Mr. Schager, to what extent do you enjoy it when you sing a killer part like Siegfried?
When I'm healthy, when everything works out, I actually enjoy it a lot. There are always moments when you realize: now I am one with the audience. Now I have them all. Now we are communicating with each other. It's quite strange. When you experience moments like that two or three times in one evening - then it's a satisfying performance.
So from an expression point of view, do you press it when you notice that the audience is not quite with you?
So much happens unconsciously when you sing. In truth, you can't think about things when they're happening. It's like a racehorse that just runs. There are a thousand things to concentrate on. This concerns the staging, colleagues, the orchestra, lighting and so on. It doesn't even occur to you how to go about getting the audience.
When one experiences you on stage, one might think: a "pleasure singer".
I'll take that as a compliment.
You once said that you need less and less strength for singing. How is that to be understood?
My theory of singing is: voice has an insane amount to do with mood. The voice is an expression of a singer's emotion. This is already the case with babies. Parents notice very quickly what a particular vocal expression means to a baby - from a satisfied babble to a cry. When we singers allow our emotions on stage, the voice comes automatically. And then you don't hurt yourself. Think of a baby that can cry for hours without getting hoarse. It instinctively does something right and doesn't think: How can I place the voice correctly? So the ideal state for us singers is: the emotion is there, and I express it. Then we can not only survive long evenings like "Siegfried" or "Tristan," but also draw strength from them.
You draw strength from a power-sapping "Siegfried"?
Absolutely! When, after a performance, I have the feeling: "So, let's do it all again," then I know it went really well. You also draw strength from the emotions that come back from the audience. Of course, as a singer I give an incredible amount, but I also receive a lot as a gift.
Now some might say: Everything is determined by emotion? And technique hardly plays a role? Don't you need to have a little man on your shoulder all the time during the performance to warn you to be careful?
He is usually standing in front of the orchestra. But joking aside: good conductors sense how you are doing, whether they are allowed to give more with the orchestra or not, whether they have to increase the tempi. That is a mutual empathic feeling. During the performance I don't feel a little man on my shoulder, that wouldn't be good either, I think.
You keep emphasizing that your operetta career with its quite difficult roles was the prerequisite for the heroic profession. Why then don't all operetta tenors become Siegfrieds?
The recently deceased conductor Stefan Soltész, whom I held in high esteem, took over a new production of "Rienzi" in Rome in 2013. Rienzi is probably the longest, most power-sapping tenor role. The people in charge of the opera there said in advance, "There is no Rienzi right now. Who should we ask?" Soltesz's answer was, "Bring me any operetta singer."
Nevertheless, there are few Siegfrieds and Brünnhildes. Are these parts that don't really suit the human voice at all?
Of course, one needs a voice by nature that can carry it. On the other hand, these pieces take an insanely long time, so you need stamina. And then there's the German language, which scares off many international colleagues. Wagner's great roles in particular are so developed from the words that it is absolutely necessary, for example, to put the right vowels in the right places. An a is not just an a. There are countless colorings. That is enormously difficult for a non-German-speaking singer, when he also sees this abundance of text in front of him. So preparing for it takes an extremely long time and thus blocks a lot of time in the schedule.
Without naming specific individuals: Why do people understand less and less on stage? You are an exception in this regard.
In my case, that certainly comes from the operetta school. If you don't understand some of your colleagues very well, it could also be because the orchestra is too loud and you have to defend yourself against it. It's also due to some singing teachers who don't base the technique on the words, but very much on vowels - in other words, a school that wants to promote the great legato. I understand that in a way. But it's not optimal for the intelligibility of the text.
You discovered Wagner for yourself with the David in the "Meistersinger", 2009 in Erl. Did you have the feeling beforehand that you were singing in a kind of corset?
Sometimes it was like that. I had the feeling, "There's more to it." But I couldn't really grasp or classify that, nor did I have the opportunity to show it. The David was entrusted to me at that time by Gustav Kuhn. He had obviously heard more in my voice. Moreover, in view of my previous role portraits, the operetta-like character of the David suited me very well. I then quickly realized that the genre suited me very well, precisely because Wagner composed so much on the word. Besides, as a young singer I was a very high tenor. That helped me a lot in this subject. I always looked forward to the high notes in Wagner. And that brings us back to, as you called it, the pleasure singer.
Young singers with a great voice always have a problem. They first have to go through a lean period until they land in the "fach" that is natural for them. You can't really give a 24-year-old a Florestan.
I don't subscribe to the latter. You can very well give a 24-year-old a Florestan. My first contract was in Krefeld-Mönchengladbach. A good house, but not a very big one. That contract was not renewed after two years because my voice was said to be too small for the house. That was the official reason at the time. Of course, there was some truth in that: if a singer doesn't get the roles that suit him, he will eventually die, like a flower that gets the wrong fertilizer. And then he won't make it through a Mozart opera anymore, because he was misguided. If singers by nature come with a great voice, they must also be fed with great tasks. They need the right fertilizer. And one must always respond to the particular singer. There must be no pigeonholing along the lines of: first you sing Mozart for two years, then Schubert for three years, and then Beethoven at some point - and finally, at 55, we slowly begin with Wagner. On the other hand, you can't make a Wagner singer out of every singer. A conductor once told me: You can't make a dove out of a sparrow, no matter how much you feed it. So it takes a very individual career development.
Do music academies sometimes play an unfair role in this?
A very clear yes. Universities are often a parallel society, closed off, and no one pays attention to the students' future. The university system produces over 90 percent unemployment among singers. A scandal of the first order. Let me tell you a little story about my life: I started singing late in life. When I came to the Vienna Academy of Music, there was still a three-year short course of study. I completed it. My teacher was the wonderful Walter Moore. A fantastic pianist and the longest serving professor at the college there. He heard my voice and said, "Come to my class with pleasure. But I'll give you some good advice: don't take a voice teacher here." A funny and at the same time very sad story.
In retrospect, do you feel it was a positive thing to have come to singing relatively late?
Yes. I don't know whether I would be sitting here now and talking to you as an active singer about all these topics if I had gone through the mills of training and the market right from the start. In other words, all my decisions were ultimately good for me. But you can by no means transfer that to other singers. I was very lucky, including this one, that I was able to meet the right people at the right time. Daniel Barenboim was a milestone for me. When he said to me that he wanted me to come to his Berlin house, the sky opened up for me.
You still have a fixed contract at the Berlin State Opera.
Exactly. The house is taking a different approach than many large opera houses. There's a small ensemble there with prominent singers. And we're all given the feeling, "We're glad you're here, but you should also go out and have a career." So no one is locked into the ensemble here. I can only consider an ensemble like that for myself.
For example, if you get a Siegfried offer for 2026: Can you even afford to say no? And demand a different role at the house in question?
That is certainly difficult. In this case, you have to plan the move away from Siegfried for years. Especially because the "Ring" has a much longer lead time. I already have inquiries for 2029. If I now say that I'm moving away from Siegfried, then I might not be able to. Because many big houses are counting on me. Such a thing needs a lot of sensitivity. Basically, an entire industry hangs on you. Not only the houses, but also agencies and not least a family. Of course, in four or five years I can signal that I'm specializing in roles with no age limit. After all, at some point no one will accept a young Siegfried from me anymore, but they will accept a Bacchus. A difficult matter.
And how do you motivate yourself for the umpteenth Siegfried? Basically, you've already experienced everything, including blatant directorial stories. You can hardly come to rehearsals as a blank slate.
I try to be a blank slate. That's one of my credos: to erase the past as much as possible and let yourself be given a new gift. But of course you take a big backpack of experiences with you - which are a good thing. They also carry you through an evening, because you know all the bits of a part, including the tricky ones. That gives you security. And as far as directing is concerned, the Wagnerian cosmos is so infinitely rich that you can always discover something new. You can never grasp the whole thing. When I direct the "Ring," I can only ever bring aspects of it onto the stage. So it remains exciting for us singers.
Do you miss your career youth? Michael Volle has recently returned to Don Giovanni as a Wagnerian, because he misses the Mozart period so much.
I feel the same way, although I haven't sung that much Mozart. But I'm also allowed to make requests in Berlin - and got the one or other Tamino. That gave me a lot of pleasure, also because I could still sing it. Which also gave me the feeling: you're technically on the right track. I also constantly check myself with recordings. I need to know how it will be received outside. After all, you hear yourself completely differently.
And do you ever sit at home, listen to a two-year-old Siegfried recording and say to yourself: Man, was I good?
Sometimes that happens. Rather by chance, when I discover such a recording. After all, one knows about the difficulty of certain passages. Then such a recording comes along, and it suddenly feels easy. Then you register what you did with the voice at that moment, and you memorize it. But such a reflection just happens between the performances. In the evening itself, one is like a marathon runner who completes the course unflinchingly.