Tarja dla APU 4 sierpnień 2006

Patty

Tarja Turunen's happy summer
With Marcelo I can be myself

Where ever Tarja Turunen is, Marcelo Cabuli is also there. The couple has dreamed of a time when they can be together 24 hours a day. Now that the dream has come true, Tarja feels more free than ever.

Marcelo had came the day before from his trip to the post office home to Tarja with a big bouquet. It had been three years from the sentimental church wedding in Kitee.
- Though we didn't notice the wedding anniversary before Marcelo's parents in Argentina sent us their congratulations via e-mail, Tarja laughs. Especially her 75-year old mother-in-law will never forget her son's wedding and her first trip to Finland ever.
- The first two days she just cried. She was so happy to be in Finland. She said that she had never seen such beatiful nature and the same kind of peace than in here.
Marcelo doesn't have to explain to his mother why he now lives also in Kuusankoski and plans to stay in Finland in the future. If she thought the country was lovely, so was the finnish daughter-in-law.
- I was the best out of the wife candidates or at least the only one she approved. It might have been because I didn't speak Spanish at the time, so I just smiled. Now she calls me her daughter. She is a very strong mother in the Argentinean way, down there mother is the head of the house.

Cat on the table

Even though Marcelo is Tarja's manager, he has no idea what she is talking about. He can't understand a word. His wife can tell in finnish whatever she sees best. Marcelo has informed in advance that he wants to stay aside and now sits in Kuusankoskitalo's caffee in a near by table writing e-mails to Buenos Aires. His wife is the star of the family, not him. Is this the behavior of a real macho man? The question makes Tarja burst in to a clanging laugh.
- A real macho indeed! This macho let's his wife shine. I have met some real macho men, but Marcelo is really a normal adorable man and down to earth person. Of course the friendly and well-behaving Marcelo has a lot of the South-American temperament, but there's no need to be afraid of it. Though the argentineans may lash out, they can also express their other feelings and talk about them.
- Marcelo has taught me to show my emotions and talk about them freely. We can say everything directly to eachother. We take the cat out on the table immediately and don't stay sulking.

Not a completely normal relationship

Currently the couple spends 24 hours a day togehter and Tarja can't imagine a better state. Yet she has heard that it would be healty for a married couple to spend some time apart. Everyone can't see the intensive being together as normal.
- It's not entirely normal, but our relationship isn't a regular relationship. This is just what we dreamed five or six years ago when we had to spent months apart. Of course we got used to being alone, but especially leaving felt very hard. Already now Tarja feels that being constantly together is purely good for her.
- Together we're at our strongest and best. Marcelo makes me feel free. With him I can be myself with flaws and everything. Marcelo knows everything about me and I know everything about him. He listens and supports me and I really don't feel like a marionette or a barbie.
When Marcelo went to play football the day before, Tarja went with him as audience. Today they intend to go scuba diving with friends.
- What do you see in finnish waters? Perches, roach, pike perches and rarely a salmon. Of course there isn't the same kind of colourfulness that we have met diving in Argentina or Thailand, but it doesn't matter. The colours aren't the most important thing being under water. However we have booked a trip to the shore of Venezuela in February.
Next winter Tarja might take Marcelo ice swimming . If he has wondered something about Finland, it has been swimming in the middle of ice and cross-country skiing. Ice skating was the third matter of wonder, but they tried it last year.
- Finland's winter doesn't terrify Marcelo, on the contrary he loves the snow and cold. In Argentina the winter is moist and it makes the cold go straight trough you. The only thing that Marcelo doesn't like in Finland are the mosquitos, but everything else more than that. I really wouldn't want him to forget his own home country. It has become important for me too.
Her husband was also her support when Tarja was nervous to step on Olavinlinna's consert stage with opera singer Raimo Sirkiä. In the end the performace went excellently and the critics praised, but in advance Marcelo was the only one who could tell her that.
- He calmed me down and said to me for months to go on that stage as myself. When you are yourself, you do everything brilliantly. I was still nervous until I relaxed after the first song. It happens every time.
It says something about the consert's success that the adoring audience applauded the artists back on stage five times. Yet there was at least one person among the audience that shed plenty of tears.
- My first classical singing teacher ever, who taught me at Savonlinna's senior high school's music side, which I went three years until I graduated. Those years were a wonderful time in a wonderful town, which I saw transform into something completely different when winter came. During that time I became independent as I was living out of home for the first time.
After the Olavinlinna consert some said that a few singers can do like Tarja Turunen and make their debut in a place like Olavinlinna's main stage during the Savonlinna opera festival. Though it wasn't the very first time for Tarja.
- I got in the opera festival choir when I was just 19, which was a big thing for a young girl. Although they have made some changes in castle after that the stages and indoor spaces still felt familiar and brought back some wonderful memories. Already in school and since a was a kid music has been an important thing for me, Tarja tells.
Since she was three she became known as the girl from Kitee who, according to herself, sang in every party, big or small.
- I performed for the first time in public in the age of three when I sang in Kitee's church hall En etsi valtaa loistoa sometime before christmas. I was so small that I had to stand on the table. Otherwise everyone would have just heard the voice, but no one would be able to see the singer.
After matriculation examination Tarja went to Helsinki and Sibelius Academy, from where she left three years later to Karlsruhe's music university.
- I wasn't thinking about big estrades back then, but the love for singing. I wanted to learn to use my voice right. Then some unexpected things happened in my life and I can't say where I would have ended up without Nightwish. I doubt I would have became a cantor, even though that occupation was once in my plans.

Not the people in need of luxury

Now they have returned from Savonlinna to normal routines in Kuusankoski, where Tarja and Marcelo set up their home in Finland three years ago and plan to stay in the future. Their close friends live there too, the ones that they can visit whenever unannounced.
- My dearest friend from Sibelius Academy is from here and will work here as a cantor. I have became perhaps too careful at making new friends, Tarja says.
In Kuusankoski she can be in peace. There people just smile kindly to the former singer of Nightwish, who a year ago drove the audience wild with admiration.
- Also nature and quietness fascinate us. Me and Marcelo are genuine nature people, Tarja says.
The couple's little row house apartment has been photographed and wondered from the outside. Shouldn't Nightwish's star have a bit more impressive and magnificent flat?
Tarja laughs. Why should her gather luxury around her if she doesn't need it? She also thinks that the house isn't small, but just the right size for her and her husband.
- A bigger house would need too much cleaning. Marcelo is allergic to dust, so we have to vacuum first when we come back home from a trip. We do housechores everyday togehter. The other one vacuums while the other dusts. We don't have a cleaning lady. It wouldn't be luxury for me to have someone else to take care of my home. Anyhow you dust the best yourself.
In Buenos Aires they have given in to the countries habits.
- There the same woman who cleans Marcelo's office, cleans our house as well. She has many children to support and she does her job well. Besides there homes are differently equipped than in Finland. We don't have for example a washing machine. For a few euros the laundry will be collected from your front door a delivered in a few hours washed and folded. Otherwise the couple doesn't live any more luxuriously in Argentina than in Finland.
- A flat with three rooms and a kitchen in an apartment building is plenty enough for us. Although sometimes we dream of building a big house with the space to sing. Even then I wouldn't want rooms that we wouldn't really be using.
But for example children would fit in the empty rooms.
I turn 29 now in August and my clock isn't ticking yet. However Marcelo is older than me, 36 already. Any plans haven't been made. It will be time for children when our life is in balance. Though, even then you can't just order them like that, Tarja ponders.

With a few setbacks

Already in Savonlinna the Finns have noticed that the distant goth princess from Nightwish can be seen only nowadays on album covers and videos. Tarja's black and straight hair has turn into brown waves and the make up that fitted the hard rock has been replaced with more natural colours. Even the green eyes look to twinkle more softly.
- I still have some searching with my new style, but I enjoy doing it. Clothes, style and fashion have always intrigued me. Apperience is a part of a performer's image and because of that important, Tarja says.
Metal rock is a part of the past also on her solo album, for which new songs are being seeked from different composers. Some people came from the German Universal last week to Kuusankoski to plan her new album, which they start to work on next year.
- On that album the Tarja that I want to be in the future, introduces herself. It was a big challenge for me not to take any conserts for next year. The album won't be clean rock nor classic but it has elements from many kinds of music
- When it's needed I will use some heavier elements and I think some of my fans will be glad about that. However I want to be involved in every step of the way from the arrangements to writing the lyrics, she says.
Tarja doesn't see herself ready for the opera, but she would be intrested in a musical role. She has already gotten some offers.
- I haven't been able to accept any for the time being because of my lack of time. Opera would require a lot of studying and developing my voice, and I don't have time for that, at least not right now. I have a lovely teacher named Marta Blanco in Buenos Aires, but it takes sometimes months before I can see her.
When Tarja practiced her repertoire for Savonlinna last spring, she didn't dare to say even to her teacher in what kind of a place and in front of what kind of an audience she was supposed to perform those songs.
- I'll be pleased when I return to Argentina in the fall. I feel rewarded for the job I have done.
Though this summer hasn't gone by without any setbacks.
- When Argentina lost in the football's world championship match, we were so irritated, that Marcelo grieved for two days and I had to go for a walk in the woods. We watch the games very closely, I think we missed only two games.

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