John van Kesteren

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John van Kesteren (born May 4, 1921 in The Hague , † July 11, 2008 in Jupiter , Florida , USA ) was a Dutch opera and oratorio singer ( tenor ).

Life

Van Kesteren began an apprenticeship as an electrical engineer with the Dutch Post and Telegraph Company. In 1942 he had his first stage appearance as an amateur with the Apeldoorner Kunstgruppe in Robert Planquette's operetta Les Cloches de Corneville . During the Second World War he appeared more often as a singer in French and German operettas. From 1946 he studied at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague with Lothar Wallerstein and the bassist Willem Ravelli .

In 1947 he made his opera debut on the occasion of a guest performance by the Vienna State Opera in Scheveningen , where he played the singer in Rosenkavalier alongside Anni Konetzni , Fritz Krenn and Hilde Güden . In the same year his career on the concert podium began with a performance of the Missa solemnis under the direction of Charles Münch .

In 1948 he made his debut in Amsterdam as a young helmsman and melot in Tristan in a performance by the Wagner Society conducted by Erich Kleiber . Directed by Lothar Wallerstein, he sang with famous partners like Kirsten Flagstad , Max Lorenz and Hans Hotter . In addition, he continued his studies with Nadia Boulanger in Paris and Vera Schwarz in Salzburg . On February 5, 1952, he sang Bastien in Bastien and Bastienne in the first opera broadcast on Dutch television.

In 1954 he was engaged at the Komische Oper Berlin to sing Nurreddin in The Barber of Baghdad , directed by Heinz Rückerts. From 1956 to 1958 he was at the Städtische Oper in Berlin, where he a. a. participated in the German premiere of Rossini's Le comte Ory (director: Carl Ebert ). In 1959 he came to Munich, where over the next seventeen years he appeared in thirty-three opera and operetta roles at both the National Theater and the Theater am Gärtnerplatz .

Since 1956 he has also been to the Salzburg Festival several times , for example in 1964 and 1965 as dance master in Ariadne on Naxos , in 1967 as Dancairo in Carmen and again in 1982 and 1983 as steward in the Rosenkavalier . In 1954 he made his first guest appearance at the Vienna State Opera . Other guest appearances have taken him to major opera houses, such as the Deutsche Oper am Rhein , Stuttgart , Cologne , Frankfurt a. M. , Geneva and Zurich , Amsterdam and Brussels , Copenhagen , Rome, to the Scala in Milan , the Teatro Comunale in Florence and to the festival in the Drottningholm Palace Theater . Outside Europe he sang in New York (City Center Opera), Boston, Cincinnati and Dallas, in Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires , Melbourne and Tokyo.

In the later years van Kesteren switched to character roles, so he sang in 1981 at the Munich State Opera in the world premiere of the opera Lou Salomé by Sinopoli . In the concert hall he devoted himself to a varied repertoire, singing the Evangelists in Bach's St. Matthew Passion over four hundred times. At Britten's suggestion , he sang the German premiere of War Requiem under Karajan . With him he also appeared in Hiroshima in 1970 on the occasion of the commemorative concert for the 25th anniversary with Beethoven's Ninth and the Missa solemnis . For Carl Orff , with whom he later became a close friend, he was the best interpreter of the swan in the Carmina Burana .

The stage roles of the singer with a lyrical and expressive tenor voice also included Count Almaviva in the Barber of Seville , Tamino in the Magic Flute , Ernesto in Don Pasquale , Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni , Basilio in Figaro's wedding , Paolino in Il matrimonio segreto and the Chapelou in The Postillon of Lonjumeau .

In 1978 his autobiography Notities van een notekraker was published . Until his death he lived in Jupiter, Florida with his wife Luise, nee Rouner, with whom he had been married since 1956 . His last major public appearance was in 2000 at the opening of the Helen K. Persson Concert Hall at Palm Beach Atlantic University.

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personal data
SURNAME Kesteren, John van
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch opera and oratorio singer (tenor)
DATE OF BIRTH May 4, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH The hague
DATE OF DEATH July 11, 2008
Place of death Jupiter , Florida, USA