which is really not very important it’s
Oprah and I don’t know if you ever heard
an Oprah probably not opera is very
simple a soprano and a tenner want to
make love and a baritone try to prevent
it so basically these are these singers
and is usually a love story and
somebody’s trying to prevent things from
going well I’ve been like Bollywood you
know typical cliche stories a lot of
emotions and what makes these emotions
possible even credible that we can
believe them is the music see if we say
I love you it’s okay but if we say I
love you 50 times it becomes really
boring unless it’s in a song so then the
music makes it such that we can let the
emotions flow out and I think in today’s
world it’s particularly important that
we relate to our emotions because this
is where our creativity will come and so
up rise an art from the ancient times it
happened it was born in Italy in the
17th century and then a very popular art
form because there was no television no
computer the performing arts were the
only place where people could entertain
so it was entertaining it wasn’t not at
all an art of the elites like think
people think it is today and it might be
in some cases but it’s just like picking
up a book when you pick up a book are
you going to read something elaborate or
are you going to read something funny or
are you going to read something easy and
really depends there are all sorts of
books the same there are all sorts of
operas and most of the operas are
talking about emotion but some are also
talking about very serious subjects like
do we want to live forever or any kind
of subject can be put into music like
any kind of subject can be put into full
or into play or into Bollywood film or
Hollywood film or whatever artform so
opera is something that we like to
develop because it is one of these art
forms that get the emotion most out we
have to have these singers we have to
have the orchestra light set it’s so
many ingredients and when it all works
is just really amazing and people can
cry and laugh when you know half an hour
before they were just taking the metro
to go there suddenly the emotion comes
with a live performance and with the
live experience the only thing is
sometimes opera singers tend to be
really fat so that you know when you see
the beautiful person saying I love you
you like it better then when you see the
fat person well know strangely in Opera
even the fat people or the ugly people
because they put their heart out they’re
able to make way for the inner beauty or
the inner emotion or the inner soul
which makes it credible that you will
also fall in love with his huge diva
there was one such diva who this is she
still alive she’s a very old ladies come
amazing she sings so beautifully by the
way the reason why many opera singers
are fat is because it’s really easier to
breathe and project the voice when you
have a little bit of flesh and and body
but it’s also very much possible to
learn and I was one of the slim opera
singers but it’s just a little longer to
learn so we have we had by the way also
we have to sing without a microphone so
we don’t use these little gadgets here
and that’s why we have to sustain the
sound will big breathing so this fat
lady Montserrat caballé was going to
sing an opera in Milan the biggest opera
house I mean the most prestigious Opera
House in in
well perhaps La Scala which means the
staircase so she was gonna sing there
and the very next day she had to sing in
Paris too super important opera houses
in the world important roles a lot of
pressure she said I can’t do it I can’t
do it simply because in those days there
was no playing going from LAN to Paris
she said I can’t and and or although
there was a plane but not in the night
so she couldn’t make it so she said I
can’t go with the train and then I have
to change the train in the middle of the
night at the frontier between Italy and
France and I’ll be too tired because I
really need to sleep you have to fill a
capacity body capacity to be able to
sustain such a strong voice so she said
I’m sorry I can’t do it then some fans
of hers came up because they were really
in love with her and they said look
we’ll take care of it so they organized
the bed in the first train and they
carried the bed through the frontier so
she went on sleeping through the trip
and she reached Paris and her voice flew
out again we have at the near our Music
Foundation we’ve always thought that
this art form which is so passionate
needs to happen in this country
not only happen not being brought by
outside but be made here and what we
realized and more amazed by is that the
Indian people are so quick at learning
music and languages
perhaps because most people here have
two or three languages as mother tongues
so it’s a matter of picking up one more
language which is singing and singing in
very different languages too we sing in
Italian we sing in German in Russian and
we need to pick up enough to be unable
to understand what we sing because we
can’t give the emotion if we don’t have
a clue it’s very hard to interpret
something if it’s just a series of
syllables so really we have found that
here the people are really able to pick
it up and become wonderful opera singers
much quicker than in the West where it
takes us ten years here it can take
maybe five or six years and we have an
example here with whom will he run of an
amazing voice he’s
started learning I think about four
years back maybe even three years back
but he’s amazing and what we trying to
do is to create an audience by staging
operas that speak about India because
the funny thing is Indians such a rich
culture that it fascinates the rest of
the world and the rest of the world
produces a lot of art about India books
inspired by India paintings inspired by
Indians so opera is also we have
collected about a hundred operas that
are set in India the fakir of Banaras
the Pearl Fishers which is set on an
island between India and Sri Lanka if I
were king which is in a beautiful palace
and go on on the beach so all these
operas are here to bring the audience
slowly towards an art form which should
come from inside so I’ll leave you now
for enough talking about something and I
background about what we’re gonna be
singing about I often talk about how
opera is to musical theater what
Shakespeare is to theater so
traditionally we never it’s never know
we don’t use a mic that’s what I was
getting at it’s never mic the whole idea
is that the human body itself is a
resonating chamber that can create sound
and that’s what the idea is I’m going to
be singing a piece from an opera by
Verdi called Don Carlo so there’s this
character his name is Rodrigo Don Carlo
is his friend and Rodrigo has promised
the king that he will take the Dons
place in jail and the point is that as I
mean as she was talking about baritones
either all the bad guys who are
preventing two people from getting
together which is kind of sad I mean I
wish we had more of a story oh it’s
about it’s about how stories of
friendship and beings being bigger than
what the person themself is so this
particular one is about him telling his
friend that it’s okay I know that I’m
going to die I understand and it’s a
choice that I’m making for you and for
Spain so he’s telling his friend that
I’m dying for you but you need to make
sure that you go and save a homeland ah
yeah that’s it so hope you guys enjoy it
it’s called pyramid junto
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ha-ah
Oh
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Philippe on Joe [Applause]