluency of my voice” Since then it has achieved largeness and endurance, I think.

This was also seen in your Dr Atomic which goes in a dramatic direction that is nearly a Verdi role.

Oppenheimer was very high for me and did me a disservice as I had to decline lots of offers for Pelleas and similar parts. In general, modern composers tend to overstrain the voice dramatically and to neglect the lyrical element. John Adams has this lyrical and moving side but after a performance of “Dr Atomic” I was always totally tired. And I do not want to feel vocally tired after a performance, but healthy.

Did you have the chance to influence the vocal composition of the title part?

Yes, a year in advance of the premiere we were able to adjust the parts to my tessitura. But John Adams is really a composer with strong instincts and I was aware that all he had composed was the first choice. When I begged for a compromise there was always a feeling of disappointment that I was not able to do justice to his music. Therefore we removed a lot of these adjustments after the premiere and I tried to sing the part as nearly as possible as he had written it. That was better for the total ensemble effect. But the voice which he had in his mind was higher than mine. And that I could not produce without small compromises.

Do the other composers you have worked with know what a singer needs? Mark Anthony Turnage and Kaija Saariaho?

There can always be conflicts. Is the orchestra too loud? does the part lie too high? are the phrases too long? The good thing is that you can ask the composer what they really want and whether these problems during a performance of their music perhaps damages the their idea. But when there is an important reason for the conflict between the singer’s body and the music then I try principally to meet the requirements of the score and hope that the rest of the performance compensates for possible weaknesses. With Saariaho’s “Amour de Loin” I was lucky to step in later, there had already been some adjustments made.

It’s often said that the modern composers are seldom able to write for voices.

I wouldn’t contradict this in general. Even John Adams admits that he needed a long time to understand voices (i.e. the singing voice). He explained to me that previously he only noticed during the rehearsals that what he heard was not what he expected when composing. I sang the whole [part of] Oppenheimer to him six months before the opening night and so we were able to change whole sections. The whole business of singing today is difficult because the “live” voice differs in general from the “recording” voice. And many composers do not hear the voice live but only from a recording. And we all know what you are able to manipulate there (in the recording). During rehearsal the surprise is then great. Of course modern composers are confronted with the problem that the possibilities of a classical opera voice to express the climax of a drama were already quite exploited in the past. Today there are the electronics to keep up with. Therefore Adams insists on microphones so that the singers are not drowned by the orchestra. In his operas the equation between singers and the orchestra is an artificial balance.

Isn’t this a breaking of a taboo?

This is applied very subtly so that it will not give the impression of an electronic sound. But that means, of course, that the singer does not have to care about projection and diction. Of course this is a dangerous path but I think this is the direction in which the modern opera is going to develop in the coming decades. But it also means that there is a bigger difference between traditional and contemporary singing.

You have recently said in an interview “I am able to do to good guys, now I am curious about the bad ones. Does this mean a farewell to Mozart?

Of course neither Guglielmo nor Papageno are parts for a singer of middle age – although Hermann Prey did  it very well in later years. For me there is more and more the choice between slightly lyrical and dramatic [parts]. As a baritone, and especially a bass-baritone you eventually have only  the choice between father, uncle and villain – or King. Philip will hopefully come to me in the future. The bass register broadens faster than I had thought. And I simply hope that I will come naturally to Scarpia and Méphisto. For me it’s time to play!

Translated into the Wagner-Fach this means: Rather Sachs and Wotan than Holländer and Amfortas?

Sachs is for me simply the biggest of all baritone parts. This is due – in addition to the mere vocal requirements – especially to the dramatical content of the part. This large-heartedness, the wisdom, to sacrifice himself and his love, are deeply moving for me. On top of this comes the fact that my development as a singer seems to leads vocally as well as in character to this part. On one side it (i.e. the part) is the beginning of the marathon discipline on the other hand Sachs is also a part which you can sing wonderfully from the point of view of the thoughtful retrospect of which we spoke earlier.

This Meistersinger-marathon can last – depending on the conductor – 4 to 5 hours. In what way were the conditions of Glyndebourne the decisive factor for the role debut?

The intimate acoustics in Glyndebourne and the cooperation with Vladimir Jurowski and David McVicar whom I both know and appreciate are of course ideal conditions. Therefore I couldn’t reject the offer of the Sachs although I had thought of Amfortas and Wolfram as first steps into the Wagner-Fach.

You speak German without accent. How is that possible?

I am as aware of the importance of a precise, understood language as an actor should be. And I had good teachers – already for the Papageno which I recorded 15 years ago for Deutsche Gramophon. I always had the feeling that I get much more back from the audience when I master little accents and shades. If there is a linguistic barrier the singer loses the singer loses contact with the audience at once.

However your career rather bypassed Germany – instead you are singing mainly in UK, France and America.

Yes, sadly my appearances in Germany were mainly in contexts of symphony concerts and recitals, for the opera there were very few offers. In Berlin for instance I have sung only – sometime in the nineties – 2 performances of Almaviva, no more.

To come back to the beginning of our talk: There is, in the last Lied of “Dichterliebe”, this long postlude in which you have to stand still for several minutes. What do you think about in this time?

For me this end is hugely important even though I do not have to sing any longer, because the piano shows in the postlude how I feel at that moment. Schumann quotes motifs of the cycle and uses them in some extent in a psychological sense. This is a kind of healing that takes place. Even if I have lost this love I will continue and keep something very personal out of this experience. I do not think of the intermission and what I am going to drink then. And yesterday I thought afterwards: What a pity that I will not experience this moment for a long time because I have put this cycle aside – but only for a few months.