Renate Behle

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Renate Behle 2010

Renate Behle (* 1945 in Graz , as Renate Summer ) is an Austrian opera singer ( soprano / mezzo-soprano ).

Career

Behle, who grew up in her native Graz, studied singing there and in Rome for a total of six years. Parallel to her vocal studies, she also studied history and philosophy for six semesters at the University of Graz at the request of her parents . She began her singing career as a lyric mezzo-soprano. In 1968 she started her first two-year engagement at the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe , where she was used in numerous trouser roles.

In 1971 she married her husband, an oboist with Norddeutscher Rundfunk , and only accepted individual guest contracts: at the Klagenfurt Theater (as Dorabella), at the Hagen Theater (as Cherubino), in Lisbon (as a high school student in Lulu ) and in her hometown of Graz. In order to have more time for her family after the birth of her son Daniel Behle (tenor), she moved to the Norddeutscher Rundfunk choir as 1st alto in 1974. During these years she only accepted concert offers (passions, recitals, sacred music). In the operatic field she sang the concert performance of Judith in Duke Bluebeard's Castle alongside Victor Braun (Bluebeard). In the autumn of 1979 he was engaged as a lyric mezzo-soprano at the Musiktheater im Revier in Gelsenkirchen. There she sang roles such as Penelope ( Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria ), Carmen (debut role), Maddalena ( Rigoletto new production, 1980/81 season), Olga ( Eugene Onegin ), composer ( Ariadne auf Naxos ), Hansel and Rosina ( 1981/82 season), with which she also stood in for a short time (1983/84 season, for Agnes Baltsa ) at the Hamburg State Opera .

In 1982 she was engaged at the Lower Saxony State Opera in Hanover , where she remained a member of the ensemble for 15 years. There she developed a more dramatic repertoire from roles such as u. a. Princess Eboli in Don Carlos (production: Jaroslav Chundela ), Adalgisa in Norma (at Mara Zampieri's side ) and Adriano in Rienzi . She also sang Carmen, Suzuki ( Madama Butterfly ), Preziosilla ( La forza del destino ) and Poppea ( L'incoronazione di Poppea ). In the 1982/83 season she sang Bianca in a new production of the one-act play A Florentine Tragedy in Hanover . In the season 1987/88 she took over the Charlotte in Massenet's Werther with a “big stage presence” and very close to the French idiom ; she had the "exactly fitting voice, a robust, evenly guided mezzo of light color with possibilities of high pitch beyond the part". As a mezzo-soprano she performed a. a. at the Bogotá Opera House (July 1985; as Maddalena in Rigoletto ), at the Saarbrücken State Theater (including in the 1986/87 season), at the Karlsruhe State Theater (as Carmen), at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf (as Prince Orlowsky in Die Fledermaus ) and at the Kiel Opera House (also as Orlowsky).

In 1987 she was appointed chamber singer in Hanover . In the same year, starting with Giulietta in Hoffmann's stories , who alternated between mezzo and soprano and with which she once again demonstrated “her excellent aptitude for the French subject”, she switched to spinto soprano. First of all, she sang Donna Elvira in a new production of Don Giovanni in the 1987/88 season (premiere: November 1987, director: Herbert Kreppel ), in which she “used her expressive mezzo effectively”; afterwards she took over the role of Agathe in a new production of the opera Der Freischütz (director: Siegfried Schoenbohm , in the so-called "B-Premiere" in June 1988). Her first major premier role after a “successful” change to the lyrical-dramatic soprano subject was Maddalena in Andrea Chénier , which she sang for the first time in the 1988/89 season at the Staatstheater Hannover; her “beautifully sung, also dramatically enhanced aria was one of the highlights” of the premiere. In the 1989/90 season she sang the role of Katerina Ismailowa in a new production of the opera Lady Macbeth von Mtsensk at the State Theater in Hanover . In the 1990/91 season she made her debut there as Minnie in Puccini's late work La fanciulla del West .

Then she initially took on tasks in the youthful soprano field such as Sieglinde ( Die Walküre , 1991/92 season in Hanover, as the “moving” Sieglinde, who “always let her mezzo-primed soprano sound beautifully in all registers” where she “ voice coming from the depths, reminiscent of Jessye Norman in timbre ”, which was also“ powerful and radiant ”in the highs, achieved a“ furious success ”), Ariadne and Marschallin. In the season 1987/88 she had already given a guest performance with Sieglinde at the Landestheater Detmold (premiere: December 1987), whereby her “voice left nothing to be desired”; she "crowned her melodious middle register and depth with brilliant top notes". At the beginning of 1990 she sang the leading role of the girl Hai-tang in a concert performance of the opera Der Kreidekreis in the Berlin Philharmonic "with a radiant lyrical soprano" . In July 1990 she sang the role of Amazili in a concert performance of the opera Jessonda by Louis Spohr in Hamburg “with a dark shimmering soprano” . In December 1991 Behle made a guest appearance at the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe in Ariadne auf Naxos as a short-term substitute for the refusing Anna Tomowa-Sintow and was “a brilliantly sung and intensely creative Ariadne”. In May 1992, Behle jumped in as a replacement for Margaret Price at the Hamburg State Opera as Ariadne in a new musical production of the Strauss Opera and "impressively demonstrated her successful change to the soprano field with her slim voice." In August 1992 a guest performance as Nurse Margaretha in a concert performance of the opera Genoveva followed in the Hamburger Musikhalle .

A little later came the great dramatic to highly dramatic roles such as Leonore ( Fidelio ), Isolde and Brünnhilde . In the 1991/92 concert season she made a guest appearance at the “Konzertanten Oper Hamburg” as Fidelio, where she “touched this female figure with her expansive voice, without any added drama, supported by her singing culture”. In the summer of 1992 she sang the Fidelio- Leonore at the Savonlinna Opera Festival . In the 1993/94 season she sang the dyer in a new production of the Strauss opera Die Frau ohne Schatten (premiere: September 1993, production: Hans-Peter Lehmann ) and the title role in a new production of the Janáček opera Katja at the Hanover State Theater Kabanova (premiere: May 1994, production: Philipp Himmelmann ).

The breakthrough for her international career came in the spring of 1991 when Behle stepped in for the title role from the second performance in the resumption of the production of Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth von Mzensk at the Hamburg State Opera (director: Yuri Lyubimow ); “Her beautiful voice, balanced in all registers, always round, never forcibly used, which easily mastered the vocal demands, raised the performances to the rank of extraordinary.” In the following years she sang the Leonore at the Metropolitan Opera , at the Vienna State Opera , at the Hamburg State Opera , at the Dresden Semperoper and at the Salzburg Festival . She interpreted Isolde in Los Angeles, Houston (here under the direction of Christoph Eschenbach ), Dresden and Savonlinna . As Salome she performed at La Scala in Milan , in Dresden and Buenos Aires. German and Italian roles were part of her repertoire, for example Senta, Sieglinde, Brünnhilde, Ariadne, Marschallin (among others in Hamburg under Christian Thielemann ), Chrysothemis (among others under Peter Schneider in Munich and in January 1993 at the Vlaamse Opera ; conductor: Stefan Soltesz ) and dyer as well as Fanciulla, Tosca and Verdi's Lady Macbeth . In the 2001/02 season Behle sang Brünnhilde in Die Walküre at the Cologne Opera , which she embodied "more girlishly innocent than Valkyrie-like dramatic" in the direction of Robert Carsen ; In the 2002/03 season, her “girlish” Siegfried Brünnhilde followed in the Ring cycle .

In 2007 Behle switched to character and sang mainly parts for dramatic mezzo-soprano such as Herodias ( Salome ) and Clytemnestra ( Elektra ).

In addition to her classical repertoire, Behle devoted herself to the music of the 20th and 21st centuries. The first essential tasks in this area were the role of Régine Raviner in the German premiere of Rolf Liebermann's La Forêt ( Der Wald ) at the Schwetzingen Festival (in May 1988; 1989 at the Frankfurt Opera ) and the Kassandra in Aribert Reimann's Troades . She had a particularly close collaboration with Wolfgang Rihm , of whom she premiered three important works: Die Eroberung von Mexico (as Montezuma, with "immaculately balanced soprano" and "dreamlike vocalises", Hamburg State Opera, 1991, under Ingo Metzmacher ), Das Gehege (Bavarian State Opera, 2009, under Kent Nagano ) and Penthesilea monologue for dramatic soprano and orchestra (Theater Basel, 2009/10). She also sang the main female role in Dukas ' opera Ariane et Barbe-Bleue in Hamburg (premiere: November 1997) and New York and the Agaue in Henze's Die Bassariden in Hamburg (premiere: 1993/94 season) and Munich.

She has lived in Hamburg since 1971. From 2000 to 2010 she held the professorship for singing at the University of Music and Theater in Hamburg.

Recordings

Released on CD:

Two Stuttgart productions with Renate Behle in the main roles appeared on DVD:

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Wolfgang Denker: MORE OR LESS . Performance reviews. In: Orpheus . Issue February 2, 1988. page 127.
  2. ↑ Gerhard Eckels: MANY GIRLS . Performance review. In: Orpheus . Issue January 1, 1988. Page 36/37.
  3. ↑ Wolfgang Denker: ENOUGH OF HAPPINESS . Performance review. In: Orpheus . Issue November 11, 1988. Page 866.
  4. ^ KU Groth: HANNOVER: ANDREA CHENIER . Performance review. In: Opera glasses . Issue December 12, 1988. Page 28/29.
  5. ^ A. Berger: HANNOVER: LA FANCIULLA DEL WEST . Performance review. In: Opera glasses . Issue March 3, 1991. Page 47.
  6. ↑ Gerhard Eckels: WAR OF THE GODS . Performance review. In: Orpheus . Edition January 1, 1992. pp. 23/24.
  7. ↑ A. Berger: THE WALKÜRE . Performance review. In: Opera glasses . Edition January 1, 1992. pp. 13/14.
  8. ↑ Rainer Schouren: Wälse-joys . Performance review. In: Orpheus . Issue February 2, 1988. p. 121.
  9. ↑ N. Eckert: PHILHARMONIC. THE CHALK CIRCLE . Concert review. In: Opera glasses . Issue May 5, 1990. Page 6/7.
  10. ↑ HH Bethge: JESSONDA . Concert review. In: Opera glasses . Edition September 9, 1990. Page 23/24.
  11. ↑ Manfred Kraft: A NEW ELECTRA . Performance reviews. In: Orpheus . Issue March 3, 1992. Page 33.
  12. ↑ Marion Eckels: FROM THE REPERTOIRE . Performance review. In: Orpheus . Issue July 7, 1992. Page 36.
  13. ↑ HH Bethge: ARIADNE ON NAXOS . Performance review. In: Opera glasses . Issue 7/8. July / August 1992. page 32.
  14. ↑ Jacques Fournier: VALID REPRODUCTION . Concert review. In: Orpheus . Edition February 2. Page 34/35.
  15. ^ P. Schünemann: HAMBURG: LADY MACBETH VON MZENSK . Performance review. In: Opera glasses . Edition April 4, 1991. Page 7/8.
  16. ↑ B. Kempen: Unexpected climax . Performance review. In: Opera glasses . Issue January 1, 2003. Page 36.
  17. ^ BK (= B. Kempen): COLOGNE: Die Walküre . Performance review. In: Opera glasses . Issue February 2, 2002. Page 47/48.
  18. ↑ Quote: Dresen fetches the comedy from Kothurn - and has excellent helpers ... On the other hand, in RENATE BEHLE as "aunt", who masters all pitfalls with a brilliant voice and the lustful, stupid "femme entre deux age" to the point, cf. . Kurt Osterwald: FIRST PERFORMANCE AND OTHER . Performance reviews. In: Orpheus . Issue July 7, 1988. Pages 520-522, to R. Behle there on page 520.
  19. ↑ Jacques Fournier: ON A CENTRAL OCCASION . First performance review. In: Orpheus . Issue April 4, 1992. Page 24.
  20. ↑ MW Busch: THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO . In: Opera glasses . Issue April 1992, page 23.
  21. ↑ CV (with picture)
personal data
SURNAME Behle, Renate
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian opera singer (mezzo-soprano)
DATE OF BIRTH 1945
PLACE OF BIRTH Graz