Barry McDaniel

Barry McDaniel ( born October 18, 1930 in Lyndon, Kansas) is an American baritone who designed his career almost exclusively in Germany. In addition to his stage work, he also emerged as a concert and lieder singer.

Life and career

Barry McDaniel was born in a very music-loving family in which his talent was recognized and encouraged early; Even as a child he received intensive instruction in voice, piano and percussion, and was as a boy soprano demand as a soloist in the church and at private concerts. After the change of voice he studied singing first at the University of Kansas and then at the prestigious baritone and singing teacher Mack Harrell, who brought him in 1950 at the Juilliard School of Music in New York. After completing his studies there he was on a Fulbright scholarship in 1953 at the Stuttgart Conservatory, where he continued his studies with Hermann Reutter and Alfred Paul and the extensive German repertoire continued to expand, which became the foundation of his later career. It was followed by a first engagement at the Opera Mainz, then - after a two-year interruption by military service in the U.S. Army - Engagements at the Staatsoper Stuttgart ( 1957-1958 ) and from 1959 at the Staatstheater Karlsruhe. There he was in the autumn of 1961, discovered by Egon Seefehlner, the deputy director and talent scout in 1961 reopened in their new house Deutsche Oper Berlin and obliged to Berlin.

Barry McDaniel remained a permanent member of the women's wear ensembles from 1962 to 1999 and worked with directors such as Gustav Rudolf Sellner, Götz Friedrich, Günther Rennert, Filippo Sanjust and colleagues such as Dietrich Fischer- Dieskau, Elisabeth Grummer, Josef Greindl, Ernst Haefliger, James King, Lisa Otto, Catherine Gayer, Pilar Lorengar and Edith Mathis. His stage repertoire included 98 roles, Gluck and Mozart on Italian bel canto specialist, and Richard Strauss to contemporary composers, of which he created several roles for the first time on stage.

His range as a church music and song interpreter handed as in the opera from the Baroque to the present. At the church music of Johann Sebastian Bach were ( cantatas, Christ in Matthew Passion) and Georg Philipp Telemann in the center, the song by Franz Schubert with his great song cycles, Robert Schumann, Gustav Mahler and Johannes Brahms. Another important role was played by French mélodies for example, by Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel and Francis Poulenc, and modern compositions for example by Aribert Reimann, Hermann Reutter, Anton Webern, Günther Bialas, Luigi Dallapiccola, Carl Orff and Richard Rodney Bennett.

His total of more than 2100 theaters and concert appearances in Berlin came numerous guest appearances, for example in Vienna, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Munich (11 years he was a regular guest at the Munich Opera Festival ), Geneva, Amsterdam, Mexico and Japan. In 1964, he appeared at the Bayreuth Festival as tungsten, 1971 at the Schwetzingen Festival in Aribert Reimann's " Melusine " in 1972 at New York's Metropolitan Opera as Pelléas. Overall, Barry McDaniel is good 3400 times played live. He also participated in 1954-1984 on several hundred songs, sacred music and opera title for the broadcast and played in the 1960s and 1970s, multiple lead roles in television productions of operas and operettas.

In 1970 he was awarded by the Berlin Senate the title of a Berlin Chamber singer.

From the late 1980s, Barry McDaniel began gradually to reduce its theater and concerts, and retired in 1999 after a series of concerts of American songs permanently from the active musical life back. He lives in Berlin.

Stage roles (selection)

• W. A. Mozart Papageno in " The Magic Flute", Count Almaviva in " Le Nozze di Figaro ", Guglielmo in " Cosi fan tutte ", Nardo in " La finta giardiniera " Allazim in " Zaide "

• LvBeethoven first prisoner in "Fidelio"

• G. Donizetti Malatesta in " Don Pasquale "

• D. Cimarosa Count Robinsone in "Il Matrimonio secreto "

• G. Rossini Figaro in " The Barber of Seville", Selim and poet in " Turco in Italia ", Dandini in " La Cenerentola "

• A. Lortzingstraße Count Eberbach in " The Poacher ", Czar in " Zar und Zimmermann "

• R. Leoncavallo Silvio in " Pagliacci "

• R. Wagner Wolfram in "Tannhäuser", Melot in " Tristan and Isolde "

• G. Puccini Sharpless in " Madama Butterfly ", Ping in " Turandot "

• C. Debussy 's Pelléas in " Pelléas et Mélisande "

• F. Poulenc husband in " Les Mamelles de Tiresias "

• R. Sessions Cuauhtemoc in " Montezuma " (premiered in Berlin 1964)

• H. W. Henze secretary in " The Young Lord " (premiered in Berlin 1965)

• I. Yun title role in " The Dream of Liu -Tung " (premiered in Berlin Academy of Arts, 1965)

• A. Reimann Count Lusignan in " Melusine " (world premiere at Schwetzingen Festival 1971)

Voice and discography

The voice of Barry McDaniel was a lyric baritone with a range of 2 ½ octaves, a sophisticated vocal and breathing technique ( he, for example, was able, the 9 measures long melisma in the intro of the cross bar Cantata BWV sing 56 in a single breath) and one of professionals repeatedly highlighted the beauty of sound. The " New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians " certifies him "a very melodious voice " and " a strong sense of phrasing and a high degree of text comprehension and text projection." The " TIME " wrote in 1971 about his role in " Melusine ": " A so lyrical poetry, such a lucid opera lyric examined today second to none, and hardly any of them hath the least power so beguiling to sing like Barry McDaniel. " The voice took over the years even at depth of expression and shades, but always retained her youthful, lyrical character, and Barry McDaniel consistently avoided trips outside its disciplinary boundaries, eg serious Wagner or Italian verismo roles.

By Barry McDaniel exist sound recordings from all areas of his repertoire as well as a number of television productions. Today, for example, are commercially Recordings of Johann Sebastian Bach, opera roles by Mozart, Strauss, Weill and Henze and works of contemporary church music ( which were often played with him for the first and only time ). Although his recording career was hampered as a song interpreter by the fact that he always stood on the limited market for commercial productions in the shadow of its two major competitors Hermann Prey and especially Dietrich Fischer- Dieskau, there are not only two recordings by the "Winterreise", but also numerous song recordings - some studio recordings, some live recordings - in the archives, among others SWR, BR, WDR, SFB (now RBB) and the BBC. Also, the Pelléas - one of his most important opera roles, and Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt after the premiere in Berlin celebrated in 1963 as " a perfect performance " - is obtained as a radio recording of a performance at the Metropolitan Opera in 1972.

For a complete list of sound recordings and television productions of Barry McDaniel see " Web Links ".