Reprint of Article on Thomas Quasthoff (LONG)

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Enzoadorato

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 10:30 pm

Guest

I thought you might enjoy this article on a very great artist.....You
know,in our school we have many lovable and loving students born with
various birth defects.....they are accepted and loved by all students
and staff.....Mr.Quasthoff has risen far far above his "defects" to
become one of the world's greatest artists:

Evening Standard 2/15/2005

Thomas Quasthoff Speaks Very Frankly
By Fiona Maddocks
Evening Standard [London] - 25 February 2005

Potsdamer Platz. The Berlin Film Festival is in full flow. Streets
swarm with beautiful people striding through slushy snow, plastic
identity badges dangling around necks. I am due to meet the German
baritone, Thomas Quasthoff. His hotel is crammed with delegates holding
urgent meetings, scuppering any idea of us finding a quiet corner.

This is worrying. Establishing a rapport with a stranger while being
jostled by film crews is hard. But Quasthoff, too, requires privacy. He
is a Grammy-winning musician who has spent the post-prize year fending
off journalists. In addition, he is physically unmissable. He was born
in Hildesheim in 1959 with malformed arms and legs, his mother having
taken Thalidomide during pregnancy. He has the full-size torso of a big
man but is, at a guess, a little under four feet tall.

He turns up with a friend, a lawyer.

His lawyer? "No, thank God, I've never needed a lawyer. Except when I
was born " I say that in Britain, the 1979 Sunday Times Thalidomide
case was pivotal in human rights law.

"In Germany, the lawyers were less successful," he replies, bluntly.

Having seen Quasthoff on stage, I am aware of his capacity to hold an
audience as much through force of personality as beauty of voice. In
the street, as he heads off to find somewhere less noisy, voice
booming, people sense his presence and make way. I'd heard he was
moving to Berlin, I shout above the roar of traffic. "I am moving here
to marry my former wife and be with our little girl so she can go to
school here."

This is news. Nothing I had read suggested a wife or child. "A little
girl," I repeat, making sure I haven't misheard. "No, she is not mine,
she is my girlfriend's." By now we're in a thronging bar. Several
misunderstandings later we establish that he means "future", not
"former" wife.

His fiancée, Claudia, is a journalist from Leipzig. Family life is
Quasthoff's new preoccupation. Ask what he thinks about beyond music
and he says "love". He will cut back on concerts abroad - always a
sell-out, he reminds me - to accommodate this change of circumstance.

That Quasthoff has a career at all was never a given. He was prevented
from attending music college because he could not meet the entry
requirements of playing an instrument. "No comment, it's all been said.
There's nothing more. Finito," he snaps.

His abrupt manner takes some getting used to. His English, though
impressive, is not fluent, pushing him into linguistic extremes. "It's
ridiculous," or "It's disgusting," are favourite expressions.

He continued taking private singing lessons while studying law,
building up a concert career and developing a taste for jazz (he plans
a CD of songs with a jazz ensemble next year).

Everything changed in 1988 when he won the high-profile ARD Prize in
Munich. "That was the start of my being known by a wider circle.
Eventually I decided I was ready for opera. Many people had said I
should try: Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim. I wanted, first, to
establish myself so that my artistry would be more important than my
physical disabilities. I know I don't look like Alain Delon but I'm
good enough musically.

"The fuss about what singers look like is disgusting. Was Margaret
Price ever thin? Was Jessye Norman thin? No, never. No one thinks
Deborah Voigt looks like a straw, but if a dress doesn't fit her, make
a new one. I've worked with her and she's a wonderful artist. The way
she has been treated [by Covent Garden] is disgusting. Disgusting."

It was Simon Rattle who, in April 2003, persuaded Quasthoff to break
into opera as Don Fernando in Beethoven's Fidelio with the Berlin
Philharmonic. A year later he played the mortally wounded Amfortas
[right] in Wagner's Parsifal, repeating the role last month.

"I work with the most hated conductor in the world, or so you English
seem to think. What you say about Simon is disgusting, ridiculous. Why
does everyone write such hateful things? Are they jealous? We have an
expression, a prophet always has biggest difficulties in his own land.
He is an incredible person, a superb musician and now, too, he is happy
and balanced with his girlfriend Magdalena [Kozená]."

And what does Berlin think of Rattle? "Generally they love him here.
But in Germany, too, there is a tradition: if a head is going up
through the clouds, there is always an animal which will try to push it
back down."

Unstoppable now, Quasthoff switches to music education. "A cultured
population is better than an uncultured one. In Britain it would be
more useful to invest in music than in wars. This Iraq war is the most
stupid, incredible, dumb project that the British Government has ever
been involved with. Would you want to have to tell a mother her son
died because of a war which is a lie? But Bush is doing it, and Blair,
too. I'm very proud of my Chancellor for saying we wouldn't enter this
war. So now you know my politics, too. I'm a red one, an old socialist.
A really big artist can never be Nazi. And as for Israel's attitude to
Wagner, it's disgusting. Is it his fault he was misappropriated by the
Nazis? Everyone was anti-Semitic in his time."

He launches a furious attack on members of the Knesset who walked out
recently when President Kohler addressed them in German, adding that he
speaks as one who would not have survived the Nazi regime. Then he asks
why Palestinians and Israelis can't learn from history. "To come
through a conflict and build a wall? Excuse me, Germany showed it is
impossible to do this."

He detests the tendency to use the past as an excuse for present
behaviour.

"I was once on a talk-show with other Thalidomide survivors. Someone in
a wheelchair behaved so disgracefully I said I would kick him if he
didn't stop. He's a lawyer, and he's still fighting for compensation.
But his behaviour was bad. He ordered his mother around and I said,
'Why do you treat your mother like this. Don't you think she has
suffered 40 years of guilt and now you talk to her like this. Are you
crazy? You have money, a profession. What more do you want?' "

It is hard not to be shocked by Quasthoff 's candour. But he speaks
with a glint of humour. "By the way, Tony Blair knows me personally. We
sang together."

What?

"Yes, I was performing at the G8 Summit in Cologne six years ago. Later
we had dinner, Bill Clinton, Schroeder, Chirac, me. We were on the
alcohol. There was a scene, you cannot imagine - we were all sitting
on a bench in a hotel bar. Tony Blair's wife was sitting on his knees.
And then we all sang, gospel or barber shop, I don't remember. It was
really funny."

He grabs my tape recorder and improvises spicily. "Now for the details.
Tony Blair was naked. And they were all climbing on top of each other."

Thomas Quasthoff grabs his coat with his teeth and swings off into the
night, still chortling.

Guest

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2005 7:22 pm

Enzoadorato wrote:

Quote:

I thought you might enjoy this article on a very great artist
so when is this very great artist going to stop hooking and attempt to

sing on pitch? that's what not having legs will do to you. jag

dan tritter

Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2005 8:58 am

Guest

JAG5044@aol.com wrote:

Quote:

Enzoadorato wrote:

I thought you might enjoy this article on a very great artist

so when is this very great artist going to stop hooking and attempt to
sing on pitch? that's what not having legs will do to you. jag

jag once again demonstrates that contemptible is well above his level
of subhuman existence. die slowly and painfully, you swine.

Guest

Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2005 11:07 am

this must be a forgery in that the treacly treacherous tritter doesn't
use even one "shit" reference. definitely a forgery. jag

dan tritter wrote:

Quote:

JAG5044@aol.com wrote:

Enzoadorato wrote:

I thought you might enjoy this article on a very great artist

so when is this very great artist going to stop hooking and attempt
to
sing on pitch? that's what not having legs will do to you. jag

jag once again demonstrates that contemptible is well above his
level
of subhuman existence. die slowly and painfully, you swine.

Enzoadorato

Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2005 12:53 pm

Guest

Dan..Jag has BIG PROBLEMS with asses,crotches,vaginas,etc....I think
his/her/its shrink gave the Rorshach test (sp??) and the old joke came
about:

Shrink: Why do you see all these inkblots as sexual objects??

Jaggy: "What do you mean? YOU are the one showing me the dirty
pictures!!!!!

Dan Tritter

Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2005 3:07 pm

Guest

JAG5044@aol.com wrote:

Quote:

this must be a forgery in that the treacly treacherous tritter doesn't
use even one "shit" reference. definitely a forgery. jag

dan tritter wrote:

JAG5044@aol.com wrote:

Enzoadorato wrote:

I thought you might enjoy this article on a very great artist

so when is this very great artist going to stop hooking and attempt

to

sing on pitch? that's what not having legs will do to you. jag

jag once again demonstrates that contemptible is well above his

level

of subhuman existence. die slowly and painfully, you swine.

we already knew that jag was so encrusted with the shit in which he
lives, breathes and eats, that he needed no more from this quarter
(unless, of course, he's hungrier than usual).

Guest

Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2005 8:43 am

Enzoadorato wrote:

Quote:

and the old joke came about:

that was a joke? speaking of shrinks, i hear the one you go to every

week has booted you out the door and told you to find someone else.
this one you will have to pay with money, and not blowjobs. jag

Enzoadorato

Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2005 9:07 am

Guest

You know...I was walking by Macy's window the other day..and I saw a
little baby (well a girl dressed as a baby...but BIGGGGGGG)in a
carriage and some (used) diapers in a pile......I was curious about
this...so I entered and asked the salesman what was going on...He
informed me that someone named ":jag" was being used for a special
promotional for a new type diaper that NEVER gets soiled....because the
wearer is so full of it....

Lovingly..your number 1 (number 2??) fan..Charlie

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