FIRST BROADCAST: High-Performance Sports: Singing Opera

A film by Wunderlich Medien in Co-Production with SWR, ORF and Unitel

Production:           2010
Written by:           Thomas Voigt, Barbara Wunderlich
Directed by:          Wolfgang Wunderlich, Thomas Voigt
Produced by:        Barbara Wunderlich
Running times:     28‘29 / 43‘15 Min.

Opera Singer = Dream Job?

Being able to sing, standing on stage and being cheered by audiences as a star – lots of people dream that dream. The profession of opera singer can certainly be a dream job, but the way to a happy and successful singing career is complicated and full of hurdles.

Singing opera is high-performance sports. Insiders are aware of that, but audiences generally aren’t. “So, what’s your day job?” is a classic cliché question about the operatic profession, and unfortunately this misconception is still firmly anchored in the heads of many an audience member: “Plenty of money and fame for very little effort”. Very few people know that opera singers are constantly going right to their physical limitations, and that they also run the risk of injuring their vocal apparatus. And while stories of top athletes battling various illnesses fill whole sports pages and trigger collective compassion, critics and spectators can be downright merciless when a singer – for whatever reason – happens to stand on stage in less than perfect health and fails to put in the usual top-flight performance.

This Wunderlich Medien film brings outsiders closer to the profession of singing opera in all its facets and puts the quietus on the aforementioned prejudices.

Such prominent artists as Jonas Kaufmann and Anja Harteros, as well as experts like the Viennese singers’ doctor Reinhard Kürsten and music journalist Jürgen Kesting, who ranks in the industry as the “Vocal Pope” tell it like it is about the highs and lows of the profession, the temptations in the music business and the old conflict between emotion and common sense.

This will make it unmistakably clear that the singer’s job calls for more than grueling training and a painstaking organization of everyday life, but also demands a very special lifestyle. Body, mind and soul must be in balance, so that a singer can ply his trade for decades – and join with his audience to experience those golden moments that let them forget all the hard work that went before.
“If” as Jonas Kaufmann says, “everything comes together right, a good staging, a superb conductor, stirring colleagues, an appreciative audience – then it’s like a natural high.”

Interviewees
Jonas Kaufmann, Anja Harteros, Piotr Beczala, Edda Moser, Daniel Behle, Christa Ludwig,
Dr. Reinhard Kürsten, Jürgen Kesting, Nikolaus Bachler

Interviewees
Jonas Kaufmann, Anja Harteros, Piotr Beczala, Edda Moser, Daniel Behle, Christa Ludwig,
Dr. Reinhard Kürsten, Jürgen Kesting, Nikolaus Bachler