José Luis Turina: "D. Q. no existiría sin encargo" / José Luis Turina: "D.Q. would not exist without a commission"

By Jorge Fernández Guerra

Interview published in the ABC Cultural supplement (Madrid, September 30, 2000)


José Luis Turina is too kind, sensible and reasonable, yet... a creative volcano hides behind his cordial image. His eyes light up when he talks about his first "conscious" opera and his third venture into the stage. He has shown considerable character to avoid being overwhelmed by the macro project of La Fura dels Baus. If the music withstands the assaults of the Catalan group, it will have won a battle in which nothing less than the articulation of an operatic project with a Spanish stamp and generational identity is at stake.

- What is opera to you?
- I believe that as long as the various arts that come together in an opera -whether theater, music, or literature- retain their personality and essence, meaning they remain recognizable as such, the genre is valid. I disagree with the argument that leads many contemporary composers to disregard opera because they consider it an outdated genre, arguing that the theater overshadows the music, or that if you're telling a story, why bother with music. As long as there is stage action that preserves its theatrical value, it is valid as theater even if music is added, as long as that action doesn't detract from the music that accompanies it. The problem is indeed difficult, but we are usually drawn to what is challenging. My inclination toward opera began during my student days: I composed an opera, Ligazón, based on Valle-Inclán's Retablo de la avaricia, la lujuria y la muerte. It was a wonderful experience and made it clear to me that I wouldn’t write another one until I had clearer ideas. I knew what I wanted, but I hadn’t yet resolved the problem of the relationship between music and text, which is, for me, the crucial issue in opera.

- When did it become clear?
- I didn't write for voice again for almost ten years. Instead, I focused on linguistic issues that were initially closely related to the musical aspects from which prosody and spoken language can be measured musically.

- Would it be a sort of zero degree in the relationship between music and language, seeing how language functions structurally as music?
- Not so much as music. What I wanted to understand was the mechanism of language production, what in technical language is called suprasegmental features, and how they function from a musical perspective. I studied these melodic, rhythmic and accentual mechanisms with a musician's ear rather than a philologist's. This has been extremely useful to me, and in a way, everything I’ve composed for voice since then is rooted in this.

- How much of this is in Don Quijote en Barcelona?
- Everything. In all the melodic lines, you can analyze fragment by fragment and find that the text is a certain way, and it has to be said like this, and by saying it this way, it allows for this manipulation. The interval can be stretched, which is a vocal microinterval, and it can be deformed to such an extent because if you go beyond that, the meaning is lost in relation to what comes next, and so on.

- Would you write an opera without a commission?
- Probably not. I wouldn't have written Don Quijote en Barcelona without a commission, or at least I would have considered writing it much later, and perhaps I wouldn't have done it at all.

- How has the relationship with La Fura dels Baus been?
- Very good, although the work has been difficult. Not because of them, but because of me. I believe the most remarkable aspect of this operatic adventure is that the entire project was developed in very close coordination from the beginning among the three main components of an opera: the librettist, the composer and the directors of the stage production. Usually, the librettist writes a libretto, it’s set to music, and then years of wandering through producers' offices follow until someone decides to stage it, and only then does contact with the stage directors begin. In this case, we started from the end. This doesn't mean that the staging came first -it was actually the last thing-, but those who were going to stage it were the ones driving the project. They had a very clear idea of the direction they wanted to take, without yet knowing how it would be, and they proposed a Quijote. La Fura, with their very international perspective, wanted to present a vision of the Spanish myth to the world. The fact that Cristóbal Halffter was also premiering a Quijote the same year influenced them somewhat. It was about establishing a certain healthy rivalry. From the beginning, La Fura wanted to present a vision of Quijote that was distinct from Halffter's and more in line with a different generation, and that’s what captivated me most about the project, that it was something created by members of a generation with whom I felt a connection and shared identity.

- Is your Quijote very different from Halffter's?
- It's completely different. First of all, mine is an opera, and Halffter's Quijote is not, in my opinion. This is just my personal view, but he himself has said that he doesn't believe in opera, which I respect immensely, but don't agree with. To such an extent that what he created was, with all due respect, a kind of cantata, which can be staged just like many other things. I see it more as a concert piece than as something to be staged, regardless of how spectacular the staging was. Mine is an opera, it's theater set to music, and there’s dramatic action, sometimes very dynamic, which the audience must follow. Therefore, that also greatly influences how it’s sung, what type of singing there is, whether it’s more melismatic or syllabic; here, it’s syllabic because the dramatic action must be followed, and the music must not obstruct it. In that sense, it’s an opera I’d say is quite traditional.

- How do you think this opera will be in fifty years, when the "Fura version" no longer exists?
- I’ve ensured that it can be staged without La Fura. In that sense, it’s a conventional opera. The score can be handled by anyone who’s interested: it’s not particularly difficult, it has a conventional orchestra, the number of singers is also typical, it’s sung with a normal vocal technique, it includes a conventional choir: in short, all the elements involved don’t pose any problems for any theater. Considering that this production was taken on by La Fura, there are a few moments where the music is calculated to pause, allowing for sounds generated through electroacoustic or computer means via the Internet. This was designed specifically for this production; however, for other productions, it won’t be like this. Everything that was left blank in the score for this version, I already have plans on how to fill it in for another, let’s say, definitive version. But, in principle, it will be possible to stage it fifty or a hundred years from now. Just because it was an opera designed for La Fura doesn’t mean its life is tied to theirs.