Rolando Villazón

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Rolando Villazón (2018)
Rolando Villazón (right) with the lighting designer Davy Cunningham (2017)
Rolando Villazón (2014)

Rolando Villazón Mauleón (born February 22, 1972 in Mexico City ) is a Mexican-French opera singer ( tenor ), director and writer with Austrian ancestors. In 2007 he received French citizenship . He attracted particular attention in 2005 with his role as Alfredo Germont at the side of Anna Netrebko in a performance of Giuseppe Verdi's La traviata at the Salzburg Festival . Rolando Villazón has been Mexico's cultural ambassador since 2010.

biography

Rolando Villazón was born in Mexico City. Because he attended the Colegio Alemán Alexander von Humboldt in his childhood , he speaks good German. At the age of eleven he went to the Academia de Artes Espacios, where he took lessons in music, drama, ballet and modern dance.

The baritone Arturo Nieto piqued his interest in opera singing in 1990, and he also became his first singing teacher. Villazón continued his vocal training at the National Music Conservatory with Enrique Jaso and won two national Mexican singing competitions. Then the baritone Gabriel Mijares took the young tenor under his wing and set him on the path to an international career.

In 1998 Rolando Villazón joined the renowned Merola Opera Program of the San Francisco Opera , where he took part in masterclasses by Joan Sutherland , among others . The Pittsburgh Opera's Young Artists Program was the next important stop, with successful appearances in Vincenzo Bellini's I Capuleti ei Montecchi , Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor and Samuel Barbers Vanessa . In 1999 Villazón took second place in Plácido Domingo's Operalia singing competition and received the additional Operalia Prize for Zarzuelas and the Operalia Audience Prize.

Rolando Villazón started his international career in 1999 with his European debut in Genoa as Des Grieux in Jules Massenet's Manon , immediately followed by successful appearances at some of the world's great opera houses such as the Opéra Bastille Paris, the Bavarian State Opera and the State Opera Unter den Linden Berlin, the Hamburg State Opera , the Vienna State Opera , the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma , the New York Met and the Los Angeles Opera. There he sang roles such as Rodolfo in Puccini's La Bohème , Alfredo in Verdi's La traviata , Roméo in Charles Gounod's Roméo et Juliette and Edgardo in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor .

Villazón had a great success with his interpretation of Nemorino at the side of Anna Netrebko as Adina in the opera L'elisir d'amore by Gaetano Donizetti at the Vienna State Opera in April 2005. However, he became world-famous for his passionate and fiery interpretation of Alfredo in La Traviata with Anna Netrebko at the Salzburg Festival in August 2005.

Since mid-2006, Rolando Villazón had to cancel performances several times for health reasons. On August 15, 2007, Villázon announced that he wanted to withdraw for a few months in order to regain his usual vitality. In January 2008 he made his comeback at the Vienna State Opera in Werther . He planned his big comeback with a concert on June 27, 2008 in front of Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, which he gave on the occasion of the final of the European Football Championship 2008 together with Plácido Domingo and Anna Netrebko .

He made a film adaptation of La Bohème with Anna Netrebko under the direction of Robert Dornhelm in Vienna , the singing having already been recorded at a concert performance in 2007 in Munich . This was shown in European cinemas from October 2008 and released on DVD in March 2009 . In August 2008 he appeared again at the Salzburg Festival, this time as Romeo alongside Nino Machaidze in Roméo et Juliette .

In October 2008 Villazón sang Lenski in the Berlin production of Eugen Onegin , directed by Achim Freyer . A little later he was euphorically acclaimed at the London Covent Garden Opera as the poet Hoffmann in Jacques Offenbach's opera Hoffmann's Tales . In December 2008 he returned to the Vienna State Opera as Rodolfo in La Boheme .

At the end of January and beginning of February 2009, Villazón sang the role of Edgardo in the Lucia di Lammermoor series at the Metropolitan Opera in New York alongside Anna Netrebko, despite a cold . However, he had to cancel this after a few performances - and after struggling with problems during a performance. In March 2009, however, he showed himself to be at the height of his strength as Werther in Paris . In April 2009 Villazón canceled all other appearances for 2009 because he had to undergo an operation because of a cyst on the vocal cords . In November 2009 he announced on his homepage that he intended to perform again in 2010.

He returned to the stage in mid-March 2010. In the summer of 2010 Villazón gave several concerts in his home country and stood in front of the camera for three weeks for the road movie Mein Mexico . On October 2, 2010, Villazón made his successful debut at La Scala in Milan as Nemorino.

Villazón made his debut as an opera director at the Opéra de Lyon in 2011 with a production of Massenet's Werther . This was followed in 2012 by Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden and in 2015 by productions of Donizetti's Viva la Mamma at the Volksoper Vienna and Puccini's La rondine at the Deutsche Oper Berlin . In 2017 he directed Donizetti's opera Don Pasquale at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf .

His first novel Malabares was published in Spanish in 2013. The German translation Kunststücke was published in 2014.

He has been the artistic director of the Mozart Week in Salzburg since July 1, 2017 .

Villazón has been a moderator and brand ambassador at Klassik Radio since August 1, 2017 .

Villazón is married with two sons and lives in Neuilly-sur-Seine .

Trivia

  • He has Austrian ancestors with the name Roth, who emigrated to Mexico.
  • Villazón likes to draw caricatures, and accompanying drawings can be found on his homepage for many productions.
  • After finishing school, Villazón wanted to become a priest and spent a few months in the mountains in a monastery.
  • Before starting his singing career, Villazón completed a degree in pedagogy. In order to finance it, he worked as a teacher for five years and after that he was initially active as a history teacher.
  • Rolando Villazón was a juror for the songwriting competition “ Your Song ” for children and young people in 2014 and 2015 .
  • In 2016 he was the face of eprimo advertising.
  • Rolando Villazón had two guest appearances in "Sesame Street": He sang a child-friendly version of "O sole mio" as an ice cream seller together with Ernie and Bert and explained the word "temperament" with Elmo.

Discography

Until June 2007 he was still committed to the record company EMI, after which he switched to Deutsche Grammophon.

Albums

year title Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements
(Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes) 		Remarks
FR FR DE DE AT AT CH CH
2004 Italian Opera Arias FR70 (5 weeks)
FR 		- AT51 (4 weeks)
AT 		-
2005 Arias FR82 (10 weeks)
FR 		- - -
La traviata - DE44
platinum
platinum

(3 weeks)DE 		AT8th
platinum
platinum

(17 weeks)AT 		CH27 (10 weeks)
CH
Violetta - arias and duets from Verdi's La traviata - DE14 (35 weeks)
DE 		- -
with Anna Netrebko
2006 Opera recital FR79 (12 weeks)
FR 		DE62 (3 weeks)
DE 		AT30 (5 weeks)
AT 		-
2007 Gitano FR24 (10 weeks)
FR 		DE50 (7 weeks)
DE 		AT38 (7 weeks)
AT 		-
Zarzuela arias
with Plácido Domingo
Duets FR48 (12 weeks)
FR 		DE3
platinum
platinum

(35 weeks)DE 		AT4th
platinum
platinum

(26 weeks)AT 		CH18 (11 weeks)
CH
with Anna Netrebko
Viva Villazón! - - AT63 (2 weeks)
AT 		-
2008 Cielo e mar FR46 (8 weeks)
FR 		DE30 (9 weeks)
DE 		AT41 (4 weeks)
AT 		CH82 (1 week)
CH
La Boheme FR182 (1 week)
FR 		DE36 (3 weeks)
DE 		AT42 (3 weeks)
AT 		-
with U. a. Anna Netrebko
2009 Georg Friedrich Handel - Arias - DE17 (9 weeks)
DE 		AT16 (10 weeks)
AT 		-
with Gabrieli Players & Paul McCreesh
2010 ¡México! FR42 (9 weeks)
FR 		DE52 (2 weeks)
DE 		AT23 (6 weeks)
AT 		-
feat. Bolívar Soloists
Les stars du classique FR195 (1 week)
FR 		- - -
2011 La strada - Songs From The Movies - - AT75 (1 week)
AT 		-
2012 Verdi FR124 (3 weeks)
FR 		DE70 (2 weeks)
DE 		AT60 (1 week)
AT 		-
2014 Mozart: Concert Arias - - AT22 (2 weeks)
AT 		-
2017 Duets - DE84 (1 week)
DE 		- -
2018 Feliz navidad - DE61 (4 weeks)
DE 		AT50 (3 weeks)
AT 		-

More albums

  • 2002: The Flying Dutchman (with Falk Struckmann )
  • 2002: Romeo y Julieta (3 CDs)
  • 2003: La Vita de Homero
  • 2004: Italian Opera Arias
  • 2004: Berlioz: La Révolution Grecque (2 CDs)
  • 2004: Classical music from Italy (an aria from Tosca )
  • 2005: French Opera Arias
  • 2005: Merry Christmas
  • 2005: Tristan and Isolde
  • 2006: Football year 2006 - 32 national anthems (sings Mexican national anthem)
  • 2006: Monteverdi: Combattimento
  • 2009: Verdi: Messa da Requiem (live recording, with Anja Harteros , Sonia Ganassi , René Pape , 2CDs)
  • 2010: tenor (UK only)
  • 2012: Don Giovanni (with, among others, Diana Damrau , Ildebrando D'Arcangelo )
  • 2013: Sesame Street: Ernie & Bert sing with stars - as a singing ice cream seller

Video albums

year title Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements
(Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes) 		Remarks
FR FR DE DE AT AT CH CH
2004 The Waldbühne concert - DE68
gold
gold

(7 weeks)DE 		AT-
gold
gold
AT 		-
from Berlin; with Anna Netrebko & Plácido Domingo
placement in DE in the album charts
2008 Manon - DE87 (1 week)
DE 		- -
with Anna Netrebko, Alfredo Daza & Christof Fischesser
Placement in DE in the album charts

More video albums

bibliography

  • 2014: feats . Roman, translated from Spanish by Willi Zurbrüggen , original title: Malabares , Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-498-07065-6 .
  • 2017: Life artist. Roman , translated from Spanish by Willi Zurbrüggen, Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2017, ISBN 978-3-498-07067-0 .
  • 2020: Amadeus on a bicycle , translated from Spanish by Willi Zurbrüggen, Rowohlt, Hamburg 2020, ISBN 978-3-498-07070-0 .

Documentation

  • 2006 Rolando Villazón - a Mexican dream
  • 2010 Rolando Villazón: My Mexico (a road movie by Peter Schönhofer )

swell

  1. ↑ Villazón will soon be singing again in Vienna , ORF, October 8, 2010.
  2. ↑ a b c Frederik Hanssen: "I'm not a branded product". Zeit online, March 7, 2015, accessed March 12, 2015 .
  3. ↑ derStandard.at: Rolando Villazon becomes director of the Mozart Week . Article dated June 26, 2017, accessed August 17, 2017.
  4. ↑ Christopher Deppe: Rolando Villazón is the new face of Klassik Radio. www.radioszene.de, August 30, 2017, accessed on January 11, 2018 .
  5. ↑ Joachim Kronsbein: Knocking Signs of Fate in: Der Spiegel , April 11, 2005, [1] , accessed on December 21, 2018
  6. ↑ Wiebke Porombka: The jury is not always the asshole in: Zeit online , March 19, 2014, online , accessed on April 8, 2014
  7. ↑ a b Chart sources: FR DE AT CH
  8. ↑ Awards for music sales: DE AT

literature

Awards

Web links

Commons : Rolando Villazón  - Collection of Images
Wikiquote: Rolando Villazón  - Quotes
personal data
SURNAME Villazón, Rolando
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Villazón Mauleón, Emilio Rolando
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Mexican opera singer
DATE OF BIRTH February 22, 1972
PLACE OF BIRTH Mexico city