Gerd Grochowski

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Gerd Grochowski ( February 28, 1956 in Krefeld - January 16, 2017 in Mainz ) was a German opera singer with a bass-baritone voice . He was best known for Wagner roles and roles in the early 20th century.

life and work

Grochowski first studied piano and music education, then also singing with Edith Kertész at the Cologne University of Music and Dance . His teachers also included the conductor Konrad Junghänel and the baritone Josef Metternich . After graduating in 1986, he was hired as an ensemble member at the Cologne Opera . Gerd Grochowski died unexpectedly on January 16, 2017.

Opera roles

The singer stayed at the Cologne Opera House for three seasons and then worked mainly as a song and concert singer. In 2001 he was engaged at the Bonn Opera and , at the same time, made guest appearances at the Wuppertaler Bühnen , at the Frankfurt Opera and at the Bruckner Festival in Linz. During these years he developed a broad repertoire, which ranged from the early classical period ( Gluck ) to the late 20th century ( Britten ), and specialized in the dramatic parts of his subject. He achieved particular success with the classic villains of the opera world, Pizarro in Beethoven's Fidelio or Scarpia in Puccini's Tosca . But he established himself early on as a competent Wagner singer, first as Holländer, Telramund and Klingsor, later also as Kurwenal, Gunther, Wotan and Wanderer.

The singer made his breakthrough to an international career in the title role of Doctor Faustus by Ferruccio Busoni at the Württemberg State Theater in Stuttgart. He was selected by the magazine for this role Opernwelt as Singer of the Year nomination. This was followed in quick succession by engagements at the Metropolitan Opera in New York (as Kurwenal), at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan (as Kurwenal and Gunther) and at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich (as Scarpia and Pizarro). The Bach Cantatas platform wrote in 2009 that Grochowski had earned a well-founded reputation as one of the best singers in his field. The Gunther in Wagner's Götterdämmerung also brought him to Berlin and London, to the San Francisco Opera and - under the musical direction of Sir Simon Rattle - to the Salzburg Easter Festival . He has appeared as Telramund at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, in San Francisco, at the NNT Tokyo and in the Berlin Philharmonic . As Amfortas and Klingsor he could be seen and heard at the Opéra de Lyon , in Frankfurt and Munich.

Grochowski sang in two productions by the legendary French director Patrice Chéreau , both of which have also been released on DVD:

In addition to Wagner and the villains, another focus developed over the years in the singer's repertoire, opera of the early 20th century. He made his role debut as Dr. Beautiful in Berg's Lulu at the Teatro Real in Madrid, sang at De Nationale Opera in Amsterdam Orestes in Elektra by Richard Strauss , as well as in San Francisco and Stuttgart, the Prus in Janacek's Makropulos Case . At the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona he played the title role in Bartók's Duke Bluebeard's Castle for the first time , under the musical direction of Pinchas Steinberg , a role that he also took on at the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden in 2015 . In Barcelona, ​​albeit at the Gran Teatre del Liceu , Grochowski could also be seen and heard in a pre-classical opera, as Thoas in Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride , staged by the German dance artist Pina Bausch .

His Bayreuth debut took place in 2016 as Klingsor in the new Parsifal production by Uwe-Eric Laufenberg . Hartmut Haenchen conducted it . He was also earmarked for this role at the Bayreuth Festival in 2017.

In Laufenberg's productions of the Ring des Nibelungen at the Musiktheater Linz from 2013 to 2015 and at the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden in the season 2016-17 he was engaged as Wotan and Wanderer. On the eve of his death he sang Wotan in the premiere of Die Walküre in Wiesbaden with great success .

In the concert hall

Gerd Grochowski appeared regularly in concert operas and as a bass soloist in large choral works. For example, he sang Duke Bluebeard in the Auditori of Barcelona (under the musical direction of Pinchas Steinberg ) and the strangers in Henze's sacrifice in the German premiere on December 16, 2010 at the Ruhr University in Bochum (with the Bochum Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Steven Sloane ). He also took on a number of Wagner roles in concert performances: the Amfortas at the Teatro Regio di Parma and at the Hungarian State Opera in Budapest, the Gunther at the BBC Proms (under the musical direction of Daniel Barenboim ) and the Telramund at the Opéra National de Montpellier (directed by Michael Schønwandt ). In the summer of 2016 he was - alongside Camilla Nylund - a soloist at the MDR Wagner Gala in the Gewandhaus in Leipzig.

His concert repertoire included the bass solo parts in Beethoven's Missa solemnis , Bruckner's Te Deum , Janáček's Glagolitic Mass and in Britten's War Requiem . In January 2014 he took over the baritone role in Zemlinsky's seldom performed Lyric Symphony , op.18, at the Tonhalle Düsseldorf . He sang the War Requiem under the direction of Charles Dutoit in the Tokyo Radio Hall, Brahms ' German Requiem with the Dresden Philharmonic under Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos in the Salzburg Festival Theater. He has also made guest appearances at the Royal Albert Hall in London and in concert halls in Rome and Lille, Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin, Saarbrücken and Stuttgart.

Grochowski also sang under the musical direction of Sylvain Cambreling , Paolo Carignani , Vladimir Jurowski , Ingo Metzmacher , Kent Nagano , Carlo Rizzi , Dennis Russell Davies , Sebastian Weigle and Lothar Zagrosek .

Roles (selection)

Bartók :

Beethoven :

Mountain :

  • Doctor Schön in Lulu

Bizet :

Britten :

Busoni :

Luck :

Janáček :

Mozart :

 

Prokofiev :

Puccini :

Richard Strauss :

Wagner :

Weber :

Recordings

Operas

Singspiele and operettas

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Aryeh Oron: Gerd Grochowski (Bass-Baritone) , Bach Cantatas , March 2009, accessed on November 10, 2016.
  2. ↑ Universal Edition : Pierre Boulez and Patrice Chéreau on Janáček's From a House of the Dead ( Memento of the original from November 11, 2016 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.universaledition.com archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , July 3, 2012, Interview by Wolfgang Schaufler with the director and conductor of the performance, accessed on November 11, 2016.
  3. ↑ Universal Edition : Pierre Boulez and Patrice Chéreau on Janáček's From a House of the Dead ( Memento of the original from November 11, 2016 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.universaledition.com archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , July 3, 2012, Interview by Wolfgang Schaufler with the director and conductor of the performance, accessed on November 11, 2016.
  4. ↑ Julia Spinola: Do you know the house where the jewels bloom? Season opening: "Tristan" in Scala , Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , December 10, 2007, accessed on November 11, 2016.
  5. ↑ Steffen Meder: "La voix humaine" and "Duke Bluebeard's Castle": Wire to madness , Echo-Online, April 21, 2015, accessed on November 16, 2016.
  6. ↑ Matthew Rye: Time becomes space: Bayreuth welcomes the new Parsifal , BachTrack , August 3, 2016, accessed on November 12, 2016 (with a role model by Grochowski)
  7. ^ Robert Levine: Beethoven: Fidelio, 1805 version , Classics Today, accessed on November 12, 2016.
  8. ↑ MusicWeb: Janáček, From the House of the Dead , accessed November 12, 2016.
  9. ^ Presto Classical: Strauss, R: Elektra Challenge Classics: CC72565 , accessed November 12, 2016.
  10. ↑ ArkivMusic : Wagner: Lohengrin / Janowski, Vogt, Dasch, Resmark, Groissbock , accessed on November 12, 2016.
  11. ^ Presto Classical: Wagner: Tristan und Isolde , accessed on November 12, 2016.
  12. ↑ Pizzicato: Barenboims 'Götterdämmerung': Even more weaknesses , review by Remy Franck, accessed on November 12, 2016.
  13. ↑ Mezzo TV : Simon Rattle conducts Wagner's Götterdämmerung at the Aix-en-Provence festival ( Memento of the original from November 12, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed November 12, 2016.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.mezzo.tv
  14. ^ Opera today: Götterdämmerung at Aix-en-Provence - A Human Symphony , accessed on November 12, 2016.
  15. ↑ Presto Classical: Künneke, Eduard: Die luring Flamme , accessed on November 12, 2016.
  16. ↑ Presto Classical: Straus, O: Die Lustigen Nibelungen (The Merry Nibelungs) , accessed on November 12, 2016.
  17. ^ Presto Classical: Weill, K .: Kuhhandel (Der) (Opera) Capriccio: C60013-1 , accessed on November 12, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Grochowski, Gerd
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German opera singer (bass)
DATE OF BIRTH February 28, 1956
PLACE OF BIRTH Krefeld
DATE OF DEATH January 16, 2017
Place of death Mainz