Richard Levitt

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Richard Levitt (born July 5, 1935 in Los Angeles ) is an American countertenor and vocal teacher. Levitt performed within the early music studio from 1970 to 1977 .

life and work

Levitt gave public pop music performances in the style of Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire together with his brother as a teenager . At the age of 12 he became interested in opera and classical music. He finally decided on classical music and began studying the piano and violin. When he got to know the voice of the countertenor Alfred Deller , he also trained his voice and tried to sing in the voice register of Deller. His first singing teachers were Fritz and Tilly Zweig from the Berlin Opera, who had fled to the United States from the National Socialists. At UCLA Levitt then studied with the vocal trainer in the opera segment Natalie Limonick , Jan Popper, who fled Hungary, and Roger Wagner , the director of the UCLA choir. Thus Levitt's musical life in California and New York was already heavily influenced by European artists.

Levitt taught vocal technique for three years at New York University , Fredonia. He then moved to the Swiss Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and taught there for 27 years. One of Richard Levitt's students was the tenor Andreas Scholl .

Scholl summarized the singing and singing teacher credo of his teacher Levitt and probably his own as follows: A singer must not escape into virtuosity or beautiful sound out of fear. Both are good, but not everything. The singer has to leave his comfort zone and his safety constitution. He has to open himself to the text and thus to himself and above all to the audience. Because “There are a lot of good singers. You have to be unique. You are only that if you reveal something about yourself ”. Without being himself on stage, a singer remains unrecognizable. Every singer has to find his own style. He has to be recognizable. Teachers need to encourage him in this. You must not make it duplicates yourself. Lessons are one hundred percent about discovering and stimulating the student's individuality.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Richard Levitt: Biography.
  2. ↑ a b section after: Richard Levitt: Biography.
  3. ^ Richard Levitt (quoted from Andreas Scholl): In: Arno Widmann: Interview with Andreas Scholl. You want to be human. Singer Andreas Scholl about castrati and countertenors, about the great feelings in the opera and a ridiculous slogan. In: Frankfurter Rundschau. June 5, 2019, accessed March 1, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Representation of the singing and singing teacher credo of Richard Levitt and Andreas Scholl according to: Arno Widmann: Interview with Andreas Scholl .: They want to be people. Singer Andreas Scholl about castrati and countertenors, about the great feelings in the opera and a ridiculous slogan. In: Frankfurte Rundschau. June 5, 2019, accessed March 1, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Levitt, Richard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American countertenor and vocal teacher
DATE OF BIRTH July 5, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH los Angeles