Nico Castel

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Nico Castel , actually Naftali Chaim Castel , (born August 1, 1931 in Lisbon , Portugal ; † May 31, 2015 in New York City , New York ) was a Portuguese- American opera singer ( tenor ), vocal teacher and language teacher.

Live and act

Nico Castel was born under the name Naftali Chaim Castel as a descendant of a family of Sephardic Jews and rabbis in Portugal. He grew up in Venezuela , was raised by a nanny of German descent and attended school in France , among other places .

Castel first worked in Venezuela in his youth in a commercial profession; he worked for an import company that imported whiskey into Venezuela. At the beginning of his singing career he took the stage name Nico Castel. He studied singing, first in Caracas with Carmen Hurtado, later with Mercedes Llopart in Milan and with Julia Drobner in New York City . Castel also briefly studied in Germany, at the University of Mainz . In 1948 he went to the United States, where he studied Romance languages ​​/ Romance studies at Temple University in Philadelphia ; in the early 1950s he worked as a translator for the United States Army in Germany.

In 1958, Castel won the Joy in Singing Award , donated by the American soprano Winifred Cecil . He won first prize, a solo recital at the Town Hall in New York City. In his debut concert he sang songs by Joaquín Rodrigo , Manuel de Falla , Alberto Ginastera and Johannes Brahms, among others . In 1958 he made his stage debut at the Santa Fé Opera House ; he sang Fenton in Falstaff . In July 1958 he took part in the world premiere of the opera Wuthering Heights by Carlisle Floyd at the Santa Fé Opera House .

Castel sang a few lyrical tenor roles early in his career. However, he soon specialized in the buffo and character subject. In the course of his career he built up a repertoire of over 120 medium and smaller games. Castel was the classic type of the so-called " Comprimario " singer. Critics repeatedly emphasized Castel's "dramatic art of characterization, his musicality and his impeccable diction".

In 1970 he was engaged at the Metropolitan Opera in New York; he made his debut there on March 30, 1970 as Don Basilio in Le nozze di Figaro . Castel sang in a total of almost 800 performances at the Metropolitan Opera. His MET roles included Monostatos in Die Zauberflöte , Goro in Madama Butterfly , Alcindoro in La Bohème , Borsa in Rigoletto , Schmidt in Werther and the Knusperhexe in Hansel and Gretel . Castel performed at the Metropolitan Opera until 1997. Most recently he also took on speaking roles such as Bassa Selim in Die Entführung aus dem Serail (including in the 1991/92 season) and the steward in Ariadne on Naxos (including in the 1987/88 season). This role, which he also took on again in a new production by Ariadne in the 1993/94 season (director: Elijah Moshinsky ), was his last major role at the MET, in which he was on stage until October 1997.

In the course of his career in the United States, Castel has also made guest appearances at the New York City Opera (debut 1965; as Jacob Glock in The Fiery Angel ), the Lyric Opera of Chicago , the Philadelphia Opera House (1985), and the San Francisco Opera and at the Opera Houses of Houston , New Orleans , Seattle and Baltimore . In Europe he has made guest appearances at the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos in Lisbon, at the Maggio Musicale in Florence and at the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto . As a lieder singer, he also performed programs with Jewish music and texts. He was a cantor at the Scarsdale Synagogue in Westchester County and the Progressive Synagogue in Brooklyn .

In addition to his singing career, Castel also worked at the Metropolitan Opera as a singing teacher, singing teacher, language coach and speech teacher. He held this position for almost 30 years; In 2009 he retired in this role. He has also taught at the Juilliard School of Music , Mannes College of Music , Queens College , Boston University, and elsewhere. He was the founder and director of the New York Opera Studio for Young Singing Students.

Castel wrote the textbook A Singer's Manual of Spanish Lyric Diction . He published musicological writings; He has also published translations and phonetic instructions for libretti by Giuseppe Verdi , Giacomo Puccini and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart .

Audio documents

Castel took part in several recordings. In the 1970 EMI recording of the opera Manon by Jules Massenet , he sang the role of the old lover Guillot De Morfontaine; The conductor was Julius Rudel . Also under Rudel's direction, he sang the four servant roles in Hoffmann's Tales (1972, with Beverly Sills ). He also sang City Councilor Alcindoro on record in a complete recording of the opera La Bohème with Georg Solti as conductor. The recording was released by RCA in 1974 .

There are also live recordings and television recordings with Castel from the Metropolitan Opera, including as Spalanzani in Hoffmann's Stories (1973; with Joan Sutherland ; conductor: Richard Bonynge ), King Kaspar in Amahl and the nocturnal visitors (1977), Prince / Servant / Marquis in Lulu (1980), steward of the Feldmarschallin in Der Rosenkavalier (1982), as host Lillas Pastia in Carmen (1987) and steward in Ariadne auf Naxos (1988).

Private

Castel was married three times. His first two marriages to Carol Bayard and Nancy Benfield were divorced. His second marriage resulted in a daughter, Sasha Castel. In 1988 he married Carol Cates for the third time. Castel died at the age of 83 after a long illness in his New York apartment in Manhattan .

Castel was polyglot , he spoke French , English , Spanish , Portuguese , German , Italian and Ladino , the language of the Sephardic Jews.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Nico Castel, Tenor and Diction Coach at the Met, Dies at 83 Obituary in: New York Times, June 3, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Castel, Nico
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Castel, Naftali Chaim (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Portuguese-American opera singer (tenor), singing teacher and language teacher
DATE OF BIRTH August 1, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Lisbon , Portugal
DATE OF DEATH May 31, 2015
Place of death New York City , New York