Hans Swarowsky (September 16, 1899 – September 10, 1975) was an Austrian conductor. Swarowsky was born in Budapest, Hungary. He studied the art of conducting under Felix Weingartner and Richard Strauss. His teachers in musical theory included Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern. Herbert von Karajan invited him to take on the permanent position as conductor of the Vienna State Opera He became a professor of conducting at the Vienna Music Academy. His many conducting students included Leonid Nikolaev, Claudio Abbado, Iván Fischer, Jesús López-Cobos, Zubin Mehta, Miltiades Caridis, Alexander Alexeev, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Gianluigi Gelmetti and Albert Rosen. Swarowsky's lectures and essays were collected into the publication Wahrung der Gestalt (Keeping Shape), which today serves as an encyclopaedia for performance and conducting. He died in Salzburg, Austria at age 76.
Herbert Handt(May 26, 1926 -
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA).The American tenor (and conductor), Herbert Handt, was a cousin of the
conductor Otto Ackermann (1909-1960) and received his training at the Juilliard
School of Music in New York, then in the Vienna Academy of Music.
Herbert Handt made his operatic debut at the Vienna
State Opera in 1949. He appeared with success as lyric tenor in the 1950-s in
important European opera houses. He appeared on German, Italian and French
stages and made guest appearances in Belgium and in Holland. In 1957 he sang at
the Teatro della Pergola in Florence in the premiere of Venere Prigioniera
by Gian Francesco Malipiero. In the course of the Brussels World Exhibition he
participated in August 1958 in the premiere of the opera Maria Golovin
by G.C. Menotti. He performed parts in the works of modern composers, such as
Gian Francesco Malipiero, Alban Berg, Ferruccio Busoni, Hans Werner Henze and Benjamin
Britten. He had a great career also in the concert, whereby he could be
characterised particularly as oratorio soloist. In 1966 he participated in
Zurich in the premiere of the oratorio Jeremia by E. Hess. On the stage
the high points of his repertoire were the lyric roles in operas of Mozart and
in the Belcanto operas of Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti. Special emphasise
should be given to his Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, his Orfeo in Orfeo
ed Euridice by J. Haydn and his Otello in the opera of the same name
by Rossini.
Herbert Handt, who had his residence for a
long time in Rome, appeared actually also as a conductor, starting in 1960. In
1960 he created his own vocal and instrumental in Rome, with which he undertook
extended concert tours. With his ensemble he performed old and rarely-heard
Italian scores, for which he prepared performing editions (including operas of
Boccherini, Geminiani and Rossini). Later he lived in Lucca, where during the
summer months he organised the Associazione Musicale Lucchese Opera Festival.
He was also the founder-creator of the Lucca Chamber Orchestra and the Marlia
International Festival.
Alfred Poell Born: March 18, 1900 - Linz/Donau, Austria Died: March 18, 1968 - Vienna, Austria The Austrian baritone, Alfed Poell (Pöll), studied medicine at the University of Innsbruck, passed the state examination, attained a doctorate there, and became then a specialist for neck and laryngeal diseases. However, he finally took up singing studies at the Wiener Musikakademie with Philipp Forstén and with Joseph von Manowarda. Alfed Poell made his debut in 1929 at the Opera House of Düsseldorf, where he appeared for ten years. He participated there, among other things, in the premiere of the opera Simplicius Simplicissimus by Ludwig Maurick with in March 1938). In 1940 he followed a call to the Vienna State Opera of Vienna, whose member he remained up to the end of his career. His appearances at Milan’s Las Scala, at the Covent Garden Opera of London, at the Grand Opéra of Paris (1953) and at other big European stages brought him shining successes, in particular for his Mozart singing. Alfed Poell also had big success at the Festivals of Salzburg and Glyndebourne. In Salzburg he sang in 1942-1943 and 1947 Lamoral in Arabella, in August 1948 in the premiere of the opera Le vin Herbé by F. Martin, in 1950 Masetto in Don Giovann" and Junius in The Rape of Lucretia by B. Britten, in 1951 Arbace in Mozart’s Idomeneo, 1952 the Count in Le Nozze di Figaro and Jupiter in the premiere of Die Liebe der Danaë by R. Strauss (August 1952), in August 1953 in the premiere of Der Prozeß by G. von Einem, in 1954 Ottokar in Freischütz and Harlekin in Ariadne auf Naxos, in 1955 Luna in Pfitzner’s Palestrina", in 1960 Faninal in Rosenkavalier. Alfed Poell had a very successful career also as a concert and Lieder singer.
Richard Wadleigh, baritone- see the cover above.
Walter Berry Born: April 8, 1929 - Vienna, Austria Died: October 27, 2000 The mellifluous bass-baritone voice of the Austrian Walter Berry delighted opera audiences. For an appreciable number of years, the role of Papageno at the Vienna State Opera was synonymous with the name of Walter Berry, who has died aged 71. His reading of the role became indelibly imprinted on the mind of audiences, and not only in the Austrian capital; he sang it throughout the German-speaking world and beyond, though, sadly, never in London, where his talents were unaccountably neglected throughout a career of more than 40 years on the operatic stage. When he was belatedly called to Covent Garden, as late as in 1976, it was as Barak, the plain man personified, in Richard Strauss's Die Frau ohne Schatten, a deeply-felt and moving portrayal in which he deployed his rich and mellifluous bass-baritone voice to notable effect, seconding his vocal attributes with the appropriate body language. In 1986, he returned in a very different Straussian part, that of the impecunious, rascally Count Waldner, in Arabella. The voice of a singer by then well into his 50’s seemed hardly affected by the passing years, and, quite recently, he was heard on disc in the tiny, but important, part of the Major Domo to René Fleming's Countess Madeleine, in the final scene of Strauss's Cappriccio. Berry brought signifcance to his phrases, as he had done throughout his lengthy career. That began while he was still a student at the Vienna Music Academy in 1947 (studying with several notable teachers), when he made his stage debut singing Simone in Gianni Schicchi, Falstaff in Nicolai's The Merry Wives Of Windsor, and van Bett in Lortzing's Zar und Zimmermann. Photos of those productions show the young Berry as obviously a singing-actor of great promise. That was fulfilled when he gained a contract at the Vienna State Opera in 1950, remaining with that ensemble for the rest of his professional life, while commuting in the summer to the Salzburg festival, where he sang regularly from 1952 onwards, creating several roles in operatic premieres. Although he first undertook small roles in Vienna - such as Silvano in Un ballo in maschera - he was soon promoted to Masetto in Don Giovanni, and then to Papegeno and Figaro, which became his calling-card in other houses. He was also a noted Guglielmo, later Don Alfonso, in Cosi fan tutte, singing the latter role in Karl Bohm's classic 1962 recording for EMI. His first appearances on stage in London took place during the visit of the Vienna State Opera to the Festival Hall in 1954, when he appeared as Figaro and Masetto. As the years went by, Berry's voice grew in strength and range, and he began to tackle more dramatic repertory. His assumption of the title part in Alban Berg's Wozzeck was one of the summits of his achievement, the downtrodden soldier to the life, but he was also admired, among many other parts, as Amonasro (Aida), Jochanaan (Salome), the four villains in Offenbach's The Tales Of Hoffmann, Cardinal Morone, in Pfitzner's Palestrina, and, eventually, Wotan, in Die Walkure, one of his roles at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, where he made his debut in 1966 as Barak. Another of Berry's specialities was the title role in Béla Bartók's Duke Bluebeard's Castle; his recording of that part, with his then-wife, mezzo Christa Ludwig, and conducted by Istvan Kertész, is still considered one of the best renderings of the opera on disc. This was one of the many examples where Berry subsumed his genial presence in the cause of enacting an unsympathetic part. Berry and Christa Ludwig married in 1956 and divorced in 1971. While they were a pair, they frequently appeared together on stage and in concert. Berry's truly Viennese Baron Ochs, to Christa Ludwig's authoritative Marschallin, was a partnership worth catching in the 1960’s in Vienna. It is preserved on record in the set conducted by Leonard Bernstein, who also accompanied the couple in the piano-version of Gustav Mahler's Knaben Wunderhorn cycle. Berry was an accomplished interpreter of lieder, and a noted soloist in many choral works. He also enjoyed letting down his hair in operetta, especially as Dr Falke, in Die Fledermaus. In everything, his innate musicality was always in evidence. Nothing in his performances was exaggerated; everything emerged from the given text. Nor did he ever extend his talents beyond their natural limits, which probably accounts for the fact that his career lasted so long.
Юдит Хеллвиг (нем.
Judith Hellwig: род. 19 августа 1906
года, Нейзоль (ныне Банска Быстрица в Словакии) ум. 25 января
1993, Вена) - немецкая певица (сопрано).
Хеллвиг
дебютировала в оперном театре города Саарбрюккена на зап. Германии. В 1938 году
она стала первой исполнительницей партии Урсулы в опере Пауля Хиндемита «Матис
художник» (Цюрихская опера), что принесло ей международную известность.
Незадолго до начала Второй мировой войны певица переехала в США, позднее на
некоторое время обосновалась в Буэнос-Айресе. По возвращении в Европу после
войны Хеллвиг была принята в труппу Венской Гос. оперы, в которой проработала
до 1972 года.
Юдит Хеллвиг принимала участие во многих постановках опер Р. Штрауса, Вагнера («Валькирия», 1954, п/у В. Фуртвенглера), в
Девятой симфонии Бетховена
(1941, п/у А. Тосканини). Среди лучших партийпевицы - Сокол в «Женщине без тени» Р. Штрауса, Юдит в
«Замке герцога Синяя Борода» Бартока.
Joseph Haydn: Orfeo ed Euridice (Hob.Gr.XXVIII no.13)
Herbert Handt, Alfred Poell, Richard Wadleigh, Judith Hellwig, Walter Berry
