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Opera singer Dagmar Pecková realizes that her voice is failing and that the party on stage will eventually come to an end. She no longer sings, but devotes herself to the theater and spreads the fame of opera as the director of the Zlatá Pecka Festival in Chrudim. “Culture, don’t come here with that. We can’t play here, people wouldn’t come to us,” Pecková describes the mentality she faces in her role as an organizer and on the boards of the National Theater in an interview with Lucía Výborná on Radiožurnál.
Guest Lucie Excellent
Prague
0:22 January 10, 2024 Share on Facebook
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The main theme of Ariadne auf Naxos, if I understand it correctly, is a kind of contempt that so-called high and so-called low art show each other. Or – as the mobile organizer of the bizarre performance decided – there is no time for art, because there are fireworks and dinner. That’s your overall theme, isn’t it?
Yes. Now I actually got the role of steward as the third role in this opera.
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“I’ve never experienced the true art of making money before,” describes the former singer, current event manager and actress Pecková
Are you playing a guy?
Yes. In this day and age of multiple genders and gender differences that are not entirely clear, this no longer plays a role.
So the director and I agreed that I could play it. This role is spoken in German, and at Národní they simply said that I could probably speak German since I made my career in Germany, so they cast me in this role.
So you don’t sing?
I do not sing! This is a pure drama role. Having played cherubs, composers and all the sexta in Mitridate all my life, I’ve had a lot of panty roles, and I’ve always joked that what I’m doing now is kind of like a retired cherub.
But this role is really focused on fulfilling the demands of my master, the richest man in Vienna – or any other city – who has absolutely no knowledge of art or culture. In my mind, he’s a get-rich-quick greengrocer who – in today’s terms – is going to trust some sort of event manager that I represent, who also has no idea what’s what. Thanks to the fact that, just like culture and art, decisions are made by people who know nothing about it, this is exactly how it is shown in this opera.
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But this will be good for you, won’t it? You’ve seen it several times.
For me it plays very well. I appeared in it several times. I think this concept by Slávka Daubnerová is very good and I’m really looking forward to it.
Now we leave the Strauss opera: Of course you meet cultured people, but also the other part of the spectrum. If you had to say the strangest thing you’ve experienced in this field, what would it be? If you were an opera diva promoting a festival or wanted a performance and there was this person on the other side?
Well, first of all, not only do the organizers know – and I don’t want to say they’re all like that – often they don’t even know who you are.
The fact that people here don’t know what I’ve achieved and where is kind of forgivable, because I don’t always brag about my achievements, so I can understand that. But the fact that they confuse you with other singers about whom you have your own opinion is another matter.
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And that they will calmly tell you: Come, Ms. Pecková, art, culture, don’t come here with that. We can’t play here, people wouldn’t come to us. And these people actually influence the thinking of smaller cities because they decide whether art or entertainment goes there. And most of the time, of course, they grab the entertainment because it sells better and they get better results.
Finally, I was told in Chrudim that they were giving us less and less money for the festival because we had to earn it ourselves. But I’ve never seen real art and culture make a living.
Yummy? It’s worse if I stay silent
I’ve been thinking about what your human, non-professional trait is and it’s quite clear. After all, you say yourself that you are a swallower.
The handle, well.
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And now I thought: are there more advantages or more disadvantages when you look back on your career?
That’s how it balances out. Of course, if you say or write something somewhere and the person in question doesn’t take it as a reason to think and makes a scandal out of it: the tabloids go and the person in question also helps out a little financially… then it’s clear that it’s also a can be little negative. But then again, I can’t help it.
And have you ever yelled at someone?
Jejej.
Why am I asking this? Somehow I can use the voice of the broadcaster here from Czech Radio in the context of diplomatic negotiations. And so I was wondering if you’re going into this, if you know how to use the registry.
I last a long time, I try to be very polite for a really long time and I think I can even negotiate. When it comes to something, I can be polite, I can negotiate, but I hate snobbery, I hate rudeness, I hate human stupidity. And things go faster there.
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So there was another positive, the fact that you’re stocky?
The worst thing is when I stay silent. This is really no help at all. If I stay silent for a long time, it’s a clear sign that it’s no longer worth talking to the person in question.
Freedom of the actress
I quote from one of your older conversations: Voices wear out and change, so everyone needs to think about what they will do when that voice no longer works. So that’s a pretty unforgiving sentence. At what age did you already know this?
After fifty. I was fifty-two, fifty-three when I realized that the amount of work I had done between twenty and fifty-three was slowly decreasing.
Although it is not common here. Here the singers are firmly committed and are basically brought out of the theater feet first. This is no longer the case in the world – we are such an open-air museum.
You talked about Daniel Barenboim’s arrival at the State Opera. What has happened there?
What happened there was that they kept four people from the entire ensemble and let the rest go. Then they hired new people, let’s say for a year, for two and a lot of guests. But then I realized that I don’t want to be in a permanent position at all costs and only take on middle and lower-level roles, but I want to do more. At my own request I walked away free.
“I’ve always had a great admiration for acting and thought: God, they can do whatever they want on stage.”
Nowadays it doesn’t matter if you’re freelance or if you’re employed because if you’ve been in a theater for more than 13 years you’re going to get fired anyway, because once you’ve been there you’re going to get fired anyway 15 years they have to go to pay for their pension, and no theater in the West can afford that anymore. And I have to say that National has also started… I don’t want to talk about purges, but that’s what it is. They started firing singers in their 40s who go to the theater all year round, they only have three shows a year, but the theater pays them. So it’s not as commonplace as it used to be.
So these people have to be clear that the party will end one day and what they will do after that.
Someone goes to teach: someone teaches privately, someone at school, someone is looking for other ways. Not only do I not enjoy learning, I also simply don’t want to take it upon myself to destroy a few singers, as it just happens with these cantors that a lot of people fall through the sieve and only those who succeed, stay on the surface. So I started looking for ways to figure out what to do next.
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I’ve always really admired acting and thought to myself: My God, they can do whatever they want on this stage. Finally, we still have to hold on to this voice, this instrument that we carry within us. And I actually came to the conclusion that I was going to be an actress.
How difficult is it to leave the world of grand opera?
Given the fact that I quickly became an actress and eventually the manager of a smaller festival in Chrudim, I don’t think it’s that bad.
I could draw a thick line to the point where I was surprised. I’m such a brutal Nikita because I can analyze things very quickly and compare things in my head. Because time is short and if I want to prove otherwise, I have to be able to complete something in order to move on.
You can listen to the entire interview in the audio at the beginning of the article.
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