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There were similarities not only in the voice, but also in the professional choices: behold, Kostas Smoriginas, a senior theater and film actor, and a junior, an opera soloist. And while both are common on stage, one is rarely found. Such a rare and special show will be seen at the Kaunas Pažaislis Festival concert on August 13, which will also mark the 40th anniversary of Kostas Smoriginas Jr.
Both Kostas Smoriginas shared their thoughts on their roles, creative relationships, challenges on stage, as well as the similarities between opera and dramatic theater with the readers of “Kauno diena”.
– You and dad not only have the same names, but also the same profession, only the scenes of both, in different genres. Did you want to follow in your father’s footsteps from an early age?
– I wanted to become an actor, like my father, I started learning the voice more seriously due to the complete coincidence: I sang in “Ąžuoliukas”, and once its director Vytautas Miškinis offered to start a more serious conversation, such Maybe my data is adequate to be a soloist. He looked like a child then, and I spoke in a voice thicker than now. We really didn’t have high hopes for singing because nature is nature and technique is nurtured through constant and diligent work. But it turned out that I’m in opera now, so I’ve been very and unbroken since my childhood wish: singing and acting are very similar genres. And we are not offended by theater and film actors, but singing and acting is more difficult than just acting, which is why the old generation of vocalists was very static on the opera stage, just like opera productions, since that it was accepted to sing standing, falling, lying on the side or in some way equally impossible, so the soloists sang and performed alternately in the opera. In modern theater, everything is different: you need to sing and play, so it is important to get into your character’s character. Combining two genres into one is complicated.
– Difficult because you need to improve your singing technique much more?
– Partly yes, but everything is cultivated. If something seems impossible, doing a lot of work is possible. Sometimes I sing while I cross country to develop endurance, because when I have to run from one end of the stage to the other, I won’t be able to suffocate.
In this specialty, stress decreases it and its high possibilities may become small.
– Have you ever had to sing in a very awkward position, standing on your head or otherwise?
– Definitely yes, many times. One such case was Georges Bizet’s opera Carmen at the Royal Opera House in London, which was performed in cabaret style by director Barrie Kosky. I had to sing while standing at a height of eight or nine meters on a very narrow and uncomfortable staircase, maybe 20 cm wide! Not only that, I sang while dancing with the dancers, so I also had to think about the timing of the movements. Escamillo’s couplets are really complicated, they are very difficult to perform well, so moving around while singing in such an awkward position was a real challenge for me. I remember that on those stairs they took me a lot to one side, and still I had to go down, stop, jump and jump down.
In one production I had to sing on stage and sit on a real horse. It can be very uncomfortable for someone, but it was convenient for me because it had a good backrest while sitting on the horse, and it helps a lot to sing. Incidentally, for one of my colleagues in my other lineup, the situation was much more difficult because I was terrified of the horses. After all, when animals feel human fear, they begin to behave unpredictably, so even that horse, feeling like my colleague is afraid, simply turned around and left the stage.
– What if you sign a contract, sing perfectly and really fear horses or heights?
– Much depends on the director’s relationship with the actor. I’m not a height lover, and while I don’t panic, it’s not that I’m comfortable high up, I did feel a certain amount of discomfort during every performance. I said to the director: maybe we do it anyway? And he said: Two men have done this to you, and they have not tried hard. Such a relationship in this art is not acceptable to me: I think you should find solutions so that there are no stressful situations, because in this specialty stress reduces it and its high possibilities may become small.
– Probably every opera soloist has his own performance when creating a certain role. What happens when you are completely out of line with the director’s vision?
– A good director has to feel his actor. There are directors who have their own idea or preconceived vision for a particular character. I recently sang in the performance of David Alden Lohengrin (composer Richard Wagner – ed. Past.). There must be at least one lame character in each of your productions, whether or not it is in the script. This time I played the role of King’s Herald, who, according to the director’s idea, was supposed to be seriously injured. I was trapped on terrible crutches, I was burning half of my head. I realized that I would have to work on his idea, there is no other option. But such visions often help to empathize with the role, and not only the visions, but also the costumes: if you put on armor, you already feel like a warrior, that state is already the basis for the interpretation of your character. But there has been everything. I am not one of those who argue a lot, but I always look for my own moments. If I see that the director’s idea is completely absurd, I am looking for a compromise, so knock on the door and say the best, it does not happen.
– Are there any characters in the opera whose character traits are similar to yours?
– They probably become like me through the creative process. I get into my roles a lot, I always become them in a certain sense. If I sing to Don Juan, he will be Don Juan like me. If I am a father, I will be who I am. If I play Scarpia, a bad police general who loves and envies me a lot, I will try to make sense of the jealousy I have within myself, or make me angry as I feel. Although in life I am not angry. You only get along with a piece of paper when you have a lot of faith in it.
– But then there is a danger that the paper will penetrate too unconsciously.
– That’s why after the performance, I try to distance myself from the characters I play. You need to be able to get off the paper and be yourself again, no matter what you sing. Yes, the roles are sometimes very dark, I really believe in them. Sometimes it seems like some demon’s text may actually be a curse, it seems like I can curse everyone on stage. It was the case that before leaving the stage, I spat three times or found some wooden part and played because I believed that the curse had some effect. In fact, there is no effect here, right after leaving the performance, you have to become a normal person, then you feel a lot of fatigue, not bubbling through recitative dreams.
– What gives you more pleasure on stage – process or result?
– The process generally begins with many things. First, there is preparation: learning a text, studying music, reading a script or a literary work in which an opera is composed. Later, coming to work, meeting new people. And that’s stressful all the time, because every time you come to a new theater, no matter how deep inside you feel safe or think everything is fine, you still have to prove who you are. Being abroad, especially when the role is new, will make you feel stressed because you will have to learn it, feel it. It is extremely interesting, but at the same time very frustrating. One of my recent roles was Scarpia in Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca opera at the Rouen Opera in France. I remember when Toska stabbed me in the first performance and I fell to the ground, I felt great satisfaction because I couldn’t believe it had already happened: everything, there is no going back, but most importantly, it worked! It was a time when I felt like I had traveled a great distance and made it to the end – it was the happiest and richest moment I had been expecting much more than the applause, which, incidentally, was also incredible.
– What happens when you fail? How to get rid of frustration and regain self-confidence?
– Yes, it doesn’t happen at all, but there are roles that I was not completely satisfied with. One of them is Kurreval in Richard Wagner’s opera Tristan and Isolde. This role is very complex, requiring an infinite amount of rehearsals and feelings, because the opera itself is very mature in the context of R. Wagner’s work, only the actual details of R. Wagner’s Mohicans, who have understood and mastered the technique, they feel good. For me, it was a completely new and really very difficult challenge. In cases where the role is not completely successful, I look forward to other performances where I refine it. But in reality there are many people who have played a certain role, have failed and will never sing it again. It hasn’t happened to me, I hope it doesn’t, but Kurneval lives in his head all the time and causes some anxiety.
– You talked about Wagner. While still alive, there was a clear distinction between Italian and German opera, the details of which differ in all parameters, from plot twists to vocal technique. Can the same opera singer sing R. Wagner and the opus of Italian bel canto equally well?
– I think singing very well is possible, but it requires a lot of effort, this problem often does not give me peace of mind. For me personally, German is closer than Italian, oddly enough, because I understand the sentence structure more precisely in German, so I can think the same way as in Lithuanian, although Italian is more similar Lithuanian because it has many similar words and origins. They also have to sing in other languages: French, Spanish, English, Russian, but they don’t create as much contradiction as Italian and German. However, I think it would not be necessary to mix between the Italian and German opera repertoire, because it is quite complicated. But the reality is that singers often have to sing Italian one day and German one day, even the Italian and German operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart himself are very different, so combining the two languages is a huge vocal challenge because the same voices are formed in a different place in the mouth. .
– What role would you never sing?
The young man probably understands the pinnacle of his career as being on stage with the world’s greatest opera stars. I also thought that.
– There is no such role because there are no bad roles. There are no bad ones, but there is one form or another that does not correspond to the vocal possibilities of a particular soloist. Never in my life did I think that I had achieved much and had learned everything, so now I can sing that and that. Not! I learn every day and very often I discuss which roles to sing next. I made a list of them a year ago, but today it may have completely changed, because I am a living organism, my body and my voice can change, then I realize that I feel a little better singing a different repertoire than I had planned for me. And the voice is something that cannot be forced or demanded from its maximum, it is important to always sing such roles so that you have at least one fall in the reserve; This is extremely important, because if you are on the edge all the time, a quality race will not last long.
– What is the pinnacle of a career for an opera soloist: famous theaters, certain roles, their number, something else?
– A young person probably understands the height of his career as being on stage with the world’s biggest stars in opera. I also thought that. It’s amazing what I thought back in 1998-1999, watching videos with famous opera stars and directors at the time: there is fiction here, we learn from that, our ambition is at least somewhat equal to them. And, not many years later, I am in the same scene with them! Then I realized that this apparently infinite limit that was previously quite small: they are exactly the same people as me: sincere, living my life and not different from me. You just have to try to get to where you are.
– What does it mean for an opera singer to sing in the most famous opera houses? Probably not just prestige, honor, or distinguished achievement on a resume.
– The famous theater is not the same as the famous theater, they are very different. Each country has its own rules of conduct that are also vivid in opera houses. When you have to work in Germany, everything happens clockwise: rehearsals start and end exactly as planned: you know when it will go, when it will come, when there will be joint rehearsals, when, with a vocal coach or a master of Languages. This is London. I really like it because it often happens that I don’t pay part of my party when rehearsals start, but knowing that part will have to be paid in two weeks, I allot time so I can learn at the right time.
There are other theaters, in Italy, Spain, even in France, where nothing happens according to the specified time. If you come to rehearsal at 10 p.m. in the morning, it will start at 10.45 am at the most, because we will have coffee, we will talk a lot, we will discuss something, something will be very late. And when the rehearsal seems to be half over, the director says, no, no, now is coffee time. Here there is no stress, everyone is trying not to work too hard. But strange as it may seem, we still achieve the result, so we have to adapt to that work regime. At first, I really want to protest: nonsense, I am not going to do that, I want to do the job first, because I am focused now, and the coffee is after that. But nobody cares because everyone will do what everyone does and everything.
It’s hard to compare it to other aspects, too: London’s Covent Garden and Milan’s La Scala differ in day and night, even, I’d say, as a special order and a full bardard. There was a lot of conceit at the La Scala theater, you also had to feel it on your skin. Once my wife was expecting our second child, I took the old man to Milan together, I thought we’d wake up together, take a walk in the parks, and it would be easier for the wife. Since I sang in the third premiere, I had tickets for the first, so my son Costa and I got dressed and went to see the performance together. However, at the door, I was told to drop my son off because children are not allowed to go to La Scala performances. At the same time, Anna Netrebko (famous solo opera – ed. Past) walked through another door with her son of a similar age, because she also sang in the same performance. They told me that I could enter the theater with the girl because it was Anna Netrebko! We turned around and left. We bought delicious ice cream and went home.
– You once said that you are very excited to sing in Lithuania because you feel a lot of responsibility. But after all, in prestigious theaters, is the audience probably much more pampered and demanding than here?
– When I sing in Lithuania, I feel naked – it seems that people know me very well and listen to all the nuances. Although this is probably not the case. But the more it seems to me, the more people notice that something is wrong. There is a saying that you will not be a prophet in your own land. I don’t think so, there really can be a prophet in my country, but we have to see him in a very responsible way. The viewer is very important to me everywhere, wherever I sing, in Lithuania, France or America, but yes, it is very different everywhere. In Germany, almost nobody applauds during the performance: sings aria and silence. But when the opera is over, they show all their sympathies, so they can scream, tremble. In Spain, there is a howling scream after each aria, it seems that the theater building will collapse. Also in France, the reaction is very stormy, the reaction depends on the temperament of the people. The audience is different everywhere, but nowhere is it stupid, it will never fool you.
– Do you think the baritone is just a type of voice or an archetype?
When I sing in Lithuania, I feel naked, it seems that people know me very well and listen to all the nuances.
– I think the type of voice should not be reflected in the human character. Unfortunately, the reality is often different. Baritones and bosses are usually masculine and strong. The tenor can be a full or extremely sensitive donut: you will wear a scarf around your neck all the time, you will never speak because you will start knitting, or say you are very sick because you have stretched your arm or back. Usually that person in the theater will be the tenor. But anyway, the baritone is just a timbre of the voice.
– But are you a baritone with a bass mix?
– I’m a baritone chief or a baritone chief, whatever you want. But sometimes I think how nice it would be to have just one ring voice instead of a mix. I can sing bass and baritone parts, so sometimes I get confused and don’t know what I should choose anymore: louder, well, bass, good too. Inside, there is a constant dilemma over which path to choose, so I find roles like Yochanan in Richard Strauss’s Salome, Aida by Amonastro Giuseppe Verdi or Tuscany by Scarpia Giacomo Puccini. Even W.A.Mosart Don Juan has the role of a secondary stamp register, which is convenient for me. I once dreamed of singing a typical Verdi alto baritone, but it will probably never happen. Of course, all lyrical baritones (from the high ed past.) Want to become dramatic (from the low ed past.) So here many would argue that being dramatic, it is stupid to want to be lyrical. But as I said, the voice needs to be kept so you can sing even when you’re 68 or 75 years old.
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