Sebastian Holecek

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Sebastian Holecek (born March 27, 1964 in Vienna ) is an Austrian opera singer with a baritone voice . He has been a member of the Vienna Volksoper ensemble since 2006 .

life and work

Holecek is the son of the Viennese singer and folk artist Heinz Holecek (1938–2012) and, at a young age, met a number of famous artists who frequented his parents' house, including Cesare Siepi , Luchino Visconti and Franco Zeffirelli . As a teenager he was one of the enthusiastic standing room visitors to the Vienna State Opera . At a school event he sang an aria from Cornelius' The Barber of Baghdad , but did not know that his father had brought colleagues Oskar Czerwenka and Eberhard Waechter with him. Their summary: “Although he has a voice, he just can't sing at all. But he has a great presence. He belongs on the stage! ”So it happened that Holecek followed in his father's footsteps and studied singing at the Vienna University of Music and in Italy .

During his studies he made guest appearances in Holland, Germany, Switzerland and Austria. In 1990 he became a member of the ensemble at the Gärtnerplatztheater in Munich, where he sang , among others, Figaro , Don Giovanni and Harlequin (in Ariadne auf Naxos ). This was followed by engagements at major opera houses worldwide, including the State Opera Unter den Linden in Berlin, the Bavarian State Opera in Munich and the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, as well as Paris, New York, Cape Town, Monte Carlo, Santiago de Chile, Madrid and Barcelona , Amsterdam, St. Gallen, Turin, Naples, Rome, Düsseldorf, Saarbrücken and Stuttgart, as well as the Bregenz Festival . He made his debut at the Vienna State Opera in October 1991 with his long-standing star role, Papageno in Schikaneder and Mozart's Magic Flute . So far he has made guest appearances in this role 24 times in the Haus am Ring. Parallel to his engagement in Munich he also sang regularly at the Vienna Volksoper.

Sebastian Holecek has been a member of the Vienna Volksoper ensemble since the 2006/2007 season . Holecek has a wide-ranging repertoire, ranging from Mozart (Figaro, Giovanni, Masetto, Papageno and Sprecher) to the present day. In German, he sings Pizzaro and Don Fernando in Beethoven's Fidelio , Peter in Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel , Kaspar in Weber's Freischütz , Heerrufer in Wagner's Lohengrin , Johannes Freudhofer in Kienzl's Evangelimann and Moruccio in d'Albert's Tiefland . In the Italian subject he was successful as Schaunard in La Bohème , as Scarpia in Tosca and as Fléville in Andrea Chénier . His Verdi roles include Germont in La traviata , Christian in the masked ball and Marullo in Rigoletto , and in addition to the Harlequin, his Strauss roles include Jochanaan in Salome and Count Dominik in Arabella . Other important roles are Escamillo in Bizet's Carmen , the title roles in the modern operas Il prigioniero (by Dallapiccola) and Gesualdo (by Schnittke ), as well as Barak in Ferruccio Busoni's Turandot and Theseus in Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream . Holecek also likes to sing operettas and has appeared and heard , among other things, as Danilo in the Merry Widow , as Eisenstein in the Fledermaus and as Homonay in the Gypsy Baron . In 2014/2015 he gave the ghost messenger in the premiere of Frau ohne Schatten at the Bavarian State Opera .

Holecek was and can be heard as a concert singer at the Musikverein and Konzerthaus in Vienna, as well as at Carnegie Hall in New York. In August 2015 he made his debut at the Salzburg Festival as Don Fernando in a new Fidelio production by Claus Guth and Franz Welser-Möst in the Großer Festspielhaus. Holecek also sang this role at the Vienna State Opera in June 2015 .

Holecek's daughter Jamileh is a set designer , his son Nicholas performed as an extra in the Volksoper when he was 9 years old.

Award

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Barbara Boisits: Holecek, family. In: Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon . Online edition, Vienna 2002 ff., ISBN 3-7001-3077-5 ; Print edition: Volume 2, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-7001-3044-9 .
  2. ^ Unisono online: Von Fätern und Sons , 2012/2013 season, accessed on July 14, 2015
  3. ^ Salzburg Festival : Short biography Sebastian Holecek , accessed on July 14, 2015
  4. ↑ Sebastian Holeceks performances at the Vienna State Opera
personal data
SURNAME Holecek, Sebastian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian opera singer with a baritone voice
DATE OF BIRTH March 27, 1964
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna