Janet Baker
Dame Janet Baker, CH, DBE, FRSA ( born August 21, 1933, Hatfield, South Yorkshire, England) is a British singer with the voice Mezzo soprano and alto. She was raised in 1976 as a Dame of the British Empire in the peerage.
Biography and artistic work
Very early discovered Janet Baker her interest in classical music, which was encouraged by his parents. Your youth, she first spent in York, later in Grimsby, where they already attracted considerable attention as an amateur singer. Baker studied music in London in 1953 with Helene Isepp and Meriel St Clair and performed as a concert singer. 1956 won the 23 -year-old Kathleen Ferrier Prize. The studies, she then went on at the Salzburg Mozarteum. Her debut was in 1959 in the role of Miss Roza in The Secret in the Oxford University Opera Club. In the same year, she also debuted at Glyndebourne. In the following years she appeared in all major British opera houses. Her stage repertoire included all the major roles of the Baroque operas ( Gluck, Handel, Monteverdi ) and from operas by Wagner, Berlioz, Mozart, Strauss, Britten, and Donizetti. Almost every year Janet Baker sang at the Festival of Edinburgh and Glyndebourne.
Janet Baker also made itself as a song - and Oratorieninterpretin a name. The artist was soon regarded as the most significant Oratorienaltistin her generation. She devoted herself ( accompanied among others by Martin Isepp and Gerald Moore) not only his native English, but also French and German piano song repertoire, in addition, also various orchestral song - cycles: your recordings of " Nuits d' été " by Berlioz, the " Sea Pictures " by Edward Elgar and the " Kindertotenlieder " and the " Rückert Lieder " by Gustav Mahler are among her most fascinating performances and have until today the status of document images.
While she performed as an oratorio and concert singer in the world, they limited their presence in opera productions strictly to the British Isles. In this way she got to be one of the most sought after singers of her time in full control of their artistic and private life and to keep it in front too early wear. Your last year on the opera stage was documented on film under the title " Full Circle "; it ended in September 1982 at the Glyndebourne Festival with a performance of Gluck's " Orfeo ed Euridice". Your concert career continued Janet Baker after a while away.
Queen Elizabeth II elevated the artist in 1976 as Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the peerage.
Reviews
" The alto voice of the artist that has been repeatedly compared with the great Kathleen Ferrier, characterized by its sonority from as well as by their pattern interpretation is a wonderful art"