Michael Kraus (singer)

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Michael Kraus (born January 17, 1957 in Vienna ) is an Austrian opera singer ( baritone ).

Life

Early years

Michael Kraus first studied acting , history and Romance studies and worked for several years as an actor at the theater “Die Komödianten” in Vienna , where he was also responsible as a director for the Austrian premiere of Herbert Achternbusch's Ella (1979). He also studied singing at the University of Music in Vienna with Kammersänger (KS) Otto Edelmann and KS Josef Greindl and at the Munich University of Music with Hanno Blaschke . He has won several singing competitions (including Hugo Wolf Singing Competition , Vienna 1980, and International Song Competition, Vienna 1982). Then he finally decided to become a singer. He had his first stage engagements as a beginner at the Stadttheater Aachen (1981–1984) and at the Theater Ulm (1984–1987).

In 1987 Kraus made his debut at the Vienna Volksoper as Guglielmo in Così fan tutte . From 1988 to 1992 he was a permanent member of the company and continued to appear regularly as a guest. Over the years he has played leading roles there including Papageno in Die Zauberflöte , Guglielmo in Così fan tutte , Leporello and the title role in Don Giovanni , Falke and Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus , Sixtus Beckmesser in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg , the music teacher in Ariadne Naxos (new production, premiere: June 2009) and the title role in Gianni Schicchi (season 2012/13). In the 1991/92 season he sang the role of the poacher Haraschta in Janáček's opera The Cunning Little Vixen at the Vienna Volksoper . There he also sang in operettas, a. a. in the season 1988/89 the host Benozzo in the operetta Gasparone .

In the 1991/92 season he also sang at the Vienna State Opera . In the following years, the Papageno in particular became his international highlight.

Guest performances

1988 Michael Kraus sang in Amsterdam in a new production of Mozart's Don Giovanni under Nikolaus Harnoncourt the role of Leporello. Later he appeared there as Stolzius in the soldiers of Bernd Alois Zimmermann (2003 and 2010), as Franz / Fritz in Die tote Stadt (2005) and as Faninal in Der Rosenkavalier (2011).

In summer 1988 he was a guest at the Mörbisch Seefestspiele as Pappacoda in the operetta One Night in Venice . In 1991 he made his US debut in the role of Papageno at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco . In 1993 he made his debut at La Scala in Milan as Scherasmin in Oberon , where he later appeared in Freischütz (2017) and in Der Fledermaus (2018).

From 1994 Kraus was a regular guest at the Vlaamse Opera in Antwerp and Ghent , where he was initially a. a. the title role of Britten's opera Billy Budd (1994 and 1997) had a great success. In the following years he sang Fritz in Die tote Stadt (1995), Dandini in La Cenerentola (1999), Beckmesser in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (2002), Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte (2003) and Jaroslav Prus in Věc Makropulos (2016).

From 2000, Kraus was a permanent guest at the Komische Oper Berlin for several years (including Lescaut in Manon Lescaut , Enrico Ashton in Lucia di Lammermoor , Marcello in La Bohème , Mercutio in Roméo et Juliette ). In 2000 he made his role debut as Conte di Luna in Verdi's opera Il trovatore at concert performances in Zagreb and Ljubljana . In the opening premiere of the 2000/01 season he sang the title role in the world premiere of the opera Don Quixote en Barcelona by José Luis Turina at the Teatro del Liceu in Barcelona . In the 2004/05 season Michael Kraus sang the double role of Frank / Fritz in a new production of the opera Die tote Stadt at the Nederlandse Opera in Amsterdam (conductor: Ingo Metzmacher , director: Willy Decker ).

In the 2009/10 season he sang the role of Don Carlo di Vargas in La forza del destino at the Mecklenburg State Theater in Schwerin . In November 2010, he took over the role of Stolzius in The Soldiers at the Nederlandse Opera in Amsterdam (musical direction: Hartmut Haenchen ; director: Willy Decker). In the 2011/12 season he sang Eisenstein in the operetta Die Fledermaus at the Frankfurt Opera House . In March / April 2012 he sang the role of the butcher in the world premiere of Rumor , Christian Jost's new opera (director: Guy Joosten ) at the Vlaamse Opera .

In 2012/13 he also made guest appearances at the Berlin State Opera (including as a faninal under Sir Simon Rattle ). In the 2012/13 season he made his role debut as Donner in Das Rheingold under the musical direction of Ulf Schirmer at the Leipzig Opera . In 2013 Michael Kraus made his debut at the Zurich Opera House ( The Soldiers ), where he also sang Heerrufer in Lohengrin and Orestes in Elektra .

In 2014 he made his debut at the Glyndebourne Opera Festival as Faninal, which he repeated there in 2018. In 2015 he sang Thoas in Iphigénie en Tauride at the Salzburg Whitsun and Summer Festival . In 2016 she made her debuts at the Paris Opéra Bastille ( Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg ) and the Royal Opera House London ( Tannhäuser ) as well as at the Semperoper Dresden (as Donner in Das Rheingold ). Michael Kraus has been working on a new production of the Ring des Nibelungen at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf since 2017 , where he sings Alberich for the first time.

Kraus has also made guest appearances at the Hamburg and Munich State Operas, the Grand Théâtre de Genève , the Finnish National Opera , the Teatro Massimo in Palermo and the Teatro Regio di Torino . He sang in France, Hungary, Sweden, Greece (1991 in Athens), Israel, Brazil, Chile and Japan. In addition, he also appeared in concert and with recitals.

Repertoire and audio documents

Michael Kraus initially sang the baritone parts of the lyrical subject with a focus on Mozart (Papageno, Guglielmo, Don Giovanni). His voice changed in the course of his career from the cavalier baritone (like Valentin in Faust , Conte di Luna in Il Trovatore , Don Carlos di Vargas in La forza del destino or Germont in La Traviata ) to the character baritone (including Jago in Otello ).

In 1990 Kraus sang Papageno in a recording of Mozart's Die Zauberflöte with the Vienna Philharmonic under Sir Georg Solti ( Decca ). He also appeared several times in the Decca series Degenerate Music: in Jonny plays on by Ernst Krenek, The huge cuckold by Berthold Goldschmidt (awarded the Cannes Classic Award), in the title role of Der Kaiser von Atlantis by Viktor Ullmann , The Birds by Walter Braunfels (1998 nomination for a Grammy Award ), in Die Verlobung im Traum by Hans Krása and Requiem Ebraico by Erich Zeisl .

Other complete opera recordings with Michael Kraus include Turandot by Ferruccio Busoni under Kent Nagano (Virgin Classics), Der Rosenkavalier under Bernard Haitink (EMI) and Die Harmonie der Welt under Marek Janowski (Wergo).

In addition to his appearances as a singer, Michael Kraus also worked as an opera director and translator of opera libretti (Mozart-Da Ponte trilogy and Elisir d'amore by Donizetti). In 2016 he presented a dissertation at the Institute for Contemporary History at the University of Vienna on "Musical Modernism at the Opera Houses in Berlin and Vienna 1945-1989", which was published in book form in 2017.

publication

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Kraus Vita; in: Karl J. Kutsch and Leo Riemens: Large singer lexicon . Fourth, enlarged and updated edition. Munich 2003. Volume 4: Kainz – Menkes, p. 2497. ISBN 3-598-11598-9 . Excerpts from Google Books. Retrieved April 12, 2015
  2. ↑ a b c d Michael Kraus ( Memento of the original from April 17, 2015 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. Vita; Official website of the Vienna Volksoper . Retrieved April 17, 2015 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.volksoper.at
  3. ↑ Michael Kraus's appearances at the Vienna State Opera
  4. ↑ Michael H. Eisenblätter: MÄNNERSACHE . Performance review. In: Orpheus . Issue May 5, 1988, page 384.
  5. ^ Michael Kraus: Semperoper Ensemble. Retrieved August 3, 2017 .
  6. ^ Michael Kraus: Deutsche Oper am Rhein Ensemble. Retrieved August 3, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Kraus, Michael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian opera singer (baritone)
DATE OF BIRTH 17th January 1957
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna , Republic of Austria