Well … this is really an IQOD (Interview Quote of the Day). Hmm. Maybe I should start doing more IQODs?!
His international career took off in 1997 when Claudio Abbado cast him in the title part in a new production of Berg’s Wozzeck at the Salzburg Easter Festival, repeating it at the Summer Festival as well. How did it feel to suddenly become the centre of attention at the world’s foremost opera festival? ‘Those were the best years of my life, before Wozzeck. I was living in Sicily with my wife, who’s Sicilian, and we were having such great times in the Mediterranean. But it makes you very lazy, this life!’ he chuckles.
‘Then I remember when this phone call arrived and said, ‘Mr Dohmen could you please jump in for this Wozzeck production?’ The problem was, I’d never sung a note! I told Abbado, and he knew about me and said, ‘Yes, you’ll be able to do it because you’re an oboe player.’ And so I learnt very, very quickly. But this part is so tricky and musically so demanding that I said ‘Well, we can try’ — but I thought it was not the best choice to make my debut in a part I’d never sung in the Salzburger Osterfestspiele!’
This is from an interview with the singer, Albert Dohmen, who must have begun his music studies as an oboist.
Read it here.
