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• Personalities
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• Contemporary Classical
• Singer

b. 1939 German mezzo-soprano After her Munich debut in 1961, Brigitte Fassbaender took on a variety of operatic personae, from trouser roles, such as Octavian in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier (sung also for her Covent Garden and Metropolitan Opera debuts), to Fricka in Wagner’s Das Rheingold and Countess Geschwitz in the first complete production of Berg’s Lulu (Paris, 1979). She ...

• Major Operas
• High Romantic
• Opera

‘The Bat’ Composed: 1874 Premiered: 1874, Vienna Libretto by Carl Haffner and Richard Genée after Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy’s Le réveillon Prologue Falke wants revenge for a practical joke when Eisenstein left him sleeping, dressed as a bat, outside the Vienna law courts. Act I Eisenstein’s wife, Rosalinde, recognizes the voice serenading her as her ...

• Major Operas
• High Romantic
• Opera

‘The Mastersingers of Nuremberg’ Die Meistersinger has often been described as a comedy. This, though, is not ‘comedy’ as found in the operas of Rossini or in Verdi’s Falstaff: what ‘comedy’ means in this context is the bitter ‘human comedy’. The premiere of Die Meistersinger took place in Munich on 21 June 1868. Wagner based his opera on the real-life ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Contemporary Classical
• Singer

1922–92 Welsh baritone Evans joined the Covent Garden company in 1948, singing Mozart’s Figaro in his second season. He sang at Glyndebourne 1950–61, and made his debut at La Scala in 1960. Appearances in America included Beckmesser in Die Meistersinger (Chicago, 1959) and Verdi’s Falstaff (Metropolitan Opera, 1964). Renowned for many years in Mozart roles, in ...