Mr. Selig, do you still play the organ?
From time to time. But no longer in church. I have a digital three-manual church organ at home since a few years ago. Unfortunately, I rarely find enough time to play.
What have you learned from the organ for your singing?
Directly from the instrument, not much.
But the path from church musician to singer is not that far...
Of course, I was already singing on the side back then, parallel to my permanent position as a church musician. Mainly early music, for example as a founding member of Cantus Cölln with Konrad Junghänel. Opera came to me like a hit squad. I went to an opera for the first time at the age of 24, as part of a Bayreuth scholarship. I always felt that singing opera was a foreign world.
Why ?
Because I was always suspicious of a certain self-promoting attitude that some people already had at university. I also came from an early music background, i.e. singing senza vibrato. It took a lot of work to convince me to take this step towards opera, even though one of my church music professors had already told me: "It's great that you sing church music, but you should do opera." I didn't want to hear about it for a long time. And singing is only one side of the coin. Since my musical upbringing, my world has moved between Monteverdi, Bach and Max Reger, so Wagner and Verdi are a world away. My piano professor, for example, helped me to broaden my musical horizons. With him, I discovered Debussy, for example, who was practically unknown to me before. He also taught me that you don't necessarily play Bach on a modern grand piano as you would on an organ or harpsichord.
And even the early visit to Bayreuth couldn't seduce you?
Quite the opposite. After the second act of Tristan, I said to a fellow scholarship holder: "Singing opera would be presumptuous, it's out of the question." Matti Salminen sang King Marke back then - and I had never heard such a voice before: this fullness, this flowing sound and at the same time this great range of vocal possibilities between very soft and boomingly powerful.
What did you learn at Cantus Cölln?
A great deal: the musical development of pieces, developing and cultivating an ensemble sound and, above all, restraint and reduction: not always going full steam ahead! When young basses ask me for coaching today, I often get the impression that they want to imitate colleagues who are 30 years older and whom they know from recordings. They try to make the voice artificially big without considering that you can't simply skip phases when a voice is growing and maturing. It is important to always "deal with your own voice", otherwise you deprive yourself of any development opportunities and lose flexibility and creative freedom even before you learn to hold your own on stage. Today I know how wonderful it is to be able to sing a Lied or a recordare in a Mozart Requiem a few days later after a Wagner evening. So I'm still reducing today, often taking a step back.
Some singers find it difficult to switch from the opera stage to the concert stage.
Sometimes it is, when you leave the opera stage and have to sing opera in concert, especially when pure concert or oratorio literature is required. Suddenly you are no longer in the scene, a quasi-separate space, and you no longer have an orchestra pit between you and the audience, but are on a platter, so to speak. A wonderful challenge that you should definitely take up. Listening is also different, everything is more direct, more immediate. This also applies to the audience, who have to concentrate exclusively on the music and text.
Do you sing operas differently in concert?
As far as the musical interpretation is concerned, I hope I don't sing any differently; the music has to sound just as convincing, because you can't "overplay" anything.
Back to your first opera experiences. You were a member of the ensemble in Essen for six years in the early 90s...
... during which I learned to walk, so to speak. I came to my first staged rehearsal as the King in Aida with Dietrich Hilsdorf. Up to that point, I hadn't had a single minute of acting lessons. But Hilsdorf didn't let me feel that at all. My second role as Herr Reich in Die Lustigen Weibern was much more difficult - partly because of the dialog. I had never done that before either, so I first asked the director to rehearse with me alone during the lunch break. I learned what life as an opera singer actually means from the bottom up in Essen, especially since Wolf-Dieter Hauschild came on board in 1991 as GMD and artistic director, who gave me a lot of encouragement and important help in choosing roles.
Did you focus exclusively on opera during this time?
No, I always sang concerts as well, and Hauschild gave us the opportunity to perform recitals in the foyer of the Aalto Theater. I sang a lot at that time, from Winterreise and Schwanengesang to Dichterliebe, Mussorgsky and Shostakovich. After that, I neglected singing Lieder for a while, but got back into it a few years ago through my friendship with the wonderful pianist Gerold Huber. I never want to miss this musical cosmos again! Precisely because of the immense musical and vocal challenge. Incidentally, we have just recorded our first song CD together. I can only recommend young singers to take up this challenge.
And you started with Wagner in Essen?
Hauschild gave me King Marke, and after that he asked for Gurnemanz every year. But I wanted to wait; it wasn't until my last year in Essen, 1995, that I took on the role for three performances.
The temptation to want to take on too big parts too early was as great then as it is now. How did you arm yourself against this?
I was a newcomer who had never sung a repertoire before. So I was very cautious. My motto was: grow slowly, which is particularly important for a deep voice.
Why do so few singers take this to heart today?
There is certainly a lack of good advisors. A young singer who has always wanted to sing sometimes runs the risk of wanting too much at university or during their first engagements. At such times, there is a lack of guidance to point this out to these young people. A second reason is probably that there are many conductors today who no longer work as répétiteurs, which means that they have little or no experience with voices. A relatively famous conductor once asked me after a Mozart Requiem whether I would like to do the Brahms Requiem. I asked myself: How much does he know about voices? You can't lump everyone together, but I do see this tendency and therefore a danger for young singers.
Today you are primarily regarded as a Wagner singer, but you also did a lot of Verdi in the beginning. An important training for a voice?
Perhaps even a prerequisite for Wagner. Because you should actually sing his music like Verdi, but with the addition of the German text. If you master that, you can also sing Wagner in a healthy way.
In the 19th century, orchestras were tuned lower than they are today. What consequences does this have for singers in the 21st century?
I have worked with different tunings; I have already performed Wagner at 440 Hz, i.e. the actual concert pitch, and classical repertoire at 430 Hz. For someone who doesn't hear absolutely - and fortunately I'm one of them - the difference is hardly immediately recognizable; but over the length of a part, the differences are immense, just in terms of the distribution of forces. It's a bit like a weightlifter. If I lift 40 kilos and just about manage it, but then add another two kilos, they are heavier than all the kilos before. In many orchestras, the instruments are tuned rather high; depending on the weather, the tuning goes even higher. That's really exhausting for singers.
Do you prepare specifically for this?
Not really, you can't relate this problem to a single evening, you have to keep an eye on the development over the years. The question then arises as to whether this little bit of constant "singing too high" can cause difficulties for some singers in the long term or is perhaps also partly responsible for some short careers...
Why have there been fewer good German bass voices in recent years?
I don't know. My speculation is that there is less material in purely quantitative terms. This goes back to the roots of singing. I once spoke about this with Kwangchul Youn, who told me that families in South Korea sing much more, even as children. Anyone who doesn't sing is a bit of an outsider. To which I replied that it was almost the other way around here. For me as a choirmaster, it was already a problem more than 20 years ago to attract young people.
One of your central roles in recent years is Gurnemanz in Parsifal. How do you stylistically reconcile his various facets between chronicler, pedagogue and prophet?
It's mainly about the text and the language. If you don't understand Gurnemanz well in the first and third acts, you can forget the evening. The different aspects of this character can certainly be made audible. Let's take the "teacher" attitude. It's okay to sound preachy: "Schuf sie Euch Schaden je", towards the knights and squires. Gurnemanz knows a lot, and he wants to convey this, but he is also a seeker, a doubter and even a despairing man. Text and colors must form a unity in the interpretation. A healthy body language is also needed to portray the different facets of Gurnemanz. This has to be sustained throughout the first act, then there is a pause in the second act and the third act has to pick up where it left off, even though Gurnemanz has grown older in the meantime. The challenge is to find a balance without making him look like an old man at the end.
What do you actually do during the second act?
I usually withdraw a little at first, go to my dressing room and then often to the side stage so that I stay in the piece. Moving around there helps me to maintain body tension. Finally, I have a banana and something to drink, and then the third act begins.
What are the pitfalls of Wagner, especially for younger singers?
The correct treatment of speech is crucial. You should always start with the language, simply put, "sing language". Others sing and then want to add the language. I think this approach is wrong. Not only with Wagner. Take Pelléas et Mélisande. If the melody and text are not congruent, it will never be convincing. Moreover, the choice of roles is crucial for newcomers to Wagner. This is especially true for tenors. You need a more "tenoral" singer for a Lohengrin, but not for a Siegmund, Parsifal or Tristan. If these roles are only characterized by the height and lightness of the voice, too much falls behind; some baritonal qualities are needed. In my field, this means that Hagen was not written for my vocal chords.
Kurt Moll once said that although he already had a Hagen contract in his pocket, his voice was too soft for it...
I would say the same. I would be depriving myself if I tried to work on this part. If you have a naturally soft voice - why should you ignore that? When you hear a singer, you always hear the person behind it. So you should stay true to yourself. That's another pitfall, by the way.
How do you plan periods of relaxation into your calendar?
In recent years, I have dedicated around a quarter of my schedule to concert singing. Unfortunately, there are often only two Lied recitals a year. In 2012, I deliberately built in a somewhat quieter period before Bayreuth. Then I was supposed to sing in the Cologne production of Fidelio in the fall, but the performance series was ultimately cut down to three concert performances. I received various offers to take part in other productions during this free time. I deliberately declined. These phases of being at home are good for the voice and also for the person, as I also have a family life.
You never sang Philipp in Don Carlo and Ochs in Der Rosenkavalier. Why?
With Philipp, to put it casually, because I was stuck in the "German fach" pigeonhole. Apart from Gerard Mortier, who had engaged me as Fiesco in Paris, I hardly got any requests for the Italian repertoire. The Ochs is constantly pursuing me, but he doesn't really seem to entice me.
Is that because of Strauss or Hofmannsthal?
I'd really would enjoy the Viennese charachter of the part. It's more down to Strauss: there are passages in this score that don't suit me. Only recently, after careful consideration, I turned down another interesting offer. As an artist, you have to be able to say no, no matter how attractive the temptation. After all, these two small vocal cords are not like a car that you can repair and repaint after an accident.
Beautiful interview with a lot of wisdom.