25 years since Àngel Òdena's debut at the Liceu: "I've worked hard and now it's time to enjoy"

Àngel Òdena, 54 years old, scorching baritone voice and sea eyes from Tarraco.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
07 November 2022 Monday 23:46
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25 years since Àngel Òdena's debut at the Liceu: "I've worked hard and now it's time to enjoy"

Àngel Òdena, 54 years old, scorching baritone voice and sea eyes from Tarraco. An "old school" singer, he says, one of those who forcefully directs the voice to the mask. This year he celebrates 25 years since his debut at the Liceu, where today he concludes the performances of Il trovatore. That role of Conde de Luna that he plays in the Rambla coliseum debuted a decade ago at the Met in New York...

Is the experience in the Big Apple good?

Very good, but in the end our world works through agencies and that got a bit complicated, although I hope to return, because there are possibilities.

How has it been to make an operatic career in the Catalonia of the new century?

I don't want to get into politics but I think that the Catalans have wanted to be a little different from the Spanish and we have the same or even more exaggerated defects, and here in general the talent from home has been undervalued. In my 29-year career I have sung once with the OBC, they have called me once, and sometimes I have insisted. The other day they told me that the Palau de la Música has a cycle of Catalan interpreters but it is done in the Petit Palau because we are not enough for the large room.

You don't call to fill a room.

Well, but does the fact of not calling mean that there is no important marketing behind it or that there are no good artists here? Who values ​​all that, the public or the people who hire?

Programmers will have some knowledge and ability to assess the qualities...

There would be a lot to talk about, but I don't get into it. There was a time when Barça's quarry was a great team, and they were supported and promoted a lot by the media...

Perhaps he is talking about the golden age of Montserrat Caballé, Josep Carreras and Jaume Aragall.

At that time there was that, yes. How come it hasn't existed later? To interpret this 'Trovatore' I've been listening to many baritones, we have it very easy on YouTube. Do you know that before it was not sung as well as now?

The technique has evolved wonderfully.

So why is the old and the generation of Caballé venerated?

They were myths. Now there aren't.

Yes, I suppose that one is mythologized when one dies, but it is good that they speak of a Netrebko. The programming of the Spanish opera houses, if you look closely, you see that 70% of the contracts are for foreign artists. That is an anomaly that does not happen in Italy, nor in France, Germany or England. Before the pandemic, I debuted the role of Falstaff in Palermo, with Daniel Oren at the baton, and the only non-Italian was me. That here is impossible to happen. And there are voices, but if you don't give them opportunities, they are a fish that bites its tail. They gave them to me but it costs more for young people.

The Liceu has had an exemplary Don Pasquale, in this sense.

Yes, and it has been very good, but on a general scale in Spain, this costs. Even from the Ministry itself, which, although it is about associations of friends of the opera, receives a lot of public aid.

Do you mean to say that he has been more of a prophet abroad than here?

No, I'm one of the few who has sung a lot in Spain, I feel lucky. At the Liceu I've done 110 or 115 performances, but at the Teatro Real I've done more in fewer years. But I'm not here to talk about my book. I am corporatist. And that sensitivity is often lacking, because the market is worldwide and if you want to program an opera you have a wide deck. And if this one has tasted in Paris, in Vienna and in London, I take it because in the end I have the money to pay for it. We should bet more on the people here, because in addition, among other things, we attract a large public. Entire buses have come to see me at the Liceu. It pays them to hire me.

His counterpart in 'Il trovatore', the baritone Juan Jesús Rodríguez, said at a press conference that he was surprised not to have anything planned at the Liceu for the next four years. Is it receipt?

I don't like to talk personally about this subject. You have to speak generically. Juan Jesús sings very well but whether or not you sing very well others have to decide, not you. You just have to be more or less sure of what you do. But in part his situation is the same as mine at the Liceu, I don't have anything planned either.

And vocally do you feel that you are in optimal condition?

According to my wife, yes.

Does not count.

I think I have evolved. I have my flaws and the third time I listen to myself I don't like myself anymore, I'm like that. From a young age it was like that. The third time I looked at myself in the mirror I didn't like it anymore. I do not hide, for nine years I did an important psychoanalysis that served to look at myself critically. And that does not mean that I have a great self-demand, I do not believe in that, but I do believe that you have to be humble in a situation. And humility does not mean donkeys. While I have to wait to see how I am in this opera so that they can think of future roles for me, other foreign colleagues tell you that they have already been approved for other operas before starting this one. And that has nothing to do with qualities, but with agents.

And how is your agent?

I have a young person in Spain who is just starting out, and then I have another in Italy, another in the United States, in Central Europe. They are all small agencies. But it is that the world arena is dominated by 6 or 7 agents, because they have great singers, yes, but are all the ones they have good? I do not think so.

Do you have a vocal coach? Can someone close tell you what vocal moment she is in?

Yes, of course, and I have been beaten up a lot, myself included. But I have reached an age that I don't want to be crushed anymore, in the end what you want is to enjoy that. An artist is the good and the bad, a complete. Personally I think I have an old technique. My teachers from Barcelona taught me to sing in a mask, here in front. Sometimes they tell me I scream. But of course, it's not the same to sing at the Met, where 4,000 people can fit, or at the Arena di Verona, with 20,000, or in a theater with 800. But I can't sing my way of singing and my technique. I imagine it's because I sing very much here in front and now there are people who sing more enthralled. I would hurt myself if I did that. The Kraus technique has worked for me, which makes your voice always healthy. And I've never canceled, I'm always fine. It's an old way of singing that we don't like so much now.

Why?

There are great names of men who sing in a frenzy and cannot be heard beyond the fourth row. I fear that there will come a time when it will be sung with a microphone, because the value of projecting your voice and seeking to be heard by the one in the last row, I don't know if it already has value.

Referential baritones?

There are many, I really like Piero Cappuccilli, a way of singing very close to the face, very fresh. In fact, it was said that he was a short tenor, because the high notes didn't gouge them, but they are direct, zaca, right here. He had a brutal fiato, a control of the air...

And how do you control the air?

Gggrrrrr, I do what I can. I really like swimming, which is good, and I do breathing exercises, but I don't come close to what this man did. The psychological part is important. You have to keep your head focused and it's not easy, we all have birds. And in this job you have to win the contract every day, and that competitive part is very strong. And in this country no one teaches you. Here we tend to say that if they hire someone else it is because they are a mafia. So... when they hire you, isn't it? You have to try to ponder that, but my generation was not prepared to deal with that. I am a person between obsessive and nervous, and I don't get along well with waiting at home for them to call you, if necessary I call first.

And is that a good idea?

Surely it is counterproductive. But I can not avoid it. And also, as I get older I put more enthusiasm into it. Now I plan to make a Catalan music album and I'm very excited about it. Together with Miquel Ortega, director, composer and pianist, we will do a concert at the Fundación Juan March and at the Gulbenkian in Lisbon next spring with songs. And I suggested recording them. Those little things that are not singing in Covent Garden give me a lot of life. And as the years go by I discover that I like them even more. One day my teacher Eduard Giménez told me: "No matter how much money they pay you, the day you lose hope you have to quit." And he is absolutely right.

Has your way of interpreting the Count of Luna changed since 'Il trovatore' debuted at the Met?

Yes, because there is an aria that is the most difficult and it is difficult for everyone. And I've tried to do it like I did the aria from La traviata, which is very similar to this one: very sharp and it has to be like a ditty, very simple. And that costs a lot. And here at the Liceu I've tried to do it that way, with many pianos, very little pianos. I don't know if it will be understood. I have been very lucky to have a voice for which I have never suffered. I can like it more or less but that's another thing. And I can also cover a wide repertoire. I have sung some Wagner but it fails me in German vocality, I have Latin. I try to sing in German but with a Latin voice, and it's a handicap, although Plácido Domingo has done it, with a Latin legato, and very well.

In the corpus of classical operatic repertoire, the tenor is the hero and the baritone the dark villain who wants what the tenor has. How do you chain those kinds of characters?

Sometimes it seems easy, although I long for the comical thing like La cenerentola and the Bib of Seville. In fact, I would have liked to be a tenor, because I am a great careerist, a fan of Carreras, and sometimes I would have liked to be the hero. But hey, yes, you get imbued with the role. I had studied theater with Lluis Homar and with Jordi Bosch... and I have worked with many stage directors, and with Àlex Ollé we have done a job that was quite good. What happens is that there are characters that you have to place in their time: let's see, Giorgio Germont, from La Traviata, seems to be very bad, but at that time you would have done the same in his place. Your son running off with a prostitute... I'd say something to him too. You have to put these baritone characters in context.

And how do you perceive the Count of Luna, then?

Well, he is in love, obsessive about that woman, and he will do everything possible to have her. And men are like that: when there is another guy who wants her, you want her even more.

And among all the villains, which one does he stay with?

With Scarpia. I'm lovin 'it.

The chief of police.

With the pandemic, a couple of Toscas were cancelled, but now I will produce the Rafael R. Villalobos at the Maestranza in Seville. I won't do it here at the Liceu, but I will do it there. Vocally it's great for me. When I first did it I felt very liberated. I liked holding the reins, which is what he does.