Donald Shanks (bass-baritone)
Donald Robert Shanks ( born July 5, 1940 in Brisbane, Queensland, † April 8, 2011 ) was an Australian opera singer with the voice bass baritone.
Life
Shanks began his artistic career as a singer in various church choirs, and church. In 1964, he was, after a successful audition, his operatic debut at the Elizabethan Theatre Trust Opera, the forerunner of today's Opera Australia, in an amateur production of the operetta The Mikado. After that he went first with the Williamson Sutherland Opera Company on tour in Australia; there he sang, among others, the Baron Douphol in La traviata. At the Opera Australia, he developed a long career since 1964. He took over 40 years to there and sang both the comic bass baritone repertoire, the bel canto specialist and serious bass roles, including in the operas of Richard Wagner.
His most important roles were Osmin in The Abduction from the Seraglio, Sarastro in The Magic Flute, Rocco in Fidelio, the title role in Don Pasquale, Dulcamarara in The Elixir of Love, Oroveso in Norma, Zaccaria in Nabucco, Banquo in Macbeth (on the side of Sherrill Milnes in the title role), King Philip and the Grand Inquisitor in Don Carlo, Colline in La Bohème (next to Luciano Pavarotti as Rodolfo ), Timur in Turandot, Kezal in the Bartered Bride and Baron Ochs in Der Rosenkavalier.
In the opera Boris Godunov, he sang both the title role and the role of the old monk and chronicler Pimen. In Wagner specialist, he joined ( The Flying Dutchman ), Landgraf ( Tannhäuser ), King Henry ( Lohengrin ), King Marke ( Tristan und Isolde ), Veit Pogner ( The Mastersingers of Nuremberg), Hunding ( Die Walküre ) and including as Daland Gurnemanz ( Parsifal ) on. Multiple was in opera performances in Australia and Canada Joan Sutherland his partner, including Norma, in Lucia di Lammermoor ( Sutherland in the title role, Shanks Raimondo ), in Il trovatore (1983, Sydney Opera House), Hamlet (1985, Canadian Opera Company) and I puritani (1985, Sydney Opera House).
Shanks has also appeared at Covent Garden Opera (1974, as Fafner in Das Rheingold ), at the Grand Opéra Paris (1976, also as Fafner ), at the Canadian Opera Company ( 1983-1986), at the Sydney Opera House (1983, as Ferrando in Il trovatore, 1988, when King in Aida; 1991/1992 as an ox and as Susanna in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro ) at the Queensland Opera in Brisbane (1989, as Osmin ) and the Victoria State Opera.
In October 2004, he officially took the title role in the operetta The Mikado farewell to the operatic stage. In his last season at the Opera Australia he sang there in 2004 also still pastor / Badger in The Cunning Little Vixen and the Doctor Bartolo in Le nozze di Figaro. Last Shanks sang in September 2010 again the Doctor Bartolo in a production of Opera Queensland at the Brisbane Festival.
Several recordings of opera performances in which Shanks is involved, were now released on DVD, including Il trovatore (1983, Sydney Opera), Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1988, Australia Opera with Donald McIntyre as Hans Sachs) and Turandot (1991, Opera Australia ).
Shanks has been named in the New Years Day Honours an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of his artistic merits, 1977. In 1987 he was Officer of the Order of Australia.
Shanks died of a heart attack.