Recollections of the teaching of György Kurtág

How did you come into contact with György Kurtág? When did you work together, when did he teach you? 

In November 2015 I auditioned with M° Kurtág for Fin de partie and from there on I went many times in Budapest to work with him, Márta and my colleagues. In 2023 I came back to Budapest to perform Fin de partie at Müpa in front of the Maestro.

What does György Kurtág’s art and teaching mean to you and how has it influenced your career and thinking?

The thing that has been the most important for me in the long work sessions with Kurtág is his attention and passion for taking care of the text. Every single bar of music has been analysed deeply, many times, to make us singers perfom as actors and forget all our operatic background.

If you can, please recall a memorable situation (or more) and how he taught certain musical works and what you learned from him during your collaboration!

The most memorable episode was not about me directly, but occurred during the rehearsals of Fin de partie involving my colleague Hilary. That day, in 2017, Budapest we were rehearsing no.5 POUBELLE, bar 36, we spent at least 20 minutes on that bit. She was supposed to sing “Pourquoi cette comedie tous les jours, hein?” Kurtág could be very hard and difficult, each single time he was not satisfied with the way she sang the word “hein?”….a simple exclamation – but not for the Maestro. During this endless 20 minutes I did my best hiding behind the score and whisper calming words to Hilary… Otherwise it would have been a disaster! ;-)

Do you have a characteristic, memorable, instructive or funny story about your joint work that you would like to share?

The funniest story is “THE FINGER RULE”. The working sessions with Kurtág were very long and difficult as well as extraordinarily beautiful and instructive. Very often I noticed that when Kurtág was giving me an example to underline the importance of the expression, the meaning of the text, he was doing a gesture, pointing me with his finger in order to make his point. So, I was able to discover the magic “finger rule”…when he was very unhappy and complaining about my way to sing, the next time, I was doing his gesture, pointing  with my finger in a strong way and he was finally happy. It had obviously become a joke with my colleagues… but sometimes it really worked.