József Simándy

József Simándy

József Simándy (born September 18, 1916 in Kistarcsa , † March 3, 1997 in Budapest ) was a Hungarian opera singer with a tenor voice .

Life

After finishing school, József Simándy worked as a car mechanic in a car repair shop and as a taxi driver to earn his living until 1939 . He then took first private singing lessons at the renowned opera singer and alto Emília Posszert (1893-1973). From 1940 Simándy was a member of the choir of the Hungarian State Opera in Budapest. He later completed vocal training at the Franz Liszt Music Academy in Budapest from 1943 to 1945 . His debut as an opera singer took place in 1946 at the Opera House (National Theater) in Szeged as Don José in the opera Carmen by Georges Bizet .

In February 1947 Simándy made a guest appearance as Don José and as Turiddu in Cavalleria rusticana at the Hungarian State Opera in Budapest. He was then appointed first tenor at the Hungarian State Opera, of which he remained a permanent member of the ensemble until 1982. In October 1948 he sang the title role in Richard Wagner's romantic opera Lohengrin at the Budapest Opera in a now legendary performance under the direction of Otto Klemperer . After Simándy's impressive interpretation of the Grail story in Act 3, the audience interrupted the performance and applauded for a long time to force a da capo . Klemperer left the conductor's desk for a short time out of annoyance, but returned after a break and conducted the performance to the end. In November 1948 he sang the Radames for the first time at the Budapest Opera, in a performance under the direction of the then chief conductor Georg Solti .

From 1956 to 1960 Simándy had a guest contract with the Bavarian State Opera in Munich . There he also appeared in some roles that he had never sung in Hungary: as Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor , as Alfredo in La traviata and as Rinuccio in Gianni Schicchi .

In 1957 Simándy sang Don José at the Vienna State Opera . In May 1957 he sang in Holland together with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf , Nan Merriman and Heinz Rehfuss, again under the musical direction of Otto Klemperer, the tenor solo in the Missa solemnis by Ludwig van Beethoven . In July 1963 he stepped in for the sick tenor Bruno Prevedi as Manrico at the open-air plays in Szeged overnight , a role that Simándy had not sung for over a year at the time. In January 1969 he sang the role of Florestan in Fidelio at the Romanian Opera in Cluj (Opera Naţională Română Cluj-Napoca) .

In 1977 he sang the tenor solo in the Ninth Symphony by Ludwig van Beethoven at the Stadttheater Baden in Baden near Vienna in a performance with the Tonkünstler Orchestra of Lower Austria and the Wiener Singverein under the direction of Carl Melles .

In May 1980 Simándy officially took leave of the opera stage at the Erkel Theater in Budapest with the title role in Giuseppe Verdi's Otello . After his official stage farewell, József Simándy appeared again in 1984 on the occasion of the centenary of the Budapest Opera. He sang a musical scene by the title hero from the opera Bánk bán by Ferenc Erkel . Bánk bán became his most legendary and emblematic role in Hungary, with which his name was inextricably linked to audiences in the second half of the 20th century.

As a concert singer he was still artistically active, for example, he sang Robert Schumann's song cycle Dichterliebe in Budapest in 1985, almost still in full possession of his vocal resources .

From 1978 to 1986 Simándy was a professor at the Budapest Music Academy . In 1983 he published his autobiography with the help of co-author László Dalos under the title Bánk bán elmondja (Bánk bán tells it).

Simándy has received several awards for his artistic merits. In 1953 he received the Kossuth Prize . In 1964 he was awarded the title "Outstanding Artist of the Hungarian People's Republic" ( Magyar Köztársaság Kiváló Művésze ). In 1996 he received the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary ( A Magyar Köztársasági Érdemrend középkeresztje a csillaggal ).

In the German-speaking world, József Simándy often appeared under the spelling Josef Simándy or Josef Simándi .

repertoire

Simándy sang the great lyrical and lyrical-dramatic roles of the tenor subject. The subject of the youthful hero tenor was added very early on . He took on operatic roles from Giuseppe Verdi (Manrico, Riccardo, Gabriele Adorno, Don Carlo, Radames, Otello) and Richard Wagner (Erik, Lohengrin, Walther von Stolzing). In the German subject he sang Tamino and Florestan. In the Hungarian repertoire he embodied the title roles in the operas Bánk bán and Hunyadi László by Ferenc Erkel . Other roles were Lenski in Eugene Onegin , Hans in The Bartered Bride , Canio in Der Bajazzo and Cavaradossi in Tosca .

Simándy was an intermediate tenor with considerable spin quality, whose smooth, powerful voice also coped with the hero subject (Otello) respectably.

Simándy also worked as a concert singer . He also sang songs by Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály again and again . Due to his radiant, easy height, he was also considered an excellent operetta singer . With Erzsébet Házy he sang duets from operettas by Franz Lehár and Emmerich Kálmán . He also performed Hungarian gypsy music .

The musical oeuvre of József Simándy, passed down through radio recordings, live recordings and records, has been partially re-released on CD in recent years.

literature

• Karl-Josef Kutsch , Leo Riemens : Large singer lexicon . Third, expanded edition. Munich 1999. Volume 5: Seidemann – Zysset, p. 3248. ISBN 3-598-11419-2

Web links

• Works by and about József Simándy in the catalog of the German National Library
• József Simándy in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ International who's who in music and musicians' directory Short biography, p. 595 (excerpts available online at Google Books)
2. ↑ Klemperer in Budapest ( Memento of the original from October 7, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The 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. Hessischer Rundfunk, broadcast on Opernplatz on December 29, 1989  
3. ↑ List of roles by József Simándy in: Chronik der Wiener Staatsoper 1945-1995 , Verlag Anton Schroll & Co., Vienna and Munich 1995, p. 617. ISBN 3-7031-0698-0
4. ↑ Living Past Nan Merriman ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 2.3 MB) CD booklet from Preiser Records 
5. ↑ Season 1977/1978 archive on the homepage of the Wiener Singverein
6. ↑ Jens Malte Fischer in: Big Voices. From Enrico Caruso to Jessye Norman , Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Verlag 1995, p. 103. ISBN 3-518-38984-X