Tarja dla MeNaiset sierpień 2006

czarnycharakter

Tarja Turunen "No need to be harsh anymore"

Six months ago Tarja Turunen got a letter from her job saying that the soprano's services were no longer needed. Atfer the first shock came a complete renovation, in which she got rid off black colour and the bad feeling.

"Now I have the courage to laugh"

Savonlinna, a town with population under 30 000 people, is crowded during the Opera festival. The market-places are filled with opera lovers drinking coffee and eating Savonlinna's style made pies and on the terraces waitors are bringing as much vendaces as they can carry to the hungry customers.
But you can find something more bizarre from the town's streets than fish and pastry. Something like a man with black, curly hair, wearing Finland's football team's shirt climbing up a hill while talking fiercly on the phone. On his waist hangs a belt bag. You can't be mistaken about him! That's Argentinean Marcelo Cabuli. The same guy who walked his wife Tarja Turunen to the president's independence day reception wearing a fine leather tuxedo.
Marcelo and Tarja are staying in Kasino islands on the shore of Saimaa during the Opera festival. Surrounded by a living-room table and a beige couch the soprano says that she didn't want to go to a hotel.
- In home accommodation it's nicer to live and you can cook whenever you want. And look at that view! When we arrived we were both so excited. We can swim whenever we want and we won't scare people with our wetsuits in public beaches.
In wetsuits? Excatly. From their holiday in Thailand last autumn Tarja and Marcelo brought as a souvenier an intrest for diving. Since the a water in Finland isn't always that warm they bought wetsuits. Now the couple tries to dive whenever it's possible.
- In our next vacation I'd like to go to Egypt. I've heard that the water is clear and good for diving there.
Saimaa's water has gone under 20 °C despite the the warm weather. It's damn cold if you swim around half of the free day like Turunen. And the singer can't afford to get sick now. The day after tomorrow she is supposed to perform in a second consert with tenor Raimo Sirkiä. The first consert was a few days ago and got good reviews. For example Helsingin Sanomat wrote: "A few can make their debut as a soloist for a opera repertoire during the Savonlinna opera festival, but soprano Tarja Turunen managed to do just that."

Me in Savonlinna?

In fact Turunen's first performance in Savonlinna's opera festival was in 1998. Back then she sang in the opera choir. She knows Olavinlinna, whose audience is suitable for two and a half thousand people, inside and out. Studies in Savonlinna's senior high school's music side made the town familiar.
A year ago Turunen got a phone call asking if she wanted to sing in Savonlinna's opera festival.
- I didn't think about it for long. I said of course. I had to make sure later if they were really serious.
Back then she had her hands full of Nightwish. Getting the front woman from a heavy metal band to the opera festival was the scheme of artistic director Raimo Sirkiä and opera leader Jan Hult.
Repertoire consisted of opera arias, musical melodies, Nightwish songs arrenged for an orchestra and other light music, like rock. The audience liked it and Sirkiä and Turunen were
applauded back on stage five times.
The next day people came to say their thanks from face to face.
-Marcelo asked me was the whole town at the consert.

The whole woman under renovation

The size of the stages she performs on, isn't the only thing in Turunen's life that has changed. Everything that happened last winter has also changed her. On the outside you can see the diffrence from the clothes and hair: they aren't black anymore. There has probably never been a music magazine cover with Tarja Turunen posing in white clothes. In the band her image was cold, distant and unattainable.
- I started to do sports in the spring and the good feeling came back. I decided to put the whole woman under repairs. I was already bored with the black hair that made me look hard and cold. I sat on the hairdresser's chair and cosmetician's chair and was loving every moment. Now I can laugh.
Turunen tells that last autumn's events and getting throught them affected other things than just the colour of her hair. She has found more self-confidance and sureness from the new conserts and the people she has met. She is now more sensitive to good, but also to bad feeling.
Also the musical style has changed. Tarja did different sort of music while still in the band, but she'll start to work on her first solo album in the beginning of next year. Before that, there is a tour with the christmas album and two gigs in Russia. She hasn't arranged a single gig for next year, because she plans to focus on doing the album.
- The music will be a combination of what I have done before. I may use some heavier elements in some songs, but it isn't going to be chaotic mixture. I feel that I have more freedom musically now. It might be hard to prove to a heavy metal band why we need three piano ballads on an album.
Manager-husband Marcelo sits on the couch typing his computer during the interview. It's impossible to say if he's dealing with Tarja's press connections or playing minesweeper. His face softeness only when talking to Tarja.

First vacation in years

Nightwish lept to world fame in 1999. After that the band was taken from one place to the other: Germany, Argentina, Chile, Panama... Brakes from touring were spent in the recording studio doing a new album. For seven years Turunen and other members of the band - Tuomas Holopainen, Marco Hietala, Erno Vuorinen and Jukka Nevalainen - toured consert locations. I used to watch a few movies and read a couple of books, Turunen thinks back. Festival gigs made sure that she didn't have to stress about what to do in the summer.
- This is my first summer holiday in seven years. During the whole time the band was together we had only one free Midsummer.
She says that she can now choose when she wants to practice. In the middle of June she had a real vacation. Tarja and Marcelo returned from their other home in Buenos Aires to Finland then. It's winter in Argentina now. Three rooms and a kitchen are waiting thousands of kilometres away. Inhabitants will return only after the South-America's winter doesn't go right trought you.
- I would like to show Marcelo Finnish nature and Lapland on my vacation. We dream of getting a summer cottage from here sometime. It would also be fantastic to go around Finland or Norway or other parts of Europe with a recreational vehicle. I have good memories of that. We have talked about renting an RV.
Teenagers usually say that being on a summer cottage isn't a good way to spend a summer. Instead Tarja came with her family on trips from Kitee to Kesälahti still when she was 15. Tarja says that her puberty appeared mostly being mad at herself and the walls. As an easy child she didn't question the life on the road.
- I did nothing except lounged. I didn't have to stress about anything. Perhaps I learned to tolerate being in small spaces back then. But touring is different and a lot harder - especially if you have any problems with sleeping in a buss.

Love walks beside her

Marcelo Cabuli walks beside her for the sixth year. Wherever Tarja is, Marcelo is also close by. Looking from the outside the relationship seems symbiotic. The unit Tarja&Marcelo has also been watched by the people in Savonlinna, because on their free days the couple could have been seen in the movies or in the market place. They have also eaten some pies made Savonlinna's style- oh well, tried to eat.
- I tried to offer Marcelo an apple pie, but he thought it was too sweet. We don't usually eat anything sweet. Cookies and buns attend to stay in the cupboard.
The time they spent apart early on in their relatotionship convinced them that they definetly wanted to be together. They met in 2000 in Chile, where Nightwish was on their South-American tour. Marcelo's role extended from a tour promoter to a boyfriend in a couple of weeks.
Marcelo did promote the band while being a boyfriend as well, but the new role didn't please everyone. When Turunen was fired from Nightwish, the band claimed that Marcelo had changed Tarja and taken her own free will. Later Marcelo wrote a letter that said that bands composer-lyricist-keyboarder Holopainen had a crush on Tarja.
Accusations and explanations have been heard from both sides, a book has come out and several media analysis. The final truth can't be found from magazine headlines.
But Marcelo, he came to Finland to stay. The longest time the couple has spent apart has been a month. On Marcelo's first visit to Finland Tarja rented a car and introduced Finland all the way up to Jyväskylä and Kuopio.
- I said this is it. Lakes and forests. Marcelo was thrilled. He said that this is paradise, the most beautiful women are here, Turunen recalls her husbands enthusiasm. After the trees and lakes Turunen booked two tickets to a cruise to Sweden. There was something else to see: the studios of Marcelo's favourite band Abba.
Marcelo was sold. At the moment he is Tarja's manager. He deals with Tarja's press relations and schedules, so that Tarja can consentrate on singing. During interviews Marcelo sits firmly on his place even though he can't understand Finnish. Sometimes the couple exchanges a few words in Spanish. Or Marcelo gives Tarja secretly a hug.

Nightwish on the attic in boxes

On the outside there isn't much left from Nightwish's Tarja. The performance outfits she gathered during the years are folded in cardboard boxes on Tarja's friends attic.
- A little time ago I went to see what clothes there were. I was shocked, eight boxes of clothes! I went through the consert outfits and was thrilled about the clothes I found. This and this oh, and this too...we admired with my friend. I could never give or throw them away.
She has no clue about the present state of Nightwish. She suspects that someone else might know the band's situation better. Besides the eight boxes of clothes she has memories, good memories left from Nightwish.
Even thought Turunen did several other gigs, christmas conserts and opera performances, during her Nightwish days, she will be remembered from Nightwish and she will always be the one who was fired from the band.
- That sort of a tittle stays for long time. I'm not sorry about that and I can understand it. Sure singer Tarja Turunen would sound better.
The ground work for her solo album is in good state. The package called Tarja Turunen is almost ready, some finishing touches are still needed.