Bruce Rankin

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Bruce Rankin (* 1952 in London , England , United Kingdom ; † December 11, 2017 in Düsseldorf ) was a British opera singer ( tenor ).

Life

Training and beginnings

Rankin grew up in Bournemouth in southern England . At the age of 14 he was already singing in a choir that performed in Gilbert & Sullivan operets. He studied French and worked as a French teacher for several years. At the same time he had his voice trained in his native London and took singing lessons. Occasionally, during his engagement as a choir singer, he was also given solo roles. a. 1986 Don Josè in Carmen , transferred.

His career as an opera singer then began as a member of various traveling opera companies in England. He had engagements at the Island Opera (Duca in Rigoletto ), at the Brighton Festival (1987, as Riccardo / Gustavo in Un ballo in maschera ), several times at the Pavillion Opera (Lenski in Eugen Onegin , Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly , 1988 as Nemorino in L'elisir d'amore , Ernesto in Don Pasquale ), at Hull University Opera (1989, as Enzo in La Gioconda ) and at University College Opera (1991, as Gérald in Lakmé ).

He had other engagements at Wales Opera (1992 as Pinkerton, 1993 as Alfredo in La Traviata ). In 1993 he sang Pollione in Norma with Opera Scotland , and in 1996 again Riccardo / Gustavo with Opera Holland Park .

Fixed engagements

At the beginning of the 1995/96 season he was engaged as a permanent member of the ensemble at the Bremen Theater. There he sang parts of the lyric tenor subject, but also took on some more dramatic roles in his repertoire. His stage roles during his Bremen engagement included u. a. Enzo, Pinkerton, the title role in Werther , Turiddu in Cavalleria rusticana and Oberlin in the contemporary chamber opera Jakob Lenz by Wolfgang Rihm . He stayed in Bremen until the end of the 1997/98 season.

At the beginning of the 1998/99 season he was a permanent member of the ensemble at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf / Duisburg , of which he belonged for almost 20 years until his death. In the first seasons he appeared again in lyrical and dramatic roles at both houses of the Rheinoper. He sang Flamand ( Capriccio ), Arnalta ( L'incoronazione di Poppea ) , Edgardo ( Lucia di Lammermoor ) , again Pinkerton, also Tichon ( Katja Kabanowa ) , Stewa ( Jenůfa , 1998), Walther von der Vogelweide ( Tannhäuser ) , Froh ( Das Rheingold , 1998), the painter ( Lulu , 2000), as well as the title roles in Lucio Silla , Les Contes d'Hoffmann and Werther .

Rankin later changed his subject and took on numerous buffo and character roles. He appeared as a crispy witch in Hansel and Gretel , Don Basilio in Le nozze di Figaro , Nathanaël / Spalanzani in Les Contes d'Hoffmann , Arturo in Lucia di Lammermoor (1999), Prince Yamadori in Madama Butterfly , Scaramuccio in Ariadne on Naxos , Valzacchi in Der Rosenkavalier , Kaiser Altoum in Turandot , Rev. Horace Adams in Peter Grimes and Red Whiskers in Billy Budd . In these roles Rankin showed "a special talent for bizarre characters, to which he gave an unmistakable profile". His last role at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in the 2017/18 season was the tragicomic role of the old Prince Basil Basilowitsch in the operetta Der Graf von Luxemburg under the musical direction of Lukas Beikircher ; He had already played this role in the new production in the 2016/17 season.

Guest performances and concerts

Rankin joined a. at the Staatstheater Darmstadt (as Cavaradossi in Tosca ), at the Staatstheater Hannover (as Macduff in Macbeth ), at the Bonn Opera House (1998) and in the Hamburger Musikhalle (as Don José). In 2002 he made guest appearances at the Bremen Theater as Don José and as Sergej in Lady Macbeth von Mzensk . In 2015 and 2017 he appeared as a guest at the Grand Théâtre de Genève .

As a concert singer he interpreted a. a. the Requiem by Andrew Lloyd Webber and sang in the Messiah by Handel , in the Stabat Mater by Rossini and in the Messa di Gloria by Giacomo Puccini .

Bruce Rankin's voice can be found in a live recording of the opera Madama Butterfly (as Pinkerton), which was recorded in December 1997 at the Bremen Theater and published on the Naxos classical music label .

Rankin died in Düsseldorf at the age of 65.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d e f Britse tenor Bruce Rankin overleden (65) . Obituary. Opera Nederland website from December 14, 2017. Accessed December 17, 2017.
  2. a b c d e Opera am Rhein mourns Bruce Rankin . In: Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of December 15, 2017. Accessed December 17, 2017.
  3. a b c d Tenor Bruce Rankin has died . Obituary. Klassik.com from December 15, 2017. Retrieved December 17, 2017.
  4. BR-Klassik awards the February-Frosch-2017: "The Count of Luxembourg" . Retrieved December 17, 2017.
  5. PUCCINI: Madama Butterfly . Production details. Retrieved December 17, 2017.