Imagine for a moment that your breakthrough has come. You are at the centre of attention; you are being offered projects and missions, money and fame, here and now. You are on the verge of international success. Slow down for a minute. Enjoy this moment. Because here’s the thing: your gift is a fragile one, precarious and unforgiving of mistakes. It’s a rare operatic voice. In this moment, when you most want to fly towards success without a backwards glance, you are constrained to treading cautiously, taking baby steps, as if you were carrying a precious vase on your head, on whose safety your life depends. When we, the editorial office of The World, asked Arseny Yakovlev to tell us what it was like to be in such a position, we were almost certain he would refuse. It is, after all, a very delicate, personal topic.
In my childhood, I did not want to sing or perform on stage. More than anything, I dreamed of becoming a football player. Of course, I grew up surrounded by music, listened to the opera at home with my parents, went to see my dad perform [Arseny’s father, Arkady Yakovlev, was also an opera singer, lead soloist at the Bolshoi Theatre — editor’s note]. My parents say that, as an infant, the best way to get me to sleep was to put on Franco Corelli’s performance of Kalaf’s aria.
It seems to me that even now I have not fully accepted the role of the singer, because I’ve had a lot of prospects and talents, and was a natural in both language and sport. I studied German from the age of six, graduated from German grammar school, and won prizes in competitions. While I was in school, practically everything I tried came easily to me. And to be honest, entering conservatory was the path of least resistance. To go somewhere else, MGIMO or Moscow State University, I would have had to bury myself in textbooks, and that didn’t interest me at all. It was easier to go and sing, because I felt prepared for that. I could easily imagine myself on stage, but it was not the kind of dream you strive for, where it’s your whole life, and everything you do is for the sake of achieving it.
I can’t say that I aspire to incredible glory. It’s nice, of course, to be famous, and I’m sure that no performer would mind it. But, standing on the stage, in the spotlight, everyone looking at you, is definitely not my dream. It’s not easy for me to get out on stage. It’s absolute solitude and responsibility. You are in the centre of attention and people expect from you something beautiful, maybe even perfect. Doing it, I feel alone, no matter how many people are around. Life can be like that.
I want to find some kind of harmony, some balance, to sing and not only feel responsibility, but also pleasure. It happens sometimes, albeit extremely rarely, when I’m singing something on stage — whether an aria, a romance, or any song — and suddenly, for a moment, just for a few seconds, there is a feeling of happiness, of ecstasy. Later, this memory can be returned to and savoured, but I can’t actually seem to stay in this blissful state for long. Apart from this, singing opera is colossally demanding of the body and nerves, and an enormous psychological burden.
The voice is a fragile instrument. It’s not like a guitar, where you can tighten the strings and everything’s fine.Especially nowadays, dramatic tenors are a rarity. There is a terrible shortage of them, and therefore, a huge demand. The parts of Hermann, or Othello, Cavaradossi, Jose from Carmen, Andre Chenier — these parts were all written for dramatic tenors, and performers in the style of Lemeshev are not suited to sing them. Now, my voice is already established as dramatic, and this is a temptation for me — they call me, they want me, offering great, significant roles, and I can sing them comfortably enough… But, with such a burden, you run the risk of losing your voice, and, for the singer, there could be nothing worse. The voice is a fragile instrument. It’s not like a guitar, where you can tighten the strings and everything’s fine. You don’t even know what is in there — you can’t touch or study the vocal cords, to determine exactly what kind of a load they can withstand. You can rely only on your own sense, and only you can discovery your own capabilities. Your voice resides in your feelings and your ability to carry them, a skill that can arise only with experience. I have been lucky in that I am aware of the risks that can come with singing, and that I have someone to consult with. There are so many tragic stories — these truly fantastic singers come from faraway places, they are immediately fought over by agents, offered leading roles, invited to beautiful parties — and, in the end, they lose it all because they lose their voices.
The unusual combination of a young age and an “adult” voice — and tries to find suitable roles for me, with interesting, significant material, but not too great in volume.For several years now, I have been working with my agent, Alan Green from Zemsky/Green. He really takes into account the complexity of the situation — the unusual combination of a young age and an “adult” voice — and tries to find suitable roles for me, with interesting, significant material, but not too great in volume. Soon I’ll be flying to Mallorca, to play the part of McDuff in Macbeth, and then, closer to summer, I’ll be in Paris, at the Opéra Bastille, a big serious theater, to play the part of Lensky.
But my most incredible accomplishment on stage has been playing the part of Hermann, in The Queen of Spades. Any vocalist knows that Hermann is an untouchable role for those under thirty-five. At twenty-two, I took it on, though, true, it wasn’t on stage. Actually, it’s a pretty amazing story. It all started when I was rehearsing Hermann’s Arioso, which is fairly lyrical, and can be performed rather gently, without much strain. The Arioso was added to my repertoire, and I would sing it in concerts. And then it so happened that Dmitry Yurievich Vdovin asked me if I wanted to record Hermann’s part in the studio. I agreed, because recording in the studio isn’t performing, where you have to work three hours straight. In the studio, you can take breaks, you don’t have to do it all in a single day. Then one day Pavel Semyonovich Lungin came to the theatre. Meeting him was a huge event for me, because I’ve seen his film The Island four or five times, and I really love it. That day, I had recorded a few excerpts for the film version of The Queen of Spades. Later on, I went to the Mosfilm studio to record an orchestra version of “What is our life? A game!” — an aria for the film. The film ended up using just over half of Hermann’s part, as, though it is heavily music-based, it is not a film opera, but a feature film with an independent storyline.
In the process of working, I came to the set, and met the actors — Ivan Yankovsky, Masha Kurdenevich, and the incredible Ksenia Rappoport. And I realized that I wanted to do a movie. I can’t even remember what my thoughts previously were on this. Most likely, it had never even come to mind.