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Upon completing his studies in Basel in 1997, Carlos Mena was already considered a very promising, versatile performer, full of possibilities, and a singer capable of tackling a wide repertoire encompassing everything from medieval to contemporary music. His initial inclination, however, was toward the early music repertoire and it was in this field that he began to perform as a regular soloist with the most important groups and conductors in Europe, visiting all the major concert halls. In 1997 he made his operatic debut in the role of Orfeo in C. Harmuch’s version of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice at the Teatro Guaira in Curitiba (Brazil), with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Paraná under the direction of A. Colaruso. His debut was followed by performances in Monteverdi’s Orfeo, conducted by Savall; Cavalieri’s Rappresentazione di Anima e Corpo, in Brussels, conducted by Jean Tubery; and Handel’s Radamisto at the Felsenreitschule during the Salzburg Pfingsten Festspiele in the first staging of a Handel opera in the festival’s eighty-year history. He reappeared in Monteverdi’s Orfeo in a co-production between the Innsbrucker Festwoche and the Berlin Staatsoper under the artistic direction of B. Kosky and with René Jacobs conducting the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin and the Concerto Vocale. In 2004 he returned to Salzburg to perform Handel’s Il Trionfo at the Grosses Festspielhaus. He is now celebrating the first ten years of his professional career, a career that has not only witnessed his vocal, but personal evolution. And Mena is very proud of this personal evolution, which he believes has added some essential elements to his career.
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The truth is I’m not very tired, although this month has been a bit hectic. This is something that has changed a lot in recent times. I used to perform 10 or 12 concerts a month and I was tired. Sometimes I was even tired after six. Now, as I am really motivated to do the things I am doing, I approach them with a lot of energy and finish strongly, without any highs and lows or tiredness. I have also made a lot of changes to some technical aspects of my voice and my body. I am working with a therapist who helps me to get to know my body a lot better. I am much more aware of my body and my voice, of what I want to improve and what comes out of me, which means there is less psychological drain because I do not have any special expectations of my life. For example, I do not expect a certain result from a concert. I prefer to live it.
But you do expect to do well in each concert, that you will be applauded...
I have had a very strict education, both personally and in my vocal training in Basel, at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, which is something of an icon. For many years I have been a victim of such a strict education, and I will be for my whole life because we are what we are forever. Many years ago one of my main goals was for a concert to be perfect, in accordance with a pre-conceived idea. If the concert did not live up to this idea of perfection I “missed out” on what happened during the concert. I missed out on many details that were important from a musical point of view. Now, by planning a little less and overcoming the idea that the goal is perfection, applause, I get more enjoyment out of the music itself.
It’s as though you have proposed to sing more for yourself than for the audience...
I believe something similar occurs in all professions. Society pushes singers to sing to please. I cannot aim to please everybody. It’s another thing if people, the audience, like what I do. There is a slight, but important difference. But the most important thing is that I like myself. If I don’t like myself, if I don’t like what I do, I am selling a lie. I might be doing what the audience expects of me, but that is probably not what I expect of myself or has nothing to do with my essence, Carlos Mena. So this study of corporal and ethical awareness has helped me to rediscover myself, my interior, and to be in closer contact with the music. It’s true that I have less contact with the audience. I always thought that the musician has to be in contact with the music and the audience with the music. But there is no direct bridge between the audience and the musician. Two listeners who are experiencing different emotional and personal circumstances are not going to have the same response to the same music.
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