Gail Varina Gilmore

Gail Varina Gilmore ( born September 21, 1950 in Washington DC) is an African American opera, jazz and gospel singer, voice Mezzo soprano. Gail Gilmore in particular became famous by her interpretation of Kundry in Wagner's Parsifal.

Life

Training and first engagements

Gail Gilmore grew first in Washington, then in New Orleans. At Xavier University in New Orleans Gail Gilmore graduated from the teacher training program of music and earned a bachelor's degree in 1972 of Music. At Indiana University in Bloomington, she continued her studies, which she completed in 1974 with the Masters of Music. In the same year, the twenty-four year-old singer began her stage career in Germany, where she has focused her career to date. She fell to her through her great musicality, her acting talent and her unusual, dark voice. At the Stadttheater Gießen she made her debut as Princess Eboli in Verdi's Don Carlo. This was followed by an engagement at the Stadttheater Krefeld, where she took especially trouser roles such as Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro, Hansel in Hansel and Gretel and Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier. But in Krefeld she sang Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde. From 1979 to 1982 Gail Gilmore was a member of the State Theatre in Wiesbaden. Under the leadership of Music Director Siegfried Köhler, the singer celebrated great successes as Adriano in Rienzi, as Princess Eboli and as Venus in Tannhäuser. In 1982 Gail Gilmore Professor at the Nuremberg Opera House. At the same time Michael Gielen engaged her for regular appearances at the Frankfurt Opera, where the singer has been an ensemble member in 1985 and was among the first forces of the house.

Breakthrough as Kundry

In Nuremberg they had sung in the season 1981/1982 for the first time Kundry in Wagner's Parsifal. Gail Gilmore succeeded in Ruth Berghaus ' Frankfurt production of Parsifal, which had 1982 premiere and was conducted by Michael Gielen, an international breakthrough. So she sang Kundry at the side of Peter Hofmann at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice and at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Critics emphasized especially their phrasing and their differentiated concept of the roles of Kundry. In the eighties, more guest appearances at the Metropolitan Opera and other major opera houses joined. So Gail Gilmore sang at the Met, conducted by James Levine roles such as Venus in Tannhäuser, Fricka in Die Walküre and Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos. In the Arena of Verona, she sang Ulrica in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera Opera, Amneris in Aida and, on the side of José Carreras, the title role in Carmen. Gail Gilmore embodied more than forty operatic roles, including Ortrud in Lohengrin, Lady Macbeth in Macbeth and the title roles in Othmar Schoeck's opera Penthesilea and in Orff's opera Antigone.

Roles in the highly dramatic roles

Gilmore's voice teacher Rudolf Bautz encouraged Gilmore in terms of their vocal range of three and a half octaves to sing roles in the high dramatic times, such as Leonore in Fidelio, the title roles in Elektra and Salome, and the female title roles in Tosca and Turandot. Gail Gilmore but also sang in rarely performed operas such as the Opera Fosca the Brazilian composer Antônio Carlos Gomes, which was premiered in 1873 at La Scala.

To this day, Gail Gilmore impressed on the opera stage and the concert hall not only by their internalized and expressive art of singing, but also with outstanding credibility of their operatic roles and her great stage presence. In May 2010, she made her debut as old Countess in Pique Dame at the Theater Erfurt.

Concerts and teaching

Gail Gilmore occurs repeatedly as a concert singer in appearance. Her repertoire includes the Four Last Songs by Richard Strauss, the Third Symphony of Gustav Mahler, the Alto Rhapsody by Johannes Brahms and Richard Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder. From the beginning of her career Gail Gilmore gave concerts with piano accompaniment, in which she also brings songs of American composers and their own arrangements of gospel music to be heard in addition to well-known opera arias. In 2002 Gail Gilmore called the Oldambster music festival to life, which took place in the Dutch Bellingwolde. For six years, invited Gail Gilmore every year famous artists from around the world. The musical range of the highly successful festival ranged from the opera about the musical, jazz, gospel and blues.

From 2007 to 2012 Gail Gilmore taught at the run by Christin Bonin private singing school star me up in Munich singing in the fields of opera, musicals, jazz, pop and gospel. Gail Gilmore has worked as a lecturer since the summer semester 2010 at the University of Applied Sciences Würzburg -Schweinfurt ( Faculty of Applied Social Sciences). She lectured on the area children and youth services with the project "Musical work with young people with behavioral problems " in collaboration with Professor Gunter Adams (Director of Children and Youth Services Würzburg). It also considered ab exercises, together with Dean Professor Dr. Rainer Wiestner, in the field rehabilitation and hazardous Tete help with the issues of "Music in jail " and "freedom and chains ," the story of slavery with musical examples. Since 2012 she teaches at the private Institute of Music Creative Music Forum in Munich- Trude ring.