Walter Raffeiner

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Walter Raffeiner (born April 8, 1947 in Wolfsberg , Carinthia ; † December 25, 2009 ) was an Austrian opera singer with a tenor voice .

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Walter Raffeiner studied singing at the Vienna University of Music from 1966 to 1971 and was trained by the singing teacher Alexander Kolo, among others. He began his singing career as a baritone . This was followed by first engagements as a baritone at the opera studio of the Cologne Opera (1972), at the Stadttheater Hagen (1973–1976) and at the Staatstheater Darmstadt (1976–1979). During this time Raffeiner sang mainly the lyrical baritone part such as Papageno in Die Zauberflöte , Figaro in The Barber of Seville , but also the more dramatic title role of the opera Eugene Onegin . In May 1977 he sang the male title role in the West German premiere of the opera Der Schuhu and the Flying Princess at the Darmstadt State Theater .

At the end of his engagement in Darmstadt, Raffeiner changed his subject from high baritone to hero tenor . His first tenor role was in 1979, still engaged in Darmstadt, the Pedro in Tiefland by Eugen d'Albert . At the beginning of the 1979/80 season Raffeiner went to the Frankfurt Opera as a youthful hero tenor and hero tenor . He stayed there until 1987 as a permanent member of the ensemble. Raffeiner was one of the outstanding protagonists of the Frankfurt Opera in the direction of Michael Gielen . Raffeiner sang in Frankfurt, among others, Stolzius in The Soldiers (Premiere: June 1981; Director: Alfred Kirchner , Conductor: Michael Gielen), Max in Der Freischütz (new production, 1983/84 season), Florestan in Fidelio and the title role in Richard Wagner's Parsifal in a production by Ruth Berghaus (1982/83 season; premiere: November 1982, conductor: Michael Gielen); he sang Parsifal again and again in the following seasons, so u. a. at performances in April 1985 and June 1987. In Berghaus' Frankfurter Ring production he took on Siegmund in Die Walküre (1985/86 season, premiere: May 1986); he sang this role later in June 1987 as part of the repetition of the Ring cycle.

In the 1979/80 season he sang the title role of Alexej in the opera The Gambler at Deutsche Oper am Rhein (premiere: June 1980, director: Bohumil Herlischka ); Raffeiner had an "outstanding profile" and with his "flexible character tenor" met all the requirements of the game "confidently". In the 1980/81 season he made a guest appearance at the Städtische Bühnen Freiburg as the title hero in Lohengrin from his permanent engagement in Frankfurt ; he showed "a beautiful, sensual and powerful material that he knew how to color and nuanced". In January 1982 he made a guest appearance at the Nationaltheater Mannheim in the series “Festliche Opernabende” alongside Gwyneth Jones (as Leonore) as Florestan in Fidelio , also from his permanent engagement in Frankfurt ; in May 1982 he could be heard there as Parsifal. In June 1982 he took over the title role in a staged production of the Handel oratorio Jephta at the Bremen Theater (Theater am Goetheplatz) in the last premiere of the 1981/82 season ; Raffeiner was a singer-actor in the performance who was able to "brilliantly implement Herbert Wernicke's directional concept ."

Raffeiner also sang at the Vienna State Opera . He made his debut there in 1981 as Lohengrin. From 1986 he had a permanent guest contract there. His roles at the State Opera included Freischütz -Max, as well as Herod in Salome and the drum major in Wozzeck ; in the last-named role, however, he seemed “vocal and optically inappropriate”. In the 1988/89 season he was the mayor of the Vienna State Opera in a total of four performances in the opera The Visit of the Old Lady in a musical re-production of the premiere production from 1971.

Raffeiner also made guest appearances at the Salzburg Festival . There he sang Gran Sacerdote in the opera Idomeneo by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1984 . In 1986 he was the wealthy mayor Silvanus Schuller in the world premiere of the opera The Black Mask by Krzysztof Penderecki . He has also made several guest appearances at the Musiktheater im Revier in Gelsenkirchen , a. a. in the season 1986/87 as wet nurse Arnalta and court poet Lucano in L'incoronazione di Poppea and in the season 1987/88 as Pasqua in Il campiello by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari .

Raffeiner also made regular guest appearances at the Hamburg State Opera . In the 1984/85 season he sang Schiuskij in Boris Godunow in a new production (director: Kurt Horres ); in November 1984 he sang Parsifal in Hamburg. In the 1985/86 season he took over the role of Tichon in the new production of the Katja Kabanowa opera (premiere: November 1985, director: Peter Ustinov ). In the 1988/89 season Raffeiner sang the title role in the Handel Oratorio Belshazzar in Hamburg ( revived in April 1989; director: Harry Kupfer ); he "impressed with his relentless vocal and acting commitment, which could make up for some of the unevenness in the voice guidance".

Raffeiner also performed repeatedly at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich . In the 1979/80 season he sang the title role in a staged implementation of the Handel oratorio Judas Maccabaeus (premiere: February 1980, director: Herbert Wernicke ). In his interpretation, "he tended to overdo something with the habit of the prophetic hero"; Vocally, he had "sufficient tenoral gloss and an absolutely convincing word expression". Between 1987 and 1988 he could be heard in Munich as Herod. In the 1989/90 season he took over Max in the new production of Freischütz (premiere: February 1990, director: Niels-Peter Rudolph ), this time [but] could only "come up with a dull tenor" and, although "optically well in concept fitting, vocally a bad cast ”.

Raffeiner has made guest appearances at the Rouen Opera House (1982 as Siegmund), at the Grand Opéra in Paris (1982 as Lohengrin), at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels (1983 as Max; 1989 as Drum Major in Wozzeck ; 1992 as Herodes), at the State Theater Kassel (1984/85 season as Siegmund; 1988/89 season as Parsifal), at the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe (in April 1985 as Parsifal, as a substitute for Siegfried Jerusalem ), at the Cologne Opera (April 1984 as Parsifal with a “strong, something rough tenor, which has heroic splendor, but does not know enough shades in the dynamics "; January 1988 as drum major, where he disappointed with his" stressful tenor "), at the Basel Theater (1989 as Herodes in Salome ), in Rotterdam ( May 1988 as Siegmund; at the ring guest performance of the State Theater Kassel on the occasion of the opening of the newly built City Theater Rotterdam), in Amsterdam (1990, 1991 and 1994 as Eisenstein) and at the Opera Forum in Enschede (January / February 1993 a ls drum major in Wozzeck ). In the 1996/97 season in Amsterdam he was Aegisth "singing full of character" in Willy Decker's new Elektra production.

In July 1989 he sang Mahler's cycle songs of a traveling journeyman in the piano version at the “Gustav Mahler Festival Kassel '89” . In the 1991/92 season he sang the baritone role of King Froila in the staged premiere of the original version of the opera Alfonso and Estrella by Franz Schubert at the Graz Opera House . In 1994 he played the role of Michail Gorbatschow in the world premiere of the satirical chamber opera Gorbatschow by Franz Hummel at the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn . In July 1993 he sang the role of Ludwig at the 200th Rudolstadt Festival in the staged premiere of Siegfried Wagner's opera Schwarzschwanenreich ; He repeated this role there in June 1994. In the 1997/98 season he was a guest at the Berliner Volksbühne as Baron Gondremarck in the operetta Pariser Leben , in a production by Christoph Marthaler , which was also seen at the 1998 Wiener Festwochen . In 1999 Raffeiner made a guest appearance at the Wiener Festwochen in a production of the satirical short opera Bählamms Fest by Olga Neuwirth , which Christoph Marthaler again directed. In the 2001/02 season Raffeiner took on the silent role of Fenella in the opera La Muette de Portici (director: Barbara Beyer ) at the Theater Aachen , which he described in "stirring, intense and heart-touching theatrical density" as one "in intellectual poverty "Ugliness and helplessness in prisoners".

From the end of the 1990s, Raffeiner worked intensively on Kurt Weill's music . He appeared in several of Weill's stage works and recorded CDs with his music. Raffeiner often appeared in experimental productions, for example in the context of the Klangforum Wien . In 2001 he performed there with his concert program, Fake Viennese Songs . In 2002 he appeared in a production of the Neue Oper Wien as drum major in a Wozzeck arrangement for chamber orchestra. In 2003 he took part in another production of the New Opera Vienna as part of the Wiener Festwochen, as a speaker in the opera store Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern by Helmut Lachenmann .

Raffeiner was officially retired in 2007, but continued to appear in stage productions. In 2008 he sang again in an opera production of the Neue Oper Wien in the MuseumsQuartier Wien , this time in A Marathon Family by Isidora Žebeljan . In 2009 he sang the pig farmer Zsupán in the operetta Der Zigeunerbaron by Johann Strauss in Baden near Vienna at the operetta festival of the Baden City Theater in the summer arena .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Walter Raffeiner is dead ( Memento from January 9, 2010 in the Internet Archive ). In: Frankfurter Rundschau , January 7, 2010
  2. Walter Raffeiner passed away . Klassik.com, January 8, 2010
  3. Karlheinz Huber: THE PLAYER . Performance review. In: Orpheus . Issue 7/8. July / August 1980. Pages 508/509; to W. Raffeiner there on page 508.
  4. Irene-Marianne Kinne: FREIBURG: LOHENGRIN . Performance review. In: Orpheus . Issued June 6, 1981. Pages 449-451; to W. Raffeiner there on page 450.
  5. Wolfgang Denker: JEPHTA . Performance review. In: Orpheus . Issue November 11, 1982. Page 915/916.
  6. ↑ List of roles by Walter Raffeiner. In: Chronicle of the Vienna State Opera 1945–2005 . Löcker Verlag, Vienna 2006, ISBN 3-85409-449-3 , p. 679
  7. Christoph Trenkwitz : STAATSOPERNROULETTE . Performance reviews. In: Orpheus . Issued January 1, 1988. page 54.
  8. Walter Raffeiner roles directory  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . official website of the Salzburg Festival (with search function)@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.salzburgerfestspiele.at  
  9. Jacques Fournier: BIBLICAL . Performance review. In: Orpheus . Issue June 6, 1989. Page 457.
  10. a b Manfred Strauss: JUDAS MACCABÄUS . Performance review. In: Orpheus . Issue March 3, 1980. Pages 164-166; to W. Raffeiner there on page 166.
  11. Marcello Santi: TOTALLY MISSED. THE FREISCHÜTZ . Performance review. In: Orpheus . Issue April 4, 1990. page 43.
  12. G. button: THE RUNNER . Performance review. In: Opera glasses . April 1990 edition. Page 26/27.
  13. M. Kosel: COLOGNE. FROM THE REPERTOIRE . Performance reviews. In: The opera glasses . Issue June 6, 1984. Page 29.
  14. Claus Holz: SUGGESTIV . Performance review. In: Orpheus . Issue April 4, 1988. page 290.
  15. ^ Klaus Kirchberg: Tragedy of lovelessness. Richard Strauss' "Elektra" in Amsterdam . Performance review. In: Opera world . Issue October 10, 1996. Page 23/24.
  16. Great Chief Domingo and Tenor Gorbi . In: Berliner Zeitung , June 10, 1994
  17. Everything gone, now you have peace . In: Berliner Zeitung , May 23, 1998
  18. Ambiguity and naivete  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Performance review from June 21, 1999@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / iem.at  
  19. B. Kempen: AACHEN: La Muette de Portici . Performance review. In: Opera glasses . Issue September 9, 2002. Pages 19–21.
  20. "Man of the Theater". Walter Raffeiner passed away  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . HR online, January 7, 2010@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.hr-online.de  
  21. Pretty versatile . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung , December 3, 2001
  22. "Red thread" wanted . Performance review from October 31, 2002, website Neue Oper Wien
  23. Battle of the Sounds . In: Die Welt , June 4, 2003; Michael Holliday
  24. ^ Gerhard Persché: performance review ( Memento from December 24, 2010 in the Internet Archive ). In: Opernwelt , October 22, 2008
  25. Vita Walter Raffeiner  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Stage Baden's website.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.buehnebaden.at