Anton Diakov

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Anton Diakov

Anton Diakov , Bulgarian Антон ДЯКОВ (born December 9, 1934 in Sofia , died June 24, 2016 ) was a Bulgarian - Swiss opera and concert singer ( bass ). Diakov was permanently engaged at Theater Basel from 1968 to 2000 .

Life

Diakov's father was the Bulgarian ambassador to various European countries, as a result of which he spent his childhood in Madrid , Paris , Belgrade , Ankara and Istanbul , among others . He first completed a degree in architecture at the Polytechnic in Sofia . At the same time he took private singing lessons and was soon able to perform in public. He won several first prizes at singing competitions in Bulgaria. In 1958 he completed his architecture studies and initially worked in state industry and in urban development. At the same time he became known as a singer with concerts. Radio Sofia made first studio recordings with him. This encouraged him to pursue a professional singing career.

In 1961 Diakov left Bulgaria and the Eastern Bloc . In Rome he continued his singer training at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia , but continued to work as an architect. During his studies he was the only non-Italian to be accepted into the studio of the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma , where he became a student of Luigi Ricci . In Accademia concerts he made himself known in Roman musical life and increasingly received invitations to perform, which allowed him to postpone his work as an architect. In the summer of 1962 he made his operatic debut in Rome - as Il Re in Verdi's Aida on the open-air stage of the Terme di Caracalla .

Promotion and career

Various individual engagements and sound recordings soon followed. Diakov was able to make his first recordings at EMI 1962–1963 - as Rangoni alongside Boris Christoff's Boris, Pimen and Varlaam in his second complete recording of Boris Godunow under André Cluytens , then alongside Rita Gorr and Jon Vickers as Abimelech and Alter Hebräer in Georges Prêtres complete recording from Saint-Saëns ' Samson et Dalila . In 1963 Diakov was engaged at the Metropolitan Opera New York. Here he made his debut as Colline in Puccini's La Bohème ; Ferrando in Verdi's Trovatore and Raimondo in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor followed .

In the 1963–65 seasons Diakov was a member of the ensemble at the Frankfurt Opera House. , from autumn 1965 at the State Theater Bremen. There he worked in opera productions in the direction of the later theater director Götz Friedrich . From Bremen he made guest appearances at numerous medium-sized and large opera houses in Germany and Europe. His breakthrough came in 1965-67: Herbert von Karajan , at that time director of the Salzburg Festival , brought him in for his production of Boris Godunow in the large festival hall, alongside the title role holder Nicolai Ghiaurov as Warlaam - whose big scene and ballad became a “treat” for the audience Festival summer and attracted further performance offers. Karajan also hired Diakov as Zuniga for his production of Bizet's Carmen .

In 1968 Diakov accepted an offer from director Werner Düggelin to join the opera ensemble as the first bass player when he took office as director of the Basel Theater . A little later, the same offer from the Zurich Opera House followed . In retrospect, the Basel involvement turned out to be a stroke of luck for the development of Diakov: in Basel there was no stagione system. The house offered a wide-ranging program with annual new productions of works from all cultures, genres and styles, mostly in original languages: Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, Puccini, Strauss, Opera buffa, Opéra comique, also Slavic folk opera, universal repertoire from the baroque to the modern a plethora of tasks for a professional protagonist . Diakov used the opportunity to build up a wide range of stage designs and to acquire different musical styles, vocal styles and representational possibilities. He worked on dozens of contrasting roles in works of all kinds under prominent conductors and directors. The Basel house gave him the freedom to make guest appearances around the world.

Roles, categories, appearances

Anton Diakov as Filippo II in Verdi's Don Carlo

Diakov stayed at the Basel Opera House for 33 years and designed the essential bass subjects - in the center the dominant roles of Verdi and Wagner , but also in the bel canto , French and Slavic repertoire, plus bass parts from the German subject and from modern times. He also appeared in Monteverdi's Orfeo , Cavalieri's Rappresentazione, Carl Orff's De temporum fine comoedia (both at the Salzburg Festival 1971–73) or in premieres such as the Haydn opera Orlando paladino and in Janáček's From a House of the Dead .

Anton Diakov has made international guest appearances since the 1970s. So as godfather at the Sorochinsk fair and as Warlaam in Boris Godunow at La Scala in Milan ; as Sarastro in the Magic Flute , Kaspar in Freischütz and Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermoor at the Vienna Volksoper ; as Sparafucile in Rigoletto and Guardiano in the power of fate at the Württemberg State Opera ; as Méphistophélès in Faust at the Bavarian State Opera , as a hermit in Freischütz at La Monnaie Brussels; as Warlaam at the Grand Opéra Paris and the Royal Opera House Covent Garden London; as Alvise in La Gioconda at the Teatro de Liceu in Barcelona; as Rocco in Fidelio and Hunding at São Carlos Lisbon; as Grand Inquisitor in Don Carlos , again Guardiano and Don Pizarro ( Fidelio ) in Zurich; with the Hoffmann villains, Sparafucile and Arkel in Pelléas et Mélisande at the Grand Théâtre de Genève ; with Wagner and German specialist roles in Torino, Parma, Lyon, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Nantes, Lille, Marseille; with a mixed repertoire in Graz, Klagenfurt, Cologne, Bremen, Mannheim, Kiel. A highlight of his guest career were appearances in liberated South Africa, for example in 1989 in Johannesburg with Mozart's Bartolo and Commendatore, Beethoven's Rocco and Nicolais Falstaff.

In contrast to many other Eastern European basso opera singers, Diakov also worked as a concert singer, as a soloist in oratorios, orchestral and chamber music works, at the same time with classical song programs, including groups of works by Eastern European composers: Glinka , Mussorgsky , Borodin , Tchaikovsky , Rubinstein , Dargomischsky , Rachmaninovsky , Glasunov , Prokofiev , to Shostakovich and Tscherepnin . His concert repertoire included the great works of Western music, from Bach and Handel to Mozart , Schubert and Brahms to the present day.

In 1973 Diakov set up a residence next to Basel and Salzburg on Lake Geneva, and later an address in Sofia. He became a Swiss citizen and had concerts, radio broadcasts and lectures in Switzerland. For his “Contributions to European Culture” he was awarded the title “Prof. hc ”. After the peaceful revolution in Eastern Europe, he returned to Bulgaria for the first time in 31 years in 1992. There he received numerous honors; radio and TV portraits, features and interviews appeared. His autobiography "Anton Diakov - Life and Art" had previously been published. In 2000 Diakov retired from the Basel Opera House.

Effect and meaning

Anton Diakov has sung 101 stage roles in 85 opera houses and has performed in hundreds of solo, choral and orchestral concerts. His radio recordings include several world premieres, such as the first non-Russian performance of the op. 145 cycle, the “Michelangelo Songs” by Dmitri Shostakovich .

Anton Diakov is sparsely represented in productions of the record industry, recordings are mainly in radio archives: in Bach's St. Matthew Passion under Karajan, in Handel's Samson under Markevitch, in Verdi's Requiem under Frühbeck de Burgos, in Dvořák's Stabat Mater under Dohnányi, in Boris Godunov under Bertini and Segal, in song cycles by Russian composers and with Eastern European folklore and even with Loewe ballads, in industrial productions also with Prokofiev's War and Peace under Rostropovich and Wagner's Mastersingers under Kubelik. In metropolises where he did not appear on the opera stages (such as Berlin and Hamburg), he was often present as a concert singer. He has recorded around 1,600 songs and concert pieces for European broadcasters. He worked as a producer and presenter for the SRG broadcasters in Bern and Geneva; The broadcast episodes "Vocal Music of the South and East Slavs" and "The Root of Orthodox Church Music" originate from him.

Awards

Audio documents

  • Edition Anton Diakov / 11 CDs in 3 boxes / Hamburg archive for the art of singing
  • Mussorgsky / Boris Godunov / Rangoni (André Cluytens) / EMI
  • Mussorgsky / Boris Godunov / Varlaam (Herbert von Karajan) / EMI
  • Bizet / Carmen / Zuniga (Herbert von Karajan) / EMI
  • Saint-Saëns / Samson et Dalila / Abimelech + Hebrews (Georges Prêtre) / EMI
  • Wagner / The Mastersingers of Nuremberg / Hermann Ortel (Rafael Kubelik) / Calig
  • Weber / Der Freischütz / Hermit (Wolfgang Sawallisch) / MYTO
  • Prokofiev / War and Peace / Bolkonski + Ermotov (Mstislav Rostropovich) / Erato
  • Bartók / Duke Bluebeard's Castle / Bluebeard (György Lehel) / Hamburg Archive
  • Orff / De temporum fine comoedia / Anachoret (Herbert von Karajan) / DG
  • Bach / St. Matthew Passion / Bass parts (Herbert von Karajan) / DG
  • Russian chants / VDE Lausanne
  • Songs by Russian composers (2 CDs) / Hamburg archive

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Anton Diakov at Operissimo  based on the Great Singer Lexicon
personal data
SURNAME Diakov, Anton
ALTERNATIVE NAMES ДЯКОВ, Антон
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Bulgarian-Swiss opera and concert singer (bass)
DATE OF BIRTH December 9, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Sofia
DATE OF DEATH June 24, 2016