Kurdish Singer in Italy Earning a Place in Opera

[Piling]

BARCELONA, Spain – Pervin Chakar owes her opera career to a CD that changed her life: It was the voice of internationally renowned diva Maria Callas, and the moment Chakar heard her she knew what she wanted to do with her own life.

“During my early studies I had won a writing competition and at the party for the young writers I was asked to sing, because I was the only one there with a musical background Chakar,” recounted to Rudaw in an interview. “The head of the competition committee was impressed with my voice and gave me a CD from the American-born Greek soprano Maria Callas.”

At the time, Chakar knew nothing about opera, and would sing mostly folk songs. The CD stayed unheard for four years, until the aspiring singer could afford to buy a player.

“When I went to Gazi University in Ankara to study singing I got my first scholarship and bought a CD player. When I listened to Callas I was inspired by her voice, and decided to become an opera singer,” said Chakar, who was 22 at the time.

The Kurd, who is now in her early 30s, began singing folk songs at the age of 14. It was after she won in a singing competition in Diyarbakir province that her family recognized her talent for music and sent her to the Fine Arts High School in Diyarbakir. She was also learning violoncello at the time at the Anatolian Fine Arts High School.

Her first steps in the bel canto -- an Italian opera term meaning beautiful singing -- were in the Gazi University in Ankara, where she studied vocal techniques and opera interpretation with Oylum Erdayi. “She opened my mind and taught me the opera world. And then my voice and my technique were developed very early.”

Then, Chakar’s musical career took another turn, transporting her to Italy, the birthplace of opera.

“I was working at the Ankara State Opera House and sang for the Italian opera manager, who had come to Ankara to scout for new voices,” Chakar recalled.

He invited the 23-year-old to sing in Italy, where she continued her studies in music, finishing with a Master’s degree from the Conservatory of Music of Perugia, where she now lives.

“Opera is not part of my culture,” she explained. “So many singers are moving to Europe to develop their profession and art. I moved from Kurdistan nine years ago, because I wanted to become an international opera singer. With this purpose, I studied a lot of techniques and interpretation in Italian operas.”

Although she is doing what she loves best, she said it has not been an easy road.

“This type of profession takes a lot of sacrifices,” she explained. “I have always worked to continue my musical studies, and I had to do odd jobs to get ahead. But I am very proud and satisfied to have passed difficult times, because this has given me more strength in my life,” she said. “I think that crying and sadness have made me mature, and then I manage to convey these emotions in my singing.”

All the hard work has paid off with a string of awards at international competitions, most recently in 2011. That year, she won the International Maria Caniglia Singing Competition, as well as first place and special prize at the Lotte Lehmann Foundation in New York for best female voice.

Chakar made her debut in Italy in 2006 at the Teatro Rosetum in Milan. Since arriving in Europe, she has met with great opera singers, like Spanish Montserrat Caballe, who also mentored her.

Besides opera, Chakar also loves traditional ethnic music and especially jazz and blues. She enjoys singing Kurdish folk songs in the opera technique, and listening to Kurdish musicians like Gani Mirzo, Sakina Teyna, Tara Jaff, Nizamettin Aric and Sivan Perwer.

Chakar is now looking forward to a debut at the Teatro Petruzzelli, in the Italian city of Bari, where some of the world’s greatest singers and dancers have performed.

Despite her career and life in Italy, the Kurd from Turkey has not forgotten home. She intends to establish a world music festival in her native Diyarbakir and in Mardin.

Listen to Pervin Chakar:
http://soundcloud.com/pervin-chakar/herediya/s-uWFap





With Tara Jaff :

[Anthea]

http://youtu.be/B4IsYu38YgQ

Thank you

Wonderful I love opera and will enjoy listening to this later on when I am relaxing on my own

[KabirKuhi]

Good on her, I'd prefer if she excelled in tanburs or finance though, kurds have no use for opera . She is a good-looking woman aswell.

[Piling]

I'd prefer if she excelled in tanburs or finance though, kurds have no use for opera

There is a starting-point for everybody in all fields. Opera is an Italian/Chinese/Japanese invention but it could benefit to Kurds one day. After cinema is a French invention but now all the world uses it.

[KabirKuhi]

I'd prefer if she excelled in tanburs or finance though, kurds have no use for opera

There is a starting-point for everybody in all fields. Opera is an Italian/Chinese/Japanese invention but it could benefit to Kurds one day. After cinema is a French invention but now all the world uses it.

Opera has existed since the renaissance, even earlier, but it has never been sucessful outside of europe. Europeans could export the violin, the piano, the orchestra, but they could not export opera. Opera is some uber-refined, ultra-effeminate sensibility that only europeans have a taste for. I think most people outside of europe find opera odd. My mother heard opera once, she thought it was just high-pitched shrieking.

I think this character in this french movie expresses foreigners sentiment best:

phpBB [video]

Whenever I hear something pan-european like opera, I just find it funny and weird. I think something are only popular in their home-place. I've never meet a foreigner who tasted ayran/doogh, who liked it f.ex. So to me opera is sort of funny but useless to us kurds. Atleast finance is useful to kurds, and i believe that the kurdish diaspora has a responsibility better themselves. Tanburs are also a great cultural practice of kurds.

[Piling]

In fact Opera is a far Western invention AND a Far Eastern one also, because China, Korea, Japan have a great and old tradition of Opera.

Opera is only a singing theater so in countries where theater did not develop, there is no opera, though the Persian Tazieh is not far from the religious Christian Passion which is a religious opera.

But I rassure you : most of people in Europe do not like opera, as they do not like Classical music or theater. it is considered as an Elite's hobby.

Concerning finance lol Kurds do not lack of it. In KRG everybody want to be a businessman. And a country without art and only financial interests is a hell (it doesn't exist, in fact, all humans needs fun or beauty).

Santur and all Iranian music are nice, and some Iranian creations are not far from our opera ( In Caucasus and Central Asia, Soviet Union spread opera and there is an Azeri opera and good singers). But with Islamic Regime in Iran, musical and theatrical creation lost 40 years in their development.

Here is a mugham opera, with choirs influenced by Russian music but with mugham songs and azeri instrument instead our arias:



I think that Iranian could make some similar things with their Tazieh or poetical songs.

[KabirKuhi]

In fact Opera is a far Western invention AND a Far Eastern one also, because China, Korea, Japan have a great and old tradition of Opera.

So not only is it useless, it's also foreign to us.

Opera is only a singing theater so in countries where theater did not develop, there is no opera, though the Persian Tazieh is not far from the religious Christian Passion which is a religious opera.

Tazieh is shiah tradition, that has nothing to do with gregorian chanting or choir singing. It developed independently and for different reasons. Same with nasheeds.

But I rassure you : most of people in Europe do not like opera, as they do not like Classical music or theater. it is considered as an Elite's hobby.

that goes along with my point.

Concerning finance lol Kurds do not lack of it. In KRG everybody want to be a businessman. And a country without art and only financial interests is a hell (it doesn't exist, in fact, all humans needs fun or beauty).

We already have culture, it's over 2 centuries old. Which is why I think opera is useless to kurds. But if some kurdish women living in europe can make a living as an opera singer, good on her. I just don't think it's optimal for kurds or kurdish interests. They should learn better trades. Instead of singing for rich Europeans, she could create her own business or try banking, f.ex .

Santur and all Iranian music are nice, and some Iranian creations are not far from our opera ( In Caucasus and Central Asia, Soviet Union spread opera and there is an Azeri opera and good singers). But with Islamic Regime in Iran, musical and theatrical creation lost 40 years in their development.

This music is created by the kurdish tanbur-master, ali akbar moradi. His playing and composites are very typical for the west-iranian homeland of kurds. Santur is a little different, never heard any kurds play santur. Tanbur has existed since pre-iranian civilizations. And most likely amongst pre-iranian kurdish civilizations aswell.

phpBB [video]

Here is a mugham opera, with choirs influenced by Russian music but with mugham songs and azeri instrument instead our arias:




I think that Iranian could make some similar things with their Tazieh or poetical songs.

Azeris who were influenced by Russian soviet culture, don't count. I challenge you to find any form of opera, kurdistan or anywhere else, before 20th century. You'll find none.

[Anthea]

Opera has been around for HUNDREDS of years

[KabirKuhi]

Opera has been around for HUNDREDS of years

In west-asia, hardly, but you have the intelligence of a raging donkey. I don't expect you to have any historic knowledge. You're only good for screaming slogans, obscenities and having your one dimensional hysteria being directed wherever is the cause of the moment. So please leave this for adults to discuss.

[Piling]

I just don't think it's optimal for kurds or kurdish interests. They should learn better trades. Instead of singing for rich Europeans, she could create her own business or try banking, f.ex .

Art is NEVER optimal for any people's interest, if you consider only materialist or economical interests. Art is useless, like religions, like literature, like myths. Though art (painting, music) and religion was practiced by humans thousands and thousands of years (Paleolithic) before they began to bank. Proof that it is an essential need.

Banking, lol, as if people need it. Banking is ruining the world, the economy and the ecology… Each time I see a financial man or a trader I yawn. No more annoying and with an empty soul that such people.

[KabirKuhi]

I just don't think it's optimal for kurds or kurdish interests. They should learn better trades. Instead of singing for rich Europeans, she could create her own business or try banking, f.ex .

Art is NEVER optimal for any people's interest, if you consider only materialist or economical interests. Art is useless, like religions, like literature, like myths. Though art (painting, music) and religion was practiced by humans thousands and thousands of years (Paleolithic) before they began to bank. Proof that it is an essential need.

Banking, lol, as if people need it. Banking is ruining the world, the economy and the ecology… Each time I see a financial man or a trader I yawn. No more annoying and with an empty soul that such people.

I'm sure all those things are most useful, when you already have stability, security, strong state that represents your interests, economic and social privileges. I don't see anything wrong with banking, it would help infinitely more in making life easier for kurds. Only the privileged, the bohemians philosophers and idiot idealists like communists hate finance. Because they can afford to hate it. Other people get butchered because they ignore finance, politics and organization. Spirituality, art and literature are only good for mobilizing forces and creating identities.

[Piling]

Don't worry businessmen LOVE arts. They spend sometimes millions of $ to buy it, as Van Gogh's painting who died in misery. And look at all American private foundations.

Financial nababs adore to buy art and artists as they adore to make live a 'cocotte' or 'danseuse'. The true fact is that since the beginning of trading and politics, art is a value, a source of money and power. You have no political power without a court, no court without art, and no art without finances.

You have no civilization without trade, art and recreations, 3 things useless if you want to eat, sleep and fuck (3 basic human needs, as it seems). Civilization is made of useless activities, and in fact if we look at the animal world, all mankind is a useless activity. So why not opera ?

[KabirKuhi]

Don't worry businessmen LOVE arts. They spend sometimes millions of $ to buy it, as Van Gogh's painting who died in misery. And look at all American private foundations.

Financial nababs adore to buy art and artists as they adore to make live a 'cocotte' or 'danseuse'. The true fact is that since the beginning of trading and politics, art is a value, a source of money and power. You have no political power without a court, no court without art, and no art without finances.

You have no civilization without trade, art and recreations, 3 things useless if you want to eat, sleep and fuck (3 basic human needs, as it seems). Civilization is made of useless activities, and in fact if we look at the animal world, all mankind is a useless activity. So why not opera ?

This is the french model for civilization. The narcissistic preoccupation with arts and refining culture and looking good. Bourgeois culture of europe is not universal either. Political power is not established by courts, it's established by communication, legislative courts, commerce, spiritual and cultural identity(which is not the same as arts). Not by women singing in front of an audience and rich men collecting paintings and going to theaters to watch women sing in high pitched tones, or watch a man dressed as a tree singing in german(or any foreign language). They can be used as mediums of mediation though, that is true. Those forms of recreation are good, but it should not be the primary or even a large part of a civilization. I'm sure kurds can defend their interests and themselves from military enroachment by singing and dancing and reading poems in Europe . Most civilizations were successful because of superior military technology/financial policies. Maybe PKK and peshmergas sing poems to defeat their enemies , I know opera could be use in psyops warfare.

[Piling]

With military and financial power, you can make a State, but without culture, you have any nation. A power only based on power is nothing after its fall, only dust (like Gengis Khan's empire). Even Hitler and Stalin tried to give a musical culture to their Empire, so it has probably some political useful, because Stalin was not precisely an idealist.

But power is not the point. Without culture, you have no humans. That's it. We are irrational sort, made to create : philosophy, religion, arts, studies, whatever you want, but only a materialist life is not enough. After all, Kurds have developed many songs and music, and poetry, especially in war : this is a part of propaganda.

In another field, you have sport : No more useless than a soccer match. But Roman emperors knew the utility of circus games to rule a crowd.

Moreover you have an essentialist view of people : Kurds are lite this and that from the beginning and for ever,they like it or not because they are Kurds etc. That's the danger of pro-genetics, perhaps : too much determinism.

Brains are plastic. Culture is plastic. It is a continual 'dan û standin' with foreigners. A 100% indigenous culture is vowed to extinction. As natural defenses in immunology : we need to be bastard in our civilizations as in our genes.

So Kurds might never like opera, or could, once, appreciate it. But for a national opera and ballet, as for a national orchestra, it needs to have a stable and independent state, so it is not for the immediate tomorrow.

[KabirKuhi]

With military and financial power, you can make a State, but without culture, you have any nation. A power only based on power is nothing after its fall, only dust (like Gengis Khan's empire). Even Hitler and Stalin tried to give a musical culture to their Empire, so it has probably some political useful, because Stalin was not precisely an idealist.

atleast you acknowledge that.

But power is not the point. Without culture, you have no humans. That's it. We are irrational sort, made to create : philosophy, religion, arts, studies, whatever you want, but only a materialist life is not enough. After all, Kurds have developed many songs and music, and poetry, especially in war : this is a part of propaganda.

again only someone who has this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_World_privilege and this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_privilege
talks like you do, you should read these articles, instead of blastering on about how important and relevant your POV is . Until you recognize this, you'll keep talking to defend your worldview and your values which are unrealistic in kurdistan and middle-east. They're even unrealistic for kurds who live in western diaspora. If kurdish diasporans listen to you, they'll turn into some group as artists, a circus that no one respects. They'll never mobilize as an influential group. But I guess you can never leave your own POV which is colored by your own experiences as a privileged french lady. It becomes even more obnoxious when you start chastising other groups for not being like yourself or having other goals than your or what is popular for your and your own social circles. Until you recognize this, this debate won't go any further. It will only become you, trying to convince me of some unrealistic POV coming from someone who assumes that everywhere and everyone is like the west and that the conditions of the west is everyone elses. As if your own POV and your own experiences is some sort of fit all for everyone.

Moreover you have an essentialist view of people : Kurds are lite this and that from the beginning and for ever,they like it or not because they are Kurds etc. That's the danger of pro-genetics, perhaps : too much determinism.

Again you're talking about genetics, where it isn't relevant. Where did i make the case that genetics were responsible. I don't base my argument on genetics, i base them on experience and what i read and see. There is no gene for being anti-opera, but you're highly unlikely to see someone from kurdistan like it either.

Brains are plastic. Culture is plastic. It is a continual 'dan û standin' with foreigners. A 100% indigenous culture is vowed to extinction. As natural defenses in immunology : we need to be bastard in our civilizations as in our genes.

Sure, but that's outside of discussion. Also I think kurdistan and middle-east can survive well without opera and most culture from the west. It's not life essential, my grandparents weren't dying, because they didn't watch cinema movies or had opera, or were exposed to french culture. If it happens it should to do so naturally. Not because french people think it should. Overwhelming majority of French wouldn't even give kurdish culture a second( They disregard everyone outside of europe, and western europe as barbarians). The process isn't even reciprocal, as it would naturally be.

So Kurds might never like opera, or could, once, appreciate it. But for a national opera and ballet, as for a national orchestra, it needs to have a stable and independent state, so it is not for the immediate tomorrow.

Unlikely to ever happen, not because of genetics, because it's very foreign and very estoeric.