Bernhard Bötel
Encyclopedia
Bernhard Bötel was a German opera
tic tenor
and actor
who had an active career in Germany and Austria during the first half of the 20th century. He made recordings for several record label
s during the early years of the recording industry, including His Master's Voice, Odeon Records
, Polydor Records
, Tri-Ergon
, and Vox Records
. On the stage he sang a variety of roles in operas and operettas from leading parts to comprimario
roles. His stage repertoire included Belmonte in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
's Die Entführung aus dem Serail
, Chapelou in Adolphe Adam
's Le postillon de Lonjumeau
, Count Almaviva in Gioachino Rossini's The Barber of Seville
, Daniel in Franz Lehár
's The Merry Widow
, the Duke of Mantua in Giuseppe Verdi
's Rigoletto
, Gabriel von Eisenstein in Johann Strauss II
's Die Fledermaus
, Indigo in Strauss' Indigo und die vierzig Räuber
, Jeník in Bedřich Smetana
's The Bartered Bride
, Paolino in Domenico Cimarosa
's Il matrimonio segreto
, Pâris in Jacques Offenbach
's La belle Hélène
, Pietro in Franz von Suppé
's Boccaccio, and Wilhelm Meister in Ambroise Thomas
' Mignon
.
Bötel was the son of tenor Heinrich Bötel. He began his voice training with Mathieu Lorent in Hamburg, and later continued his studies with Ernst Grenzebach in Berlin. He made his professional stage debut in 1905 at Theater Aachen
as Lancelot
in Edmond Audran
's La poupée
. From 1906-1910 he was committed to the Komische Oper Berlin
where he was lauded for his portrayal of the title role in Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann. From 1909-1911 he sang in several operetta
s at the Theater an der Wien
; most notably creating the role of Armand Brissard in the world premiere of Lehár's Der Graf von Luxemburg
in November 1909. From 1912-1914 he was committed to the Raimund Theater
in Vienna, and in 1914-1915 he was a member of the Halle Opera House
. He spent the next two decades performing roles from the tenor buffo repertoire at the Berlin State Opera
. He also appeared at the Kroll Opera House from 1928–1931 and frequently as a leading tenor in operettas in Berlin opposite soprano Fritzi Massary
. He retired from the stage in 1935.
Bötel also occasionally worked as a dramatic actor and appeared in three silent film
s during his career: Martha (1916), Rheinzauber (1920), and Trick-Track (1921).
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
tic tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
and actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
who had an active career in Germany and Austria during the first half of the 20th century. He made recordings for several record label
Record label
In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
s during the early years of the recording industry, including His Master's Voice, Odeon Records
Odeon Records
Odeon Records was a record label founded in 1903 by Max Straus and Heinrich Zuntz of the International Talking Machine Company in Berlin, Germany. It was named after a famous theatre in Paris, whose classical dome appears on the Odeon record label....
, Polydor Records
Polydor Records
Polydor is a record label owned by Universal Music Group, headquartered in the United Kingdom.-Beginnings:Polydor was originally an independent branch of the Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft. Its name was first used as an export label in 1924, the British and German branches of the Gramophone...
, Tri-Ergon
Tri-Ergon
The Tri-Ergon sound-on-film system was patented from 1919 on by German inventors Josef Engl , Hans Vogt , and Joseph Massolle . The name Tri-Ergon was derived from Greek and means "the work of three." In 1926, William Fox of Fox Film Corporation purchased the U. S...
, and Vox Records
Vox Records
VOX Records is a budget classical record label. The name is Latin for "voice."-History:Vox was founded in 1945, starting out with 78-rpm discs, specializing in licensed pressings of classical recordings made in Europe. It was one of the last major recording companies to adopt stereo recording,...
. On the stage he sang a variety of roles in operas and operettas from leading parts to comprimario
Comprimario
A Comprimario is a supporting role in an opera. Derived from the Italian "con primario", or "with the primary", the term refers to a performer who sings small role pieces....
roles. His stage repertoire included Belmonte in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
's Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Die Entführung aus dem Serail is an opera Singspiel in three acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The German libretto is by Christoph Friedrich Bretzner with adaptations by Gottlieb Stephanie...
, Chapelou in Adolphe Adam
Adolphe Adam
Adolphe Charles Adam was a French composer and music critic. A prolific composer of operas and ballets, he is best known today for his ballets Giselle and Le corsaire , his operas Le postillon de Lonjumeau , Le toréador and Si j'étais roi , and his Christmas...
's Le postillon de Lonjumeau
Le postillon de Lonjumeau
Le postillon de Lonjumeau is an opéra-comique in three acts by Adolphe Adam to a French libretto by 'Adolphe de Leuven' and 'Brunswick' ....
, Count Almaviva in Gioachino Rossini's The Barber of Seville
The Barber of Seville
The Barber of Seville, or The Futile Precaution is an opera buffa in two acts by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's comedy Le Barbier de Séville , which was originally an opéra comique, or a mixture of spoken play with music...
, Daniel in Franz Lehár
Franz Lehár
Franz Lehár was an Austrian-Hungarian composer. He is mainly known for his operettas of which the most successful and best known is The Merry Widow .-Biography:...
's The Merry Widow
The Merry Widow
The Merry Widow is an operetta by the Austro–Hungarian composer Franz Lehár. The librettists, Viktor Léon and Leo Stein, based the story – concerning a rich widow, and her countrymen's attempt to keep her money in the principality by finding her the right husband – on an 1861 comedy play,...
, the Duke of Mantua in Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
's Rigoletto
Rigoletto
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851...
, Gabriel von Eisenstein in Johann Strauss II
Johann Strauss II
Johann Strauss II , also known as Johann Baptist Strauss or Johann Strauss, Jr., the Younger, or the Son , was an Austrian composer of light music, particularly dance music and operettas. He composed over 500 waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, and other types of dance music, as well as several operettas...
's Die Fledermaus
Die Fledermaus
Die Fledermaus is an operetta composed by Johann Strauss II to a German libretto by Karl Haffner and Richard Genée.- Literary sources :...
, Indigo in Strauss' Indigo und die vierzig Räuber
Indigo und die vierzig Räuber
Indigo und die vierzig Räuber is an operetta composed by Johann Strauss II, with a German libretto by Maximilian Steiner based on the tale "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" from The Book of One Thousand and One Nights....
, Jeník in Bedřich Smetana
Bedrich Smetana
Bedřich Smetana was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style which became closely identified with his country's aspirations to independent statehood. He is thus widely regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music...
's The Bartered Bride
The Bartered Bride
The Bartered Bride is a comic opera in three acts by the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana, to a libretto by Karel Sabina. The opera is considered to have made a major contribution towards the development of Czech music. It was composed during the period 1863–66, and first performed at the...
, Paolino in Domenico Cimarosa
Domenico Cimarosa
Domenico Cimarosa was an Italian opera composer of the Neapolitan school...
's Il matrimonio segreto
Il matrimonio segreto
Il matrimonio segreto is an opera in two acts, music by Domenico Cimarosa, on a libretto by Giovanni Bertati, based on the play The Clandestine Marriage by George Colman the Elder and David Garrick...
, Pâris in Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
's La belle Hélène
La belle Hélène
La belle Hélène , opéra bouffe in three acts, is an operetta by Jacques Offenbach to an original French libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy...
, Pietro in Franz von Suppé
Franz von Suppé
Franz von Suppé or Francesco Suppé Demelli was an Austrian composer of light operas who was born in what is now Croatia during the time his father was working in this outpost of the Austro-Hungarian Empire...
's Boccaccio, and Wilhelm Meister in Ambroise Thomas
Ambroise Thomas
Charles Louis Ambroise Thomas was a French composer, best known for his operas Mignon and Hamlet and as Director of the Conservatoire de Paris from 1871 till his death.-Biography:"There is good music, there is bad music, and then there is Ambroise Thomas."- Emmanuel Chabrier-Early life...
' Mignon
Mignon
Mignon is an opéra comique in three acts by Ambroise Thomas. The original French libretto was by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on Goethe's novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre. The Italian version was translated by Giuseppe Zaffira. The opera is mentioned in James Joyce's The Dead,...
.
Bötel was the son of tenor Heinrich Bötel. He began his voice training with Mathieu Lorent in Hamburg, and later continued his studies with Ernst Grenzebach in Berlin. He made his professional stage debut in 1905 at Theater Aachen
Theater Aachen
Theater Aachen is a theatre in Aachen, Germany. It is the principal venue in that city for operas, musical theatre, plays, and concerts. It is the home of the Aachen Symphony Orchestra. Construction on the original theatre began in 1822 and it opened on 15 May 1825...
as Lancelot
Lancelot
Sir Lancelot du Lac is one of the Knights of the Round Table in the Arthurian legend. He is the most trusted of King Arthur's knights and plays a part in many of Arthur's victories...
in Edmond Audran
Edmond Audran
Achille Edmond Audran was a French composer best known for several internationally successful operettas, including Les noces d'Olivette , La mascotte , Gillette de Narbonne , La cigale et la fourmi , Miss Helyett , and La poupée .After Audran's initial success in Paris, his works also became a...
's La poupée
La poupée
La poupée is an opéra comique in a prelude and three acts composed by Edmond Audran with a libretto by Maurice Ordonneau. It opened at the Théâtre de la Gaîté, Montparnasse, Paris on 31 October 1896. Along with Miss Helyett La poupée was one of Audran's late successes. The libretto was based on...
. From 1906-1910 he was committed to the Komische Oper Berlin
Komische Oper Berlin
The Komische Oper Berlin is an opera company in Berlin, Germany, which specializes in German language productions of opera, operetta and musicals....
where he was lauded for his portrayal of the title role in Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann. From 1909-1911 he sang in several operetta
Operetta
Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
s at the Theater an der Wien
Theater an der Wien
The Theater an der Wien is a historic theatre on the Left Wienzeile in the Mariahilf district of Vienna. Completed in 1801, it has seen the premieres of many celebrated works of theatre, opera, and symphonic music...
; most notably creating the role of Armand Brissard in the world premiere of Lehár's Der Graf von Luxemburg
Der Graf von Luxemburg
Der Graf von Luxemburg is an operetta in three acts by Franz Lehár to German libretto by Alfred Willner, Robert Bodanzky, and Leo Stein. It premiered at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna, on 12 November 1909 and was an immediate success...
in November 1909. From 1912-1914 he was committed to the Raimund Theater
Raimund Theater
The Raimund Theater is a theatre in the Mariahilf district of Vienna, Austria.Named after the Austrian dramatist Ferdinand Raimund, the theatre was built by an association of Viennese citizens and opened on 28 November 1893 with Raimund's play Die gefesselte Phantasie...
in Vienna, and in 1914-1915 he was a member of the Halle Opera House
Halle Opera House
The Halle Opera House is an opera house in Halle, Saxony-Anhalt. Originally named the Halle Town Theatre , the theatre was built in 1886. A bomb attack on 31 March 1945 destroyed much of the original building. Restorative work ensued a few years later, and the theatre reopened in 1951 under the...
. He spent the next two decades performing roles from the tenor buffo repertoire at the Berlin State Opera
Berlin State Opera
The Staatsoper Unter den Linden is a German opera company. Its permanent home is the opera house on the Unter den Linden boulevard in the Mitte district of Berlin, which also hosts the Staatskapelle Berlin orchestra.-Early years:...
. He also appeared at the Kroll Opera House from 1928–1931 and frequently as a leading tenor in operettas in Berlin opposite soprano Fritzi Massary
Fritzi Massary
Fritzi Massary was an Austrian-American actress and soprano singer....
. He retired from the stage in 1935.
Bötel also occasionally worked as a dramatic actor and appeared in three silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
s during his career: Martha (1916), Rheinzauber (1920), and Trick-Track (1921).