From Fred Crafts' interview with Thomas Quasthoff, in the Eugene
Register-Guard, 6/30:

   Singing with the Berlin Philharmonic is like being given "a warm coat
   on a winter night...  my feeling and the feeling of the audience was
   the same:  `Please don't let it end'."

   When the concert does end, TQ needs (especially after "Winterrise")
   an hour to be "in this world again"...  because "you build up during
   the concert so much tension and you have to calm down."

   But, instead of "having a beer with friends," there is a ritual few
   artists ever had the courage to complain about -

   "In America, you have, excuse me, that bad tradition of receptions,
   which I don't like very much.  These official things where you sit
   like an animal in the zoo and 50 or 60 or 70 people are coming and
   say, `Thank you.  It was great,' and you have always to say `Thank
   you very much, it was very nice.'

   "I know that it's important, but I'm honest enough to say that I
   don't like the official celebrations after the concerts very much.
   To hang around with my friends, where I have not to choose and think
   about every word that I say, I prefer much more."

   Another complaint:  journalists.  "You can imagine, especially with
   my disability, in Germany, the yellow press tried a lot to write
   articles about me, to come into my home and to write this tragic
   blah, blah, blah.  I said, `Oh, no.  You...  don't do it with me.
   I'm a serious artist, and I don't want to give a place for you to
   look into my privacy, because my privacy is a very holy thing and I
   don't need to publish this in any kind of newspaper.' Very simple.

   "I want to be judged as an international artist that I am, and about
   the quality of my singing, and not about my disability...  What people
   are reading this kind of magazines? People who are interested in the
   life of Queen Elizabeth or Queen Beatrix.  Definitely, after reading
   an article like this, they will not buy one CD more of mine.  I don't
   want to have one journalist in my house.  Really, no.

   "I'm now 42, and I have in my past time had very difficult years,
   very difficult years.  And I'm now on a level where I say I only want
   to enjoy my life, and I want to live together with other people...
   people who are nice, who are relaxed, who are enjoying life immensely."

   About his fame as an artist (not as the subject of tabloid journalism):
   "I sometimes have to bit my finger to realize if it's really real or
   not.  Sometimes, I have a little bit the feeling that this is a film,
   and I don't know the director, but the theme of the film I like very,
   very much."

No, in spite of Quasthoff's disappointment in the outcome of the World Cup
final, he did not mention the Berlin Phil and "Wintereise" in the same
sentence.

The responsibility belongs to me, carried away by the Brazilian victory
at 4 a.m.  local time and keeping only one eye on the long article I was
quoting from.

Obrigado.

Janos Gereben/SF
In Oregon, to July 8
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