Walter Hesse (singer)

Walter Hesse is studying a new role.

Walter Hesse (born January 7, 1921 in Döllensradung ; † April 26, 1997 in Zurich ) was an opera singer (tenor).

career

Walter Hesse trained himself to be a singer largely self-taught . He began his career in 1949/50 as a bass baritone at the Landestheater Innsbruck as a bass baritone, but his voice soon changed. After a short additional study, he switched to the tenor subject .

Hesse's baritone-tinged, but nevertheless safe, voice was able to convince in a wide variety of roles. Unstable and torn characters who suffered in themselves and in society were particularly appealing to him.

Other early stages in his career:

• 1950–55 State Theater on Gärtnerplatz in Munich
• 1955–57 Munster Municipal Theaters
• 1957–63 City Theater Zurich
• 1963/64 permanent guest at the Stadttheater Bern
• 1965–67 director and singer at the Städtebundtheater Hof

After a serious accident, Walter Hesse worked as a lathe operator in a Zurich rubber factory before he found a job again at the Zurich Opera House (formerly Stadttheater) from 1969–1985 - now mainly as a character tenor.

Walter Hesse married Margarete Hesse at a young age, with whom he had two children. After seven years, the couple separated.

roll

Zurich successes as:

• Florestan in Beethoven's Fidelio
• Don José in Bizet's Carmen
• Edgardo in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor
• Hoffmann in Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann
• Rodolfo in Puccini's La Bohème
• Cavaradossi in Puccini's Tosca
• the title role in Heinrich Sutermeister's Raskolnikow
• the Verdi roles Don Carlo in Don Carlo , Alvaro in La forza del destino and Manrico in Il Trovatore
• Erik in Richard Wagner's The Flying Dutchman
• Max in Weber's Der Freischütz

From 1969, Walter Hesse was able to prove that he also had a comic talent:

• as Uncle Gustav in Paul Burkhard's Das Feuerwerk
• Crunchy witch in Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel
• Colonel Ollendorf in Millöckers The beggar student
• Nasoni in Millöckers Gasparone
• Frick or Domino in Offenbach's La Vie Parisienne and Les Brigands
• Don Eugenio de Zuniga in Hugo Wolf's The Corregidor

In the world premiere of Rudolf Kelterborn's An Angel Comes to Babylon in 1977 he sang the great general (director: Götz Friedrich, musical director: Ferdinand Leitner).

He was a guest at the Stadttheater Bern

• 1963/64 as Don José
• Canio in Ruggero Leoncavallos I pagliacci and
• Judge Danforth in the Swiss premiere of Robert Ward's The Crucible (director: Walter Oberer, musical director: Max Sturzenegger).

Further guest engagements at the Stadttheater St. Gallen (1962/63 Prinz in Dvořák's Rusalka and Manrico) as well as in Bremen, Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Essen, Cologne, the Salzburg State Theater and in Vienna.

literature

• Paul Suter : Walter Hesse . In: Andreas Kotte (Ed.): Theater Lexikon der Schweiz . Volume 2, Chronos, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-0340-0715-9 , p. 836 f.

Web links

• Walter Hesse at Operissimo  on the basis of the Great Singer Lexicon
• Walter Hesse in the Bavarian Musicians' Lexicon Online (BMLO)