Re: Thomas Quasthoff 退休訪談

[Tosca (hi)]

※ 引述《Tosca (hi)》之銘言：
: http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,825717,00.html
: 還沒機會來台灣的世界知名男中音/男低音 Quasthoff
: 日前宣布退休 連結是他的退休訪談
: 內容頗感人
稍微翻譯一下有關音樂的部份

SPIEGEL: Your recitals were emotional experiences for the audience.

你的音樂會對聽眾來講簡直充滿激情

Quasthoff: There are differences between the singers I call "voice owners,"
and the people who stand up there and do something that audiences are willing
to buy as a performance. Although I do have to say that it's still very easy
to please audiences today, unfortunately.

我認為聲樂家有分等級的，有些只是"發出聲音的人"，
另一些則會做一些事情來讓觀眾覺得花錢來聽音樂會是值得的，
不幸的是這世代的觀眾太容易討好了。

SPIEGEL: What do you mean?

你指的是?

Quasthoff: When I go to an opera performance and sit there while people are
cheering and shouting "bravo," I sometimes ask myself what exactly they're
cheering about. And I even see myself as an artist who also knows how to
enjoy other people's performances. I remember a performance of Mahler's
"Fifth Symphony" in Salzburg, with Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic.
It was unbelievable how they played the Adagietto -- with such intensity and
devotion. I left the concert hall in tears.

當我去聽歌劇的時候，觀眾很亢奮大喊Bravo時，我會問自己:為什麼觀眾如此興奮?
我將自己當做一個也能享受並欣賞別人演出的藝術家。
我記得有次拉圖帶領柏林愛樂在薩爾茲堡演出馬勒第五，
他們演奏的慢板樂章簡直讓我不敢置信--那驚人的力量以及毫不保留的付出，
我後來帶著眼淚離開音樂廳。

SPIEGEL: Is music a kind of magic?

音樂有一種魔力對吧?

Quasthoff: I don't know. Let me tell you a story instead. I was a member of
the Windsbach Boys Choir, the first ensemble to sing the complete St. Matthew
Passion in Israel after World War II. A man came up to me in the
intermission. He was crying. He had a blue number tattooed onto his arm (a
sign that the man had been imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp). He
hugged me and said, in German: "I'm speaking German today for the first time
in more than 50 years. I lost my entire family." His wife, his children, his
parents, everyone. "I heard you singing today, and now I know that Germany is
a different place once again." When I gave a recital in Munich two weeks
later, he came to my dressing room.

讓我告訴你一個故事，當我還是Windsbach Boys Choir的一員的時候，
我們是第一個在二次大戰後到以色列唱巴哈馬太受難曲的團體，
中場的時候，一個男人過來找我，然後他哭了，
那男人手臂上有藍色的條碼刺青，也就是他曾待過納粹的集中營，
他抱著我，然後用德文跟我說話: 五十年來，我再度用德文講話，
我失去了整個家庭，老婆、小孩、父母都沒了，然後我今天聽到你唱歌，
我終於理解到，今日的德國和當初那個德國，已經不一樣了。


SPIEGEL: Did you sing as a child?

你小時候會唱歌嗎?

Quasthoff: Constantly. Pop songs, opera, everything. I grew up with music. We
had this music chest. It was broad and rectangular. There was a radio in the
left bottom corner. The record player was on the right side, at the top, the
kind where you can stack 10 singles on top of each other. By the time my
mother would come home from the store, I was able to sing the songs on the
singles.

什麼都唱，不管是流行歌還是歌劇，我在音樂中長大的，
屋子的角落一邊是收音機，另一邊是唱片播放機，上面還堆滿單曲唱片。


SPIEGEL: How was your voice discovered?

別人是怎麼發現原來你很會唱歌?

Quasthoff: My father had also taken singing lessons once. He knew a little
about music, and at some point he noticed that I had a great talent. My
father said: I want Thomas to have something he can look forward to once a
week. The way my brother looked forward to table tennis. That's why I got
singing lessons.

我父親學過一點點歌唱課程，懂一點點音樂，他發現我還小有天份，然後他說:
我希望湯瑪斯(就是我)有一個可以每個禮拜進步一點的東西，就像我哥哥在學桌球一樣，
然後我就開始去學唱歌了。


SPIEGEL: Who taught you?

誰教你唱歌?

Quasthoff: My father went to see Sebastian Peschko, a fairly renowned and
famous pianist at the time, who was the director of the department of chamber
music and songs at the Norddeutscher Rundfunk (radio network) in Hanover.
Peschko said: Okay, let's do an audition. But when he heard that I was a
thalidomide victim, he said: 15 minutes, that's all the time I have. But then
the whole thing lasted for more than one-and-a-half hours, and Peschko said:
Okay, the boy isn't just talented. He is 100 percent made of music. He
referred me to Charlotte Lehmann, a voice teacher, and I worked with her for
17 years.

我老爸帶我去找Peschko，一個廣播室內樂團的總監，
但是當面試的時候他知道我是沙利竇麥的受害者後，
他就說:ok，給你十五分鐘，只能這麼多!
然後呢?我後來在他面前唱了一個半小時!

Peschko給我的評語說:這小子天殺的太有天賦了，完全就是為音樂而生的!
然後他把我轉介給Charlotte Lehmann，之後我跟她一起工作了十七年。

SPIEGEL: The University of Music in Hanover rejected you.

漢諾威音樂大學拒絕讓你入學?!

Quasthoff: They didn't even do it directly. It was all done on the quiet. The
university didn't want to create a precedent, which, from its perspective, is
understandable. Of course, they thought: What happens if he doesn't make it
through the program? They didn't even invite me to audition. I would probably
have made it, after all. I had more private singing lessons than any student
gets today.

那連拒絕都稱不上! 他們不想開先例(讓重度殘障人士入學)，
他們擔心著萬一我畢不了業怎麼辦? 結果他們連讓我面試的機會都沒有，
不過後來，我比所有的聲樂學生接受更多私人課程。

SPIEGEL: When did you realize that singing could become your career?

你什麼時候終於發現原來你可以靠唱歌維生?

Quasthoff: After I had won that ARD (German public broadcasting) contest in
1988. Before that, I was giving about 15 concerts a year. A lot of church
concerts. Bach, Bach and more Bach. I'm familiar with almost all the churches
from Flensburg (in the far north of Germany) to Munich (in the south). I
could have done 300 concerts a year after that contest.

我在1988年贏了一個大比賽，在那之前我一年大概唱十五場音樂會，
都是在教會的音樂會，巴哈、巴哈、然後還是巴哈!
因此我對德國境內從北到南的教會都熟的不得了。
在比賽之後我一年大概唱三百場音樂會。


SPIEGEL: How did colleagues react to you as a thalidomide-damaged singer?

同僚怎麼看待你這個沙利竇麥受害者聲樂家?

Quasthoff: Sometimes they made jealous remarks during competitions. Once
someone told me to my face that I was getting a "cripple bonus." I think I
kept my cool and simply replied: "Well, you had the chance to beat me, but it
wasn't quite enough." Today, I can say in all honesty that there was
certainly a bonus for being disabled. But you only get it once. After you've
appeared 10 times at the Hercules Hall in Munich, and perhaps thirty times at
the Philharmonic in Munich and 20 times at Carnegie Hall in New York, people
no longer come to hear you because you're disabled, but because they like to
hear you.

有時候他們會嫉妒我，有一次某個人當我的面告訴我:我帶有"殘障優勢"!
我很冷靜的回答他:你以為我只是靠殘障而紅就大錯特錯了。
沒錯，身為重度殘障，我或許再演出上帶有一點優勢，
不過當你已經在慕尼黑愛樂廳唱了三十場，在卡內基出現20次的時候，
人們來看我演出已經不是因為我是殘障，而是因為他們喜歡聽我唱歌。

SPIEGEL: You sang in two opera productions, as the minister in Beethoven's
"Fidelio" and King Amfortas in Wagner's "Parsifal." Was that the high point
of your career as a singer?

你唱過兩部歌劇，貝多芬的費戴里奧，還有華格納的帕西法爾，這算是你事業高峰嗎?


Quasthoff: It was absolutely exhilarating, especially "Parsifal." It was a
fantastic production by Christine Mielitz. They booed at the premiere, but
you can do that in Vienna. It was an artistic milestone. What could I do
after that? I'm not a Wotan, nor am I a Rigoletto. I don't even have the
right voice for that.

那真是令人非常振奮的經驗，尤其帕西法爾的製作太夢幻了，
對我來說那確實是一個里程碑，但也僅止於此了
我既不是華坦(尼貝龍指環的腳色) 也不是弄臣，
我的聲音根本不適合唱那些腳色。


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◆ From: 114.37.198.236
※ 編輯: Tosca           來自: 114.37.198.236       (04/11 21:34)
推 nelly324:推一下
推 johnson02010:推 馬太那段很感動
推 firenzeit:　
推 honeykay:感謝!!
推 waggy:推!  好文章!
→ Tosca:之前在網路上看到有人提到 Quasthoff有一場唱冬之旅
→ Tosca:艾森巴哈幫他伴奏 演唱完的時候台上台下哭成一片
→ Tosca:艾森巴哈也哭到不行 真是太可怕了....