Reri Grist

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Reri Grist (1959)
Photo by Carl Van Vechten

Reri Grist (born February 29, 1932 in New York City ) is an American opera singer ( soprano / coloratura soprano ). She is one of the first Afro-American opera singers to have an international career.

Life

The artist grew up in New York City. She attended High School of Music and Art and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Music from Queens College, City University of New York. As a child, she appeared on various stages on Broadway in plays and musicals. In 1957 she was in the original line-up of Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story . She played the Consuelo and sang the song Somewhere for the first time . She then engaged the New York Philharmonic Orchestra with Bernstein as conductor for the soprano solo in Gustav Mahler's IV Symphony. With this orchestra she sang concerts with Bernstein, Nadia Boulanger , Pierre Boulez and Michael Gielen in the years that followed . In 1959 she appeared at the Santa Fe Opera, where she sang her first Adele ( Die Fledermaus ) and Blondchen ( Die Entführung aus dem Serail ) . Here she heard Igor Stravinsky , whereupon he invited her to sing his Rossignol with him as conductor at the Washington Opera Society.

Her first appearance in Europe was in 1960 as a guest at the Cologne Opera, where she sang the Queen of the Night in the Magic Flute . In the summer of the same year she became a member of the Zurich Opera House, where she sang Zerbinetta ( Ariadne auf Naxos ), Sophie ( Der Rosenkavalier ) and Gilda ( Rigoletto ) for the first time. This started her meteoric career. In 1962 she sang at the Glyndebourne Festival and at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden . The Vienna State Opera engaged her in 1963, where she was a guest for twenty-three years. In the same year she appeared for the first time as Rosina ( Il barbiere di Siviglia ) with Hermann Prey in a production by Günther Rennert at the San Francisco Opera . Several seasons followed, during which she portrayed Gilda with Alfredo Kraus , Manon with Stuart Burrows , Susanna with Geraint Evans and Oscar with Leontyne Price , among others .

In 1964 Reri Grist made her debut as Zerbinetta at the Salzburg Festival . During the twelve following summer festival she celebrated great success as Susanna ( Le nozze di Figaro ), Blondchen (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), Despina ( Così fan tutte ) and Papagena ( Die Zauberflöte ) in the productions of Günther Rennert and Giorgio Strehler and with the conductors Karl Böhm , Zubin Mehta and Herbert von Karajan .

Her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York was again in 1966 as Rosina . Here she sang several roles in her field for twelve seasons including Olympia ( Les Contes d'Hoffmann ), Adina ( L'elisir d'amore ), Norina ( Don Pasquale ), Oscar ( Un ballo in maschera ) and Zerbinetta with the greats of her time - Nicolai Gedda , Luciano Pavarotti , Plácido Domingo , Walter Berry , Christa Ludwig and Tatiana Troyanos .

She performed at the Bavarian State Opera from 1967 to 1983, including as Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Hermann Prey, Aminta in Die Schweigsame Frau with Donald Grobe , Zerbinetta and Nanetta in Falstaff with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau .

Reri Grist has also made guest appearances at La Scala in Milan , the Chicago Lyric Opera , the Deutsche Oper Berlin , the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires , the Holland Festival and the Wiener Festwochen . Directors with whom she has worked in several successful productions are, for example, Otto Schenk , Lotfi Mansouri , Ruth Berghaus , Nathaniel Merrill and Axel Corti .

In 1991 Reri Grist ended her career on the opera stage at the Nederlandse Opera in Morton Feldmans Neither to a text by Samuel Beckett .

The artist has given several recitals in Europe and the USA. Her other concert repertoire included u. a. Works by Bach , Mozart's C minor Mass, Requiem and concert arias, Gabriel Fauré's Requiem, Carl Orff's Carmina Burana , Nono's Canti di vita e d'amore , Webern's opp. 13, 15, 16 and Arnold Schönberg's heart plants . She has also performed in concerts with conductors Seiji Ozawa , Wolfgang Sawallisch , Friedrich Cerha and others.

In December 2007 she appeared again on Broadway as a soloist at the Broadway Cares / Equity Fights Aids gala for the 50th anniversary of Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story with members of the original cast. She sang like Somewhere back then .

1981 to 1982 the artist was Professor of Voice at the School of Music, Indiana University , Bloomington. She then held a professorship for singing at the University of Music and Theater in Munich until 1997 . She also held masterclasses at the Metropolitan Opera (Lindemann Young Artist Development Program) in 2008, at the Escuela Superior della Reina Sofia Madrid 2008/2009, at the Hamburg State Opera in 2008, at the Zurich International Opera Studio in 2007 and at the San Francisco Opera (Merola Program) 2002/2003 and at the Steans Institute Ravinia (IL) 1992-1997.

An extensive discography and various TV and video recordings document their wide musical spectrum.

In 1966, Reri Grist and Ulf Thomson, head of the music department at SR 1977–1981, head of the symphony orchestra / symphonic music editorial team at NDR 1981–1987 and director of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra 1987–1991. You live in Hamburg.

Discography (selection)

  • West Side Story (Area USA 1958)
  • Mahler Symphony No. 4 (CBS 1964)
  • The Drama Director (Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft 1967)
  • Don Giovanni (Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft 1974)
  • Best of Mozart (Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft 2002)
  • Jephtha - from trade (Vanguard 1969)

DVD-Video (selection)

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Grist, Reri
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American opera singer (soprano / coloratura soprano)
DATE OF BIRTH February 29, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City