Brigitte Fassbaender

Brigitte Fassbaender ( born July 3, 1939 in Berlin ) is a German opera and lieder singer (mezzo- soprano), director and artistic director.

Life

Fassbaenders father baritone Willi Domgraf - Fassbaender, her mother was the actress Sabine Peters. The first vocal training she received from her father, who was also her only voice teacher. From 1959 to 1961 Brigitte Fassbaender studied at the Conservatory in Nuremberg and was from 1961 a member of the Bavarian State Opera. 1970 Fassbaender was appointed to the Bavarian chamber singer.

In the 1970s Fassbaender occurred at many houses of Europe and at the Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden, London, La Scala in Milan and the Opera House of San Francisco as an opera singer. Brigitte Fassbaender was a regular guest at the Salzburg Festival. At the Bayreuth Festival, she joined in 1983 and 1984 when Walt diamond in the twilight of the gods on. She sang Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier, Brangäne in Tristan and Isolde and the title role in Carmen. In Götz Friedrich 's production of Alban Berg's Lulu at the Deutsche Oper Berlin ( 1982), she was the Countess GESCHWITZ.

Throughout her career, concert and lieder singing took up most of her musical career. Her repertoire included songs by Franz Liszt, Richard Strauss, Johannes Brahms, Franz Schubert, etc.

Fassbaender played a roughly 250 records.

1995 finished her career as a mezzo-soprano opera, recital and concert singer. Thereafter she devoted herself to the direction of opera and drama. A focus of her work is on works by William Shakespeare. After productions in Coburg, then later at home and abroad, Fassbaender was for two years opera director (1995-1997) at the Staatstheater Braunschweig. From 1999 to 2012 she was director of the Tyrolean State Theatre. In 2002 she took over the artistic direction of Eppaner song - summer 2009, and the Richard Strauss Festival in Garmisch -Partenkirchen.

2010 wrote Brigitte Fassbaender the texts for Lulu - the musical. The premiere was held in Innsbruck. 2012 was followed by the musical Shylock! ; this Fassbaender wrote the libretto, based on the Shakespearean tragicomedy The Merchant of Venice.

As Director and Producer, she devoted herself among other things the development of young artists. Her students include: Juliane Banse, Michelle Breedt, Anke Vondung, Christiane Libor, Martin Mitterrutzner and Janina Baechle.

Awards and honors

For their artistic achievements Brigitte Fassbaender received an honorary doctorate. In 1979 she was awarded the German Critics' Prize, in 1985 with the Frankfurt Music Prize and in 1995 with the Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art in 2004 and the Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Prize. Since 2005 Fassbaender chairman of the Richard -Strauss -Gesellschaft eV is. 2006 she was awarded the Music Prize of the City of Munich. Since 2010 she is a member of the Order Pour le Mérite. 2011 Fassbaender was appointed Knight of the Legion of Honor (L' Ordre national de la Légion d' Honneur ). It was in 2012 awarded the Grand Cross of Merit with Star of the Federal Republic of Germany and the ring of honor of Innsbruck.

Productions

• La Cenerentola ( Coburg, Wiesbaden and Innsbruck)
• The distant sound ( Opera North, Leeds )
• Lulu (Innsbruck )
• Hansel and Gretel ( Augsburg and Graz)
• The Magic Flute ( Coburg and Meiningen )
• A Midsummer Night 's Dream (Amsterdam, Tel -Aviv, Brunswick and Innsbruck)
• Der Rosenkavalier (Oldenburg, Innsbruck and Amsterdam)
• Ariadne auf Naxos ( Frankfurt am Main and Meiningen )
• Tristan and Isolde (Braunschweig and Innsbruck)
• Susannah (Vienna)
• Don Giovanni (Oldenburg )
• A Little Night Music (Braunschweig)
• Pelléas et Mélisande (Braunschweig and Innsbruck)
• La Traviata (St. Gallen)
• Rigoletto (Chemnitz )
• Lucio Silla (London and Copenhagen)
• Orpheus in the Underworld (Innsbruck and Dortmund)
• Gypsy ( Innsbruck)
• Werther ( Innsbruck)
• The White Horse Inn (Innsbruck )
• The Land of Smiles (Innsbruck and Ulm)
• Carmen (Innsbruck )

• Fidelio (Innsbruck )
• Arabella ( Strasbourg and Innsbruck)
• Die Fledermaus ( Hanover and Innsbruck)
• The Gypsy Baron (Innsbruck and Mörbisch )
• Othello.Therapie (Innsbruck )
• Die Frau ohne Schatten (Innsbruck )
• Peter Grimes (Innsbruck )
• Salome (Innsbruck )
• Smiles of a Summer Night (Innsbruck )
• Before Sunset (Innsbruck )
• Der Freischütz (Innsbruck )
• Merry festivals ( Innsbruck)
• Tosca (Innsbruck )
• The Turn of the Screw (Innsbruck )
• Oberon (Innsbruck )
• Eugene Onegin (Innsbruck )
• Les Contes d' Hoffmann ( Innsbruck)
• Das Rheingold (Innsbruck )
• Les Troyens (Innsbruck )
• The Bartered Bride (Innsbruck )
• Elektra (Innsbruck )
• Falstaff (Innsbruck )
• Albert Herring (Innsbruck )
• Don Pasquale (Munich )
• Katya Kabanov (Regensburg)

Discography (selection)

• Gypsy Songs (EMI )
• Brigitte Fassbaender sings songs by Liszt, Milhaud and Mahler with Irwin Gage (EMI 1981)
• The Very Best of Brigitte Fassbaender (EMI 2005)
• The Great Songs Recordings (EMI ICON 2013)

DVD

• Der Rosenkavalier ( German Grammophon 1991)
• Hansel and Gretel (including with Edita Gruberova German Grammophon 2005)
• Elektra ( Vienna State Opera, as Clytemnestra Conductor:. Claudio Abbado, directed by Harry Kupfer, German Grammophon 1989)
• Die Winterreise, Film by Petr Weigl by Wilhelm Müller and Franz Schubert ( 1994)