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Ermonela Jaho confesses career challenges: I listed my dreams in a diary, I realized them

2023-10-07 09:23:44Aktualitet SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Ermonela Jaho confesses career challenges: I listed my dreams in a diary, I
Ermonela Jaho

The well-known soprano Ermonela Jaho was today the next guest in the second season of the "Flasim" podcast of Prime Minister Edi Rama. Jaho ku confessed like never before the challenges she has encountered during her career, the importance of the people who encouraged her to follow her dreams and the "struggle" made to never abandon the latter.

Ermonela Jaho is the artist, who behind the successes, awards and achievements in her career hides experiences and stories lived in pursuit of her dreams. According to her, the desire and passion to pursue the latter are behind her success.

INTERVIEW
Prime Minister Edi Rama: The fourth episode of the second season of the "Flasim" Podcast has a very special protagonist. A name, which, especially girls and boys, who I happened to meet in various activities, have heard from time to time that I mention it as an example, an example that embodies the truth that when one sees with open eyes a dream, no matter how big it is, if he has all the internal powers to follow it, he manages to realize it. Ermonela Jaho.

Ermonela Jaho: Thank you!

Prime Minister Edi Rama: Because you are truly the embodiment of this, according to me. I often tell the girls and boys I meet that "Do you know Ermonela Jahon? Have you heard?" and then I continue "Ermonela Jaho when she was at the Artistic Lyceum was in the group of those who learned canto, the one on whom everyone would place the most timid bet because no one saw her as a future soprano on stage and Ermonela Jaho at that time he said "I will sing at La Scala".

Ermonela Jaho: I was sure.

Prime Minister Edi Rama: Which, for those who listened, also encouraged the idea that this girl...

Ermonela Jaho: There is something not working.

Prime Minister Edi Rama: This girl ishalla is not made for medicine. However, time showed that you sang at "La Scala" and not only at "La Scala", but you climbed all the scales and sang and continue to sing on the most prestigious stages of the world. How is this done?

Ermonela Jaho: There is no formula, to be honest, without making a lot of history. The only formula is something internal, it is that energy, that fire that each of us has when we set a goal for ourselves. With an extraordinary work because even the most beautiful dream, even the one that seems extraordinary, let's say, needs a very big work because if dreams were captured so easily, they would not have this magic.

I loved it so much. Maybe over time I realized that singing was the channel where I channeled those feelings of mine said, unsaid where fantasy flies and there is no limit.

To be very honest, now I'm saying it, I've kept a diary, a diary as I would like, that is, that dream that started somewhere, right here, in the Palace of Pioneers and others until one day I would like to sing La Traviata at La Scala, Desdemona and Otello and others in all the theaters of the world. Kind of crazy, but it was this fantasy that I had made into a list; I will get here, I will do this, I will do that and I have this diary to this day.

The other reality, when I went to high school, as you mentioned, there was a kind of incredulity, the only one who believed in me was my brother and my father, who probably because he wanted me to fly with my dreams, not just stop at the things that they were a little limited and today I say that young people have the opportunities. For example, having a pianoforte class was impossible when I studied at the Lyceum, even I remember waking up at 5 in the morning, whoever got up first with the cleaner would open the Lyceum door and whoever arrived first would catch a class with pianoforte. Sometimes, when the door was closed, I climbed out of the window, a couple of times I ripped my pants, but it was that great desire.

There's nothing stopping you because I wanted it, it was a spiritual need. This was the reality that I touched with my hand and the beautiful reality, that fantasy, that energy that I was looking at, drawing, projecting where I wanted to reach.

Going back now, I read it, this is a Notebook that those pages have become as if it has a centuries-old history, but it is because it was written in every kind of moment, when I cried, when I was sad, happy, when I was with bread in my hand writing and when I read it now I am touched, but I am also very proud because everything, as if the world has turned on the other side, all those things that I had written in fantasy and above, I have passed them all.

I say this not to show what I did, but it is also a message to whom I am telling the students now - because I am doing a workshop, the fourth one - that nothing is impossible. Dreams when you see them with your eyes closed and with your eyes open, you see them for real.

Prime Minister Edi Rama: Those with closed eyes when you are sleeping, even lead you in wrong directions, so I am talking about those with open eyes.

Ermonela Jaho: As if I visualized it. It's like the universe pushed this dream of mine to help you, when you love something with a soul pathologically, I would say, it's a kind of energy. I am a big believer in energy because the Universe is energy.

Prime Minister Edi Rama: Since I have the privilege and it's a privilege to know you, you cut me a little slack with that "you", so please don't talk to me as "you".

Ermonela Jaho: It is out of respect for...

Prime Minister Edi Rama: When we are apart, he doesn't talk to you, as I remember. So, I would say that knowing you and having listened to you on the few occasions that we have had the opportunity to talk, energy, fantasy, dreams, all of these, in fact, have a bed, which is like a cultivated land shedding tears and as many tears as sweat, to cultivate the seed of this dream to water it, to protect it from hail, to feed it with sun, to grow it without letting it break.

It would be good for me to learn something more on this occasion, but also for you to share, together with those who follow us, this part, the invisible part on the stage, the unspoken part of how much physical work and how much it took a lot of hard work to get where you are.

Ermonela Jaho: It is a job that never ends. To this day, I get up every morning, I do my physical exercises, I have found a kind of rhythm because singing, you have the instrument with you and it is conditioned by the spiritual state, by the physical state, we sing without a microphone and our microphone is the body. I tell this to the students and young singers that it is not only sung with the voice and only this part here resonates. The whole body is an instrument, you sing with the whole body. I am discovering it day by day, even by falling because one learns a lot even from mistakes. I also had very difficult moments when I said to leave it altogether, but sometimes time tests passion, especially in the most difficult moments.

It's that search, it was something that I could stay one night, two nights to sleep that "I'll leave now" because a person despairs for many reasons, subjective and objective things and reasons, but it's that fire, something inside that doesn't leave you and it is an ongoing search that does.

I have asked a lot physically, physiologically, professionally and it never ends. It's an ongoing quest and I still do it to this day, simple exercises, it could be going to the gym.

This is what I say to young students: "Ok, you're going to look beautiful, you're going to look fit, I understand that, but think that the first thing will serve you technically, you'll improve technically" and you I explain the ways they have to work with the physical to help and this technical side that you sing without a microphone, you can give any kind of expression, a cry and a laugh through the voice, but it is the whole body that supports it. This is your microphone, the whole body because singing is something very emotional, spiritual and every body movement we make has a meaning and I'm very diligent in a pathological way that I see every movement, I'm studying when the sound comes out. It's a job that never ends and it's a daily thing. Two days ago I sang La Rondine, an opera by Puccini, and it was the fourth performance. And I have been on stage for 30 years. Again, on the day of the performance, I went three hours ahead, doing exercises to find those new things that day, because our body does not change every day, especially for singers, and being something physical, you have to find the best. That standard of yours must not be lowered. You will not be 100%, but in the most difficult moment, it should not go below 70%.

Prime Minister Edi Rama: I want to go a little more concretely. For example, you took me once, I remember a long time ago a boxing video. Training with boxing gloves and hitting that punching bag over and over because a few days ago or when we met he had talked to me about physical training and you brought me that video and said: here's an example and boom, boom! How many types of physical activity do you do, not in the sense of how many hours, but what type. When it comes to boxing I think that...

Ermonela Jaho: Running, weights, barbells, swimming, rope. For example 500 jump rope every morning! That's my coffee. Before I drink coffee, 500 jump rope, 500 jumps because it's the lung capacity that helps in singing and increases that stamina of being an athlete. Especially today Opera has reached another dimension. You are an athlete, you have to be an actor and things, the pace is so intense that you don't even have time to breathe and prepare your body, voice, etc., but especially the physical side that helps a lot. We rehearse, in a normal production 7-8 hours a day. But always having this adrenaline because it's not like you rehearse for 3,4,5,6 hours and you say come on I'm singing a bit, I'm singing slower here. You're on adrenaline for 6-7 hours and that's just this physical training, and that's when the morning starts with 500 rope jumps, then with weights. You start doing these squats when you find a gym near the theater or near the apartment you got in that period where you are going to sing, a gym with barbells. So then, when he starts singing, he feels the difference because he feels all the muscles of his body. Or on the yoga ball without leaning on any place, simply standing in balance, you will support 100% otherwise you will fall off the ball. Sometimes these are the ways of explaining: breathing should be like this. They make it very intellectual, much more direct. I put them in the ball, but cloud from the ball means that it doesn't work. You have to work to do these exercises, etc. These are my exercises that I do every day, especially as people age, they lose that muscle mass. So, let's postpone that retirement a bit I say. You have to work much harder because the competition is great. There are plenty of young voices. Very beautiful voices and staying after 30 years again with a very demanding, very demanding repertoire, a repertoire that requires the physique and that power of the 20-30 year old. We are in our 50s so I feel proud that I can still keep up at this pace but as a result of this work it is not that there is any secret. You have to have that patience, where others see some kind of annoyance, they say: am I going to do this again? Where you bother, I have seen success. That's the difference. But you have to love it! Don't find fault with "not that I don't have this or that, no, I'm missing this", precisely that lack makes you more sensitive and the artist needs that spiritual damage, I call it. Very beautiful voices and staying after 30 years again with a very demanding, very demanding repertoire, a repertoire that requires the physique and that power of the 20-30 year old. We are in our 50s so I feel proud that I can still keep up at this pace but as a result of this work it is not that there is any secret. You have to have that patience, where others see some kind of annoyance, they say: am I going to do this again? Where you bother, I have seen success. That's the difference. But you have to love it! Don't find fault with "not that I don't have this or that, no, I'm missing this", precisely that lack makes you more sensitive and the artist needs that spiritual damage, I call it. Very beautiful voices and staying after 30 years again with a very demanding, very demanding repertoire, a repertoire that requires the physique and that power of the 20-30 year old. We are in our 50s so I feel proud that I can still keep up at this pace but as a result of this work it is not that there is any secret. You have to have that patience, where others see some kind of annoyance, they say: am I going to do this again? Where you bother, I have seen success. That's the difference. But you have to love it! Don't find fault with "not that I don't have this or that, no, I'm missing this", precisely that lack makes you more sensitive and the artist needs that spiritual damage, I call it. We are in our 50s so I feel proud that I can still keep up at this pace but as a result of this work it is not that there is any secret. You have to have that patience, where others see some kind of annoyance, they say: am I going to do this again? Where you bother, I have seen success. That's the difference. But you have to love it! Don't find fault with "not that I don't have this or that, no, I'm missing this", precisely that lack makes you more sensitive and the artist needs that spiritual damage, I call it. We are in our 50s so I feel proud that I can still keep up at this pace but as a result of this work it is not that there is any secret. You have to have that patience, where others see some kind of annoyance, they say: am I going to do this again? Where you bother, I have seen success. That's the difference. But you have to love it! Don't find fault with "not that I don't have this or that, no, I'm missing this", precisely that lack makes you more sensitive and the artist needs that spiritual damage, I call it.

Prime Minister Edi Rama: Two more things in this section. I also remember you telling me once that you had created a type of training that came from studying your body internally to physically train certain muscles that the training we usually do doesn't go.

Ermonela Jaho: Yes, this comes at the moment when I studied phoniatrics. Phoniatry is that branch of medicine, but very professional, that only deals with singing as a profession. Not just otolaryngologist and this is something that is missing, it is missing in all schools and it is very important because you don't know your instrument. I actually started this when I had a moment of crisis and they didn't answer me. We have those moments when I touch the bottom a little and I said before I leave, those are the difficult moments. I still couldn't make peace because I didn't have all the cards in order to say: one and one make two here. "It is not possible for me to move forward. Let's end this journey here!"

It was something one felt. We are created in such a way that we get a kind of anxiety, something unfulfilled. And what I thought, I said: maybe I'm not good, the instrument. And I studied phoniatrics and there I understood some muscles. What were those muscles? It's the neck muscles. The singer is always tight because he is emotional. Sometimes the neck muscle, there are some exercises that are also done with weights or breathing exercises, which I do. Hop on this yoga ball and the tension so you don't fall off the ball has to be 100% here, take the tension off here. It's easy to say that I myself have it, sometimes I catch myself, that I have to pull my neck muscles because it's emotional, someone feels the music in this way and muscles start to enter, some elements that you have to be more relaxed. So one by one I took this information and somehow created for myself the exercises that help these muscles. And the other thing is the breathing or the weights or the bandaging also of the muscles back to give that resonance case. I also tell singers that you can have a voice, I'm not saying small, a modest voice, an ordinary voice, but you can do extraordinary things. The extraordinary is that passion that you have to put your soul into once. The extraordinary is that extraordinary work that if others are satisfied with what nature has given them that sometimes when nature gives you a fantastic instrument, it is not our credit, but you fall asleep saying: I have a beautiful voice", etc. The moment when you have some things, something modest, normal, ordinary, extraordinary is that passion,

In fact, I also sometimes send these videos to the students that I am riding on the ball myself or when it jumps to that cube that can depend on the height that I try as high as I want to show that "wait now it happens like this" to show the example, but I have to do it myself because it's easy. This is also something I really like about the pedagogy that I have started and I am continuing because I am still able to do it myself and the moment you convey it, it is easy to say: you will do this, you can talk with beautiful words. But when they see him doing it, you, who are twice the age of that student, give him a kind of push, make him responsible. So, these are the exercises that, let's say, have worked for me from a technical point of view that still keep me in shape and I see that they serve you and young singers.

Prime Minister Edi Rama: The second thing I had to continue is this old thing that I am repeating several times, but correct me if I am wrong. I remember asking you once. But okay, okay, you got it all. You climbed all the stages, received all the ovations in all the reviews of information or criticism of operatic music, occupied all the front pages.

What's left to achieve but to keep repeating. And you told me: I have a goal", he said, my personal goal to be the longest-lived singer at that level. Are we there? Have we reached it or do we have a drop?

Ermonela Jaho: A little more.

Prime Minister Edi Rama: Who has been ahead?

Ermonela Jaho: Before there was Edita Gruberova, a coloratura singer, a thinner voice, I will mention an Albanian terminology. Another Mariella Devia soprano, but in a certain repertoire. I am trying to do what I am doing. My repertoire is a lot, it has a range of colors, which is not simple in a direction that characterizes me this kind of repertoire of this composer in a technical attitude and stays faithful to him. I've started swimming in a wider range of repertoire and so far we're on the right track, but to that personal goal I add two more goals. That a person is taught, he is not satisfied with a little later. Always want more and more.

The other goal is that every time I go on stage, I don't want after 30 years, when they say, I don't want it to be just a beautiful performance with a standing ovation, etc., but I want it to be a spiritual journey because it is human, universal feelings that lead to a another dimension that reveals another world of the human spirit, that goes beyond grades, beyond that great success. There is a kind of magic that sometimes becomes a kind of drug, because it is not that you will always catch it, because it also depends on the team's play, because it has that magical effect when we all have that mental and spiritual openness to go in that direction. Be a spiritual journey. And the third,

Prime Minister Edi Rama: Now you brought me to the next part because I think this part is very important, in your ascension, which has to do with the fact that you went to the Artistic High School from a very ordinary family in the best sense of the word.

Ermonela Jaho: Military family

Prime Minister Edi Rama: So, not any family with an access, so to speak, with a connection to these things, not any family different from any very ordinary family of that difficult period where poverty was the general status, it was not a status of a certain category and on the other hand this whole dream of yours, there was practically only you and the support of the family, but the support of the family was support for the chick to do what she wants and that she will succeed, but no more than that's it.

Ermonela Jaho: They supported me a lot psychologically.

Prime Minister Edi Rama: While the opportunities were completely limited either at home, at school, or in the daily life of the country then and today, I constantly notice something very interesting in my work; that the children, meaning the students and then the students who excel, in a significant part, come from difficulty, not from comfort, and I remember when we did an initiative a few years ago together with Lindita Nikolla, she was the Minister of Education at that time to send some students who had just finished high school to Istanbul Technological University with some scholarships. I say, very simply, "take the list of results and start with the student with the most absolute results." Call the families personally and tell them, we have this opportunity, you want it, you don't want it". There were 10 scholarships, if I'm not mistaken, and the girl who was the first - as Lindita told me with great emotion, - was the first in results in Albania that year, graduated from high school, she was the daughter of a parent, of a father who had a small kiosk, a cinema in Kavajë and he was one of 7 children and when Lindita called him on the phone and told him "I am the Minister of Education and I am responsible for this", he thought it was someone making fun and said "please my madam, because we have problems, we have our work and we don't need you to make fun of me because I work from morning until dinner for those children'' and then at the end, of course, he understood, he was happy, etc., and Lindita told me : "I have seen all 10 of them and most of them come from low-income families." Meanwhile, I myself have seen in a village at the end of the world when they say, above in the rural part of Shkodra, 3 girls in a house with a leaking roof, in the kitchen who taught with an umbrella and were excellent, while bringing out from apathy the comfort of beautiful voices, but coming from apathy, is, I think, not an easy part of the pedagogy of today. And in order not to prolong that maybe I was a little too long, your example is a very radiant example, even very inspiring in the first place for all those who have a dream and who at certain moments think that they cannot succeed, not that they are not good, but they do not have the support base that those who are in a "comfort zone" have.

And your example is indicative for all these children, for these girls and for these boys. I constantly see it in good students, in very good students, that among them there are many students who come from difficult family situations and would find it easier than all the others to say "no, no, no" .., this is missing, that is missing'' but in the absence there is also weakness, but it is also the source of strength.

Ermonela Jaho: The source of strength. It's very true. The same thing, it's very interesting, I thought the same thing at the beginning when I left, because I left for Italy when I was 18 years old and I always said to myself: "why do I come from Albania when I see my peers who have this, this , I don't have this..''

Now I say, it should be that journey because you understand the value and have that stimulus, when you lack something, if you love it with all your heart, and work towards it, that lack is like the work of that worm that pushes you and pushes you and pushes, to achieve if you really want to, that not everyone has to become an artist, right? Not everyone should become a doctor or ..

So even to this day, that journey was needed, because those privations give you something more, give you a more reason to achieve something you want, and this is also my spiritual obligation when talking about the students.

Prime Minister Edi Rama: You went to Italy and won a competition?

Ermonela Jaho: I actually won a master class of Katia Ricciarelli in '93 and then she promised to keep us, because I told her "I want to study, I dream of bel canto, Italian, etc.", after two or three months abandoned, left me, because she had some personal things of her own. He got out of the word about many things, but also taking the lives of these students on his wings. And I decided to stay without the financial side and said; "how could I stay in Italy, I don't want to go back to Albania, not that I lacked anything, because we have been taught to be very close, that is, that connection with the family and for an Albanian, for a Balkan, to take away the family is like taking away his soul. Then for an 18-year-old in '93 and I told those organizers of the Master Class in Mantova, I said "I'm ready to babysit, clean, wash, deal with anything, just give me the chance to prove myself. I want to become an opera singer. When they looked at you, we talked about '93... you come from Albania, you will become a lyrical singer, when in that period ships came...

That is, we had a kind of knowledge that evil makes more noise. It's like an avalanche, now it's the opposite and I wanted to fight more prejudices and mentalities. It was extremely difficult, but they saw that I loved him, I loved him immensely. So I started.. my first lek, not eating for the first few days because I couldn't accept begging. I said no, I will work as a babysitter, but I will pay for myself the moment I get paid for the work I am doing. So I had a few days at a time, those first days I went a week without eating bread.

I had a place to sleep, but I said no, I have things to eat, people, family that would keep me and in that one week as if he comes back, - I don't know now to find the main words, the right ones - as if he sees another world . You see that passion, destiny in the sense of what you test and love this thing with all your heart, or you go home. A lot of things, you start to have hallucinations because after 4-5 days, I was a fat chick, but whatever my mother's food, pies and others, I was a fat chick and it was a very decisive moment. I was a teenager, but it was one of the most difficult moments, but also very significant because it opened another window for me and it was also a kind of philosophy that taught me that if you want something, it will always be put to the test. And when you heard that my father graduated from philosophy, I used to hear these expressions that I really enjoyed. I liked that they had meaning, you were taking them as beautiful expressions, I'm not telling them as a fairy tale, more or less, and then these words came to me and I said this is that moment. So, in Italy I spent this period working as a babysitter, as a cleaner, taking care of the elderly and meanwhile I was knocking on the door of Santa Cecilia, please listen to me a little bit, a professor, someone over there, to the other one here, it's not that I was asking for alms, but I was asking so much, with so much soul, my desperation was visible in my eyes and I remember when I started the auditions that they gave me, because I wanted to prove that I was worth it, I remember my voice was shaking and I still have this emotionality today when I enter the stage and they were looking at that passion and the journey has been long so that we don't make history now, but that's how it started. The first competition has started after I received the first two lek and I used it to buy a train ticket because I could not get enough until then, and I used the rest to buy books. They seemed to me, when I went to Casa Ricordi we had seen the film with Verdi, the Bellini films that were black and white and I had them in my mind, they were part of that diary and it seemed to me that all that journey that I had written, I was living it in that moment. I'm not even saying that you are living in a dream, but it was something that I was touching with my hand and that's how these first lek started. I didn't get many opportunities to fly, to take a plane, to try bigger things, but the ones I tried little by little, when they say to her with a heavy leg, they made me win a competition. The first competition where I got a few lek more. The second competition gave a role to debut that experience was everything, but I was like that, I was absorbed by everyone and it has remained with me to this day when I see a movement, even a movement of a child like screaming, I say ah see how he holds his tongue, see how he holds his diaphragm because it's natural, it's something natural. So until we reached one thing at a time, until here and the study is still going on.

Prime Minister Edi Rama: Now to end the suffering, I always ask a question to those I invite here, since all those I invite, in different ways, with different talents, for different reasons are people who make a success . I wonder if there was a moment when you said "I left it", but you said it yourself. So, tell me a moment, tell me exactly how it was a moment when you were depressed and what came to you and you thought "I can't take it anymore".

Ermonela Jaho: There were two moments, among some of them, but the two main ones. I remember one, I was 25-26 years old. Because I wanted to sing, sing, sing, I had the opportunities, every contract that came, I took it. To prove myself, even financially, to make a living and I went at such a high speed that I went against my nature and had a moment when I stopped singing. It didn't work, it didn't work anymore, I couldn't sing a sound. And I remember, I went to one of these phoniatrists who held the best in Italy, without telling him who I was, what I had or didn't have, that I started my career very early and the first thing he said to me was how old you told me, 25 I told him. You are in time, he said, your vocal chords, he said, with these chords, he said, you will never become a singer. It's like I lost my mind. Okay. You are never going to be a singer. You're still in time. Change direction and move on to something else. This was a moment that really sunk me down. That was the moment that again, it's an inner voice, it's something that didn't convince me... So I started studying phoniatry and other things I said before. The other time was when I was in my career and I was a main guest in Japan, with the 'Royal Opera House', not Euronews, not CNN, it was something very big and the 'Royal Opera House' presented Traviata with me. At that time, I had lost my mother and I didn't tell anyone. I said this is my problem, I didn't want mercy. But when you lose a parent, it's something you can't control. It is a pain that does not know where it will explode. I hadn't cried, I was complete... and I'm not a person who doesn't feel or I'm not sensitive, but surprisingly I was numb because I didn't expect it, because my mother passed away very early, 58 years old. I remember going on stage for La Traviata. I started the act, during the vocals everything was fine. I enter the stage with all my heart, singing those words, because they are always sad stories, and I was seized with a feeling of pain, a feeling of emptiness that completely lost my concentration, I could not sing. Hall full of 5 thousand people. It is one of the biggest halls in Japan, I had all the cameras, diplomatic corps... I said this is the end of my career, but I said that later. I was sitting, I couldn't sing, the words didn't come to me, the conductor said let's leave it here. It was something I could not allow myself. I sang it even when I was sick. It is enough for you to be able to speak a little, with technique you can even sing when you are sick, only if you have laryngitis, next thing and I remember finishing the first act, I felt so ashamed as if my world had turned upside down. How much it had cost me to present the 'Royal Opera House' in Japan to all the televisions of the world, to all the media, to the diplomatic corps, and I was presenting myself as an Albanian. I closed the first act, apologized, came out and said my career is over here. There was a moment when I didn't love myself anymore.

Prime Minister Edi Rama: Was the show interrupted?

Ermonela Jaho: No, because I had the substitute and the conductor said you will try it. No I said, the show must go on. The replacement came out. I kissed him on the forehead, as my mother used to kiss me, and I told him to go on, I remember it, it seemed as if the world was dark, as if no one was talking to me, as if everyone was pointing at me. That was your career. And the same opera, it was Traviata, I'm back in Japan now in June. The media wrote that it is normal.

Prime Minister Edi Rama: Here came the one that doesn't sing.

Ermonela Jaho: Exactly. But I'm back now and it's my Traviata 310. I said I'll be back, I have to make peace. I had never accepted the offers from Japan after that episode because it's something that, it's a kind of memory to wake up at that moment and I went and did Traviata, again now in June and it all came back, they remembered it, and there was a great success and I said we made peace with that too. That void was also filled. These were two of the moments.

Prime Minister Edi Rama: Even to close this part, in the meantime you have had extraordinary satisfactions.

Ermonela Jaho: Absolutely, Yes!

Prime Minister Edi Rama: What was your greatest satisfaction? That is, when was the moment when you felt riding on the shoulders of your dream. Here, I arrived.

Ermonela Jaho: It was Traviata, it was Traviata again. My dream began here, when I first saw Traviata at the Opera and Ballet Theatre, where my dream began, Traviata at the 'Royal Opera House', where a Russian diva, canceled the show in London. Canceled the show, it was "sold out". We talk here and 15 years ago, 17 or 20 years ago, I don't remember now and there was so much media interest because of the figure of the person, of my colleague, and the theater was calling on the phone to see who would come to sing and we all had fear that you are so exposed that it could be and a success could close the doors forever that you were heard and the bad thing is remembered, that poor performance of yours. You have to do 10 good things to forget the bad one. And I remember, I was kind of hesitant, but I said I wanted this. this is the moment that was a moment when you were exposed, that I had started singing in Europe, but that was very exposed and I remember I went without rehearsals from New York with jet lag and others, yes this would come out and it didn't. And I remember going on stage with only two hours of rehearsals just fitting my dresses. My college was a bit fuller, that is, I looked a bit like a palazzo, and I remember when this theater was, when it opened, it was a tulle and I was on stage and during the overture, the audience was not looking at me, but I was looking at the audience.

I remember when the director of the theater entered, no one knew anything, he said: This singer has canceled for health reasons and we have an artist from Albania, who had not heard me. What tension, then at that moment, when the overture began. Ok he said I will leave it to the first act, if during the first act you are disappointed, the tickets are returned. He went inside and said "God help us" that despite thinking this is so good that he didn't listen to me. For two hours, I just went through the motions, but I knew the party, I was prepared, because even when that moment comes, you have to be prepared.

And I remember during the overture, my whole journey came to me from the palace of the pioneers, it's strange that in the palace of the pioneers, from the high school, etc. etc., I said this I wanted. People say how lucky you are, yes, and that luck seems to me to be sitting on the arm of the public, looking at me. Give it a chance, show us what you can do. It was a challenge, one of these moments, after the first act, which is a very difficult aria, applause. The second act, the third act and the next day, the newspapers wrote about the departed singer, "farewell" and "welcome" Ermonela Jaho. They made it, as the media like to do, something public. But that was the moment that launched me and then fate said, you will pedal, now give it, run. So that was that moment.

Prime Minister Edi Rama: And to come to the part that goes towards the end of this very passionate conversation, I believe it is interesting for others as well, while it is also interesting for me that I have heard you before. What was the first impact with Albania when you became Ermonela Jaho?

Ermonela Jaho: To be honest.

Prime Minister Edi Rama: That is, who was it, what was the moment when you returned and became Ermonela Jaho. What was the impact?

Ermonela Jaho: The first impact!

Prime Minister Edi Rama: Honest now!

Prime Minister Edi Rama: The first impact was when he came with an opera. I got to the show and I couldn't find it, an hour before the show I couldn't even find the costume. I was given an anonymous letter on stage. This was the first impact. But it was no longer that Ermonela, I sang, I tore the paper.

Prime Minister Edi Rama: They gave you an anonymous letter, that is, the role letter, and something else was written inside

Ermonela Jaho: I tore up that paper, changed the direction.

Prime Minister Edi Rama: What did the letter say?

Ermonela Jaho: "We have our own singers. We invite you to leave", these things. I took it. I remember my father watching me. I remember that I did that show to please him. The director wanted – because it was a comic opera – to take this letter now, do that scene, take it with me and take it to the next character. What is it like, how does a person react when he has it. You can learn some things in the studio, but the battle on the field, that is, that tactics on the battlefield changes some things, and you have to be ready to catch it. And I remember I grabbed the paper, I tore it up and I remember making it like snowballs. As a small child I have thrown it, I have sung it and how I didn't lose my temper when I tell her just to say I got it, but I'm here now. This is the first time.

The second time was later, I was received extremely well and you were also part of the audience, when I returned with "Madam Butterfly". And I remember it was a comeback that I will never forget as long as I live. That it was the first time and it touched me. That you can be applauded by the world, but we probably grew up this way. Yes, we need that assessment done in your language. It's something that, not that you're going to prove to someone, but it has a different value. And I will never forget that audience there, full hall. You were there, the respect you showed me, the next day you invited me to the Prime Minister's office and I felt, I felt like that child who returns to Albania, when he returns from a long journey who can hardly wait to hug his mother and father, you get the smell of every corner, that smell of cooking, that smell of everything you grew up with. It took on a bigger dimension. I even felt accepted, I can say, – maybe it's a sign of weakness, – accepted by my country. And that was the moment, one of the most beautiful moments. And from that moment I made a promise to myself, that I said I would come back again, not just to get this adrenaline rush.

Prime Minister Edi Rama: I don't know if you remember before this show, I don't know how long ago, I came with Linda to Vienna to see you. Even then, after that we talked that you should come, etc., etc. And after that show, you told me at the end, you told me something a little too "The Opera House".

Ermonela Jaho: Yes true!

Prime Minister Edi Rama: In a low voice, as if you didn't want to add one more problem to all the problems I had to deal with and deal with. We also did the Opera House

Ermonela Jaho: It's done so beautifully, it also has a different energy. There is still work to be done, but there is a different energy. But I am now doing the workshop.

Prime Minister Edi Rama: It cannot be compared to that.

Ermonela Jaho: Absolutely. Placido Domingo also came, who is still talking about the Theater of Opera and Ballet. I take the interviews I leave as an example and the last interview I did for Deutsche Welle, for this last production, when I said Albania has become an attraction, because they ask me about Albania. They always start with that sin, as Albania was. Ah, I tell you! Albania has been, but look, that is, this year, it has become an attraction, but this has been a tourist boom and I said, it is not only touristic, but also cultural, and as if I attracted this thing. Why do I say this? Because the students who came for this workshop are not only Albanians, but we have them from Serbia, from Italy, from Spain, from France, from Germany, they absolutely came from the region. And when you see that this theater, young, beautiful, with so much energy, is also taking students to take lessons, to do this experience cooperation in the field of culture, opera. Italy has bel canton, Russia has operatic culture, France and Germany have it. We have, but we have it localized, we have to be honest about this and these countries come to us, I think we have done all without exception, we have done a very good thing, and this is that fire, positivity, that it becomes like an avalanche, like negative news, but even these beautiful things that may seem small, before big problems, have a positive thing and make you feel proud, not just proud, saying the word proud, because it sounds nice in Albanian, that it has become a kind of inflation to speak beautifully. It is no longer something concrete. So I'm experiencing it now. to make this collaboration an experience in the field of culture and opera. Italy has bel canton, Russia has operatic culture, France and Germany have it. We have, but we have it localized, we have to be honest about this and these countries come to us, I think we have done all without exception, we have done a very good thing, and this is that fire, positivity, that it becomes like an avalanche, like negative news, but even these beautiful things that may seem small, before big problems, have a positive thing and make you feel proud, not just proud, saying the word proud, because it sounds nice in Albanian, that it has become a kind of inflation to speak beautifully. It is no longer something concrete. So I'm experiencing it now. to make this collaboration an experience in the field of culture and opera. Italy has bel canton, Russia has operatic culture, France and Germany have it. We have, but we have it localized, we have to be honest about this and these countries come to us, I think we have done all without exception, we have done a very good thing, and this is that fire, positivity, that it becomes like an avalanche, like negative news, but even these beautiful things that may seem small, before big problems, have a positive thing and make you feel proud, not just proud, saying the word proud, because it sounds nice in Albanian, that it has become a kind of inflation to speak beautifully. It is no longer something concrete. So I'm experiencing it now. we have to be honest about this and these countries come to us, I think we have all done without exception, we have done a very good thing, and this is that fire, positivity, which becomes like an avalanche, like negative news, but even these beautiful things that may seem small, before big problems, have a positive thing and make you feel proud, not just proud, to say the word proud, because it sounds nice in Albanian, because it has become a kind of inflation nice speaking. It is no longer something concrete. So I'm experiencing it now. we have to be honest about this and these countries come to us, I think we have all done without exception, we have done a very good thing, and this is that fire, positivity, which becomes like an avalanche, like negative news, but even these beautiful things that may seem small, before big problems, have a positive thing and make you feel proud, not just proud, to say the word proud, because it sounds nice in Albanian, because it has become a kind of inflation nice speaking. It is no longer something concrete. So I'm experiencing it now. they have a positive thing and it makes you feel proud, not just proud, to say the word proud, because it sounds nice in Albanian, because it has become a kind of inflation to speak nice. It is no longer something concrete. So I'm experiencing it now. they have a positive thing and it makes you feel proud, not just proud, to say the word proud, because it sounds nice in Albanian, because it has become a kind of inflation to speak nice. It is no longer something concrete. So I'm experiencing it now.

Prime Minister Edi Rama: And I cannot close the whole thing without touching on another aspect. Which is again part of the sacrifice and denial that one goes after his or her dream, is forced to do that is life outside the profession, life outside the battlefield, life at home, family life. It seems like you chose your husband as a function of your dream because you chose him since you were little and he was little. I told him that if I marry you again, I will marry you. You have it as a faithful guardian of your dream. But how guilty do you feel for the part that you cannot dedicate to the family?

Ermonela Jaho: For this case, the feeling of guilt is something that is with me. Not only in his direction, because we always talk, but about the family, about the parents that I could not reach. I have this feeling of guilt, that I said I should have flown faster so that I could be seen at this point that I have reached. Unfortunately I don't have both parents and I had this fear. When I left Albania, I cried at night and said what if I can't make it until these people are alive. I do not know why. I felt this way and it happened. It happened and that guilt is. It's something that I can't take away, it's with me all the time, but you can't have everything and in a way I take it as a kind of, it's going to sound a little weird. I am still touched, I still cry, I feel sorry for the family, not of the craft and absorb the voice in these colors of the tortured soul of the sense of guilt that is absurd, paradoxical perhaps, is also making the artist that I am today. Because they are the crying, happy on stage is a kind of therapy, because it is true. Understand. It will also stay with me, it's something I haven't found the recipe for yet. I think singing is the best therapy. That's all I can say. And I apologize to my family and my loved ones that I can't stand by you, I wanted to be a super woman, but I'm not. So, I love them and thank them for the support they have given me without exception and for the parents where they are. It will also stay with me, it's something I haven't found the recipe for yet. I think singing is the best therapy. That's all I can say. And I apologize to my family and my loved ones that I can't stand by you, I wanted to be a super woman, but I'm not. So, I love them and thank them for the support they have given me without exception and for the parents where they are. It will also stay with me, it's something I haven't found the recipe for yet. I think singing is the best therapy. That's all I can say. And I apologize to my family and my loved ones that I can't stand by you, I wanted to be a super woman, but I'm not. So, I love them and thank them for the support they have given me without exception and for the parents where they are.

Prime Minister Edi Rama: This was our diva Ermonela Jaho, the embodiment of the truth that who sees a dream with open eyes, no matter how big it is, if he has the strength to follow it no matter what the cost, the dream becomes reality. Thank you!


Në përputhje me standarded JTI

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