Günter Reich
Encyclopedia
Günter Reich also spelled Günther Reich and Gunther Reich, was an Israeli baritone
of German birth. He was a member of the Staatsoper Stuttgart
for more than 20 years and is known for interpreting the works of Arnold Schoenberg
in collaboration with Michael Gielen
and Pierre Boulez
.
in 1934. In 1958 he entered the Deutsche Hochschule für Musik in Berlin, where he was a student of Richard Sengeleitner. He made his professional opera
debut at the Stadttheater Gelsenkirchen
as Iago
in Giuseppe Verdi
's Otello
.
From 1968 until his death in 1989 he was a member of the Staatsoper Stuttgart
. He also worked extensively as a guest artist with opera companies internationally, making appearances with such organizations as the Bavarian State Opera
, De Nederlandse Opera
, the Deutsche Oper Berlin
, the Edinburgh Festival
, the Frankfurt Opera, the Hamburg State Opera
, the Leipzig Opera, the Liceu
, the Metropolitan Opera
, the Opera Company of Philadelphia
, the Royal Opera, London
, the Salzburg Festival
, the Stadttheater Aachen, the Teatro Municipal (Rio de Janeiro), the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos
, the Teatro Real
, and the Zurich Opera
.
. In 1963 he participated in the premiere of Bernd Alois Zimmermann
's Vokal-Sinfonie Die Soldaten
. He recorded the part of Soroker in Boris Blacher's 200,000 Taler with conductor Heinrich Hollreiser
, with Martha Mödl
and Ernst Haefliger
.
In 1970 he recorded Bach's cantata
Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis, BWV 21, with Helmuth Rilling
and the Gächinger Kantorei
.
In 1973 he recorded the part of Moses in Schoenberg's Moses und Aron
, conducted by Michael Gielen
, and in 1975 with Pierre Boulez
conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra
. The Gielen recording was the soundtrack
for the film Moses und Aron
of Jean-Marie Straub
and Danièle Huillet.
In 1974 he performed Bruckner
's Große Messe No. 3 f-Moll
and Te Deum
with the choir Philharmonischer Chor Schwäbisch Gmünd
, Kari Lövaas, Hildegard Rütgers and Kurt Huber
in the Münster of the Zwiefalten Abbey
. He recorded the part of the narrator in Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder
with Pierre Boulez
.
In 1976 he was the narrator in a recording of Schoenberg's A Survivor from Warsaw
, described as disturbingly dramatic, again with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Boulez.
In 1979 he appeared as the duke in the production of Schreker's Die Gezeichneten
at the Frankfurt opera, conducted by Gielen, with William Cochran
and June Card
.
Baritone
Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
of German birth. He was a member of the Staatsoper Stuttgart
Staatsoper Stuttgart
The Staatsoper Stuttgart is a German opera company based in Stuttgart, Germany.-History:The Stuttgart Staatsoper forms part of the Stuttgart State Theatre , which is a a three-branch-theatre complex and represents the largest theatre of its kind in Europe...
for more than 20 years and is known for interpreting the works of Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
in collaboration with Michael Gielen
Michael Gielen
-Professional career:Gielen was born in Dresden, Germany, to opera director Josef Gielen. Through his mother, Rose, he is the nephew of Eduard Steuermann and Salka Steuermann Viertel. He began his career as a pianist in Buenos Aires, where he studied with Erwin Leuchter and gave an early...
and Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...
.
Professional career
Reich emigrated with his family to IsraelIsrael
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
in 1934. In 1958 he entered the Deutsche Hochschule für Musik in Berlin, where he was a student of Richard Sengeleitner. He made his professional opera
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...
debut at the Stadttheater Gelsenkirchen
Musiktheater im Revier
Musiktheater im Revier is the venue for performing opera, operetta, musical theatre and ballet in Gelsenkirchen, Germany...
as Iago
Iago
Iago is a fictional character in Shakespeare's Othello . The character's source is traced to Giovanni Battista Giraldi Cinthio's tale "Un Capitano Moro" in Gli Hecatommithi . There, the character is simply "the ensign". Iago is a soldier and Othello's ancient . He is the husband of Emilia,...
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 Otello
Otello
Otello is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Shakespeare's play Othello. It was Verdi's penultimate opera, and was first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on February 5, 1887....
.
From 1968 until his death in 1989 he was a member of the Staatsoper Stuttgart
Staatsoper Stuttgart
The Staatsoper Stuttgart is a German opera company based in Stuttgart, Germany.-History:The Stuttgart Staatsoper forms part of the Stuttgart State Theatre , which is a a three-branch-theatre complex and represents the largest theatre of its kind in Europe...
. He also worked extensively as a guest artist with opera companies internationally, making appearances with such organizations as the Bavarian State Opera
Bavarian State Opera
The Bavarian State Opera is an opera company based in Munich, Germany.Its orchestra is the Bavarian State Orchestra.- History:The opera company which was founded under Princess Henriette Adelaide of Savoy has been in existence since 1653...
, De Nederlandse Opera
De Nederlandse Opera
De Nederlandse Opera , in Amsterdam, is a Dutch opera company based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Its present home base is the Het Muziektheater, a modern building designed by Cees Dam which opened in 1986....
, the Deutsche Oper Berlin
Deutsche Oper Berlin
The Deutsche Oper Berlin is an opera company located in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin, Germany. The resident building is also home to the Berlin State Ballet.-History:...
, the Edinburgh Festival
Edinburgh Festival
The Edinburgh Festival is a collective term for many arts and cultural festivals that take place in Edinburgh, Scotland each summer, mostly in August...
, the Frankfurt Opera, the Hamburg State Opera
Hamburg State Opera
The Hamburg State Opera is one of the leading opera companies in Germany.Opera in Hamburg dates back to 2 January 1678 when the "Opern-Theatrum" was inaugurated with a performance of a biblical Singspiel by Johann Theile...
, the Leipzig Opera, the Liceu
Liceu
The Gran Teatre del Liceu , or simply Liceu in Catalan and Liceo in Spanish, is an opera house on La Rambla in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain...
, the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
, the Opera Company of Philadelphia
Opera Company of Philadelphia
The Opera Company of Philadelphia is an American opera company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is the city's only company producing grand opera. The organization produces four fully staged opera productions annually, encompassing works from the seventeenth through the 21st century...
, the Royal Opera, London
Royal Opera, London
The Royal Opera is an opera company based in central London, resident at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Along with the English National Opera, it is one of the two principal opera companies in London. Founded in 1946 as the Covent Garden Opera Company, it was known by that title until 1968...
, the Salzburg Festival
Salzburg Festival
The Salzburg Festival is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer within the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart...
, the Stadttheater Aachen, the Teatro Municipal (Rio de Janeiro), the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos
Teatro Nacional de São Carlos
The Teatro Nacional de São Carlos is an opera house in Lisbon, Portugal. It was opened on July 30, 1793 by Queen Maria I as a replacement for the Tejo Opera House, which was destroyed in the 1755 Lisbon earthquake...
, the Teatro Real
Teatro Real
The Teatro Real or simply El Real , is a major opera house located in Madrid, Spain.-History:...
, and the Zurich Opera
Zurich Opera
Oper Zürich is an opera company based in Zurich, Switzerland. The company gives performances in the Opernhaus Zürich which has been the company’s home for fifty years.-History:...
.
Performances and recordings
In 1961 he sang in Vienna in the premiere of Schoenberg's Die JakobsleiterDie Jakobsleiter
Die Jakobsleiter is an oratorio by Arnold Schoenberg that marks his transition from a contextual or free atonality to the twelve-tone technique anticipated in the oratorio's use of hexachords...
. In 1963 he participated in the premiere of Bernd Alois Zimmermann
Bernd Alois Zimmermann
Bernd Alois Zimmermann was a post-WWII West German composer. He is perhaps best known for his opera Die Soldaten which is regarded as one of the most important operas of the 20th century...
's Vokal-Sinfonie Die Soldaten
Die Soldaten
Die Soldaten is a four act opera in German by German composer Bernd Alois Zimmermann, based on the 1776 play by Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz. It is dedicated to Hans Rosbaud. Zimmermann himself faithfully adapted the play into the libretto, the only changes to the text being repeats and small cuts...
. He recorded the part of Soroker in Boris Blacher's 200,000 Taler with conductor Heinrich Hollreiser
Heinrich Hollreiser
Heinrich Hollreiser was a German conductor.Born in Munich, he attended the State Academy of Music there, and went on to serve as the conductor at the opera houses in Wiesbaden, Darmstadt, Mannheim, and Duisburg. From 1942-1945 he served as the principal conductor of the Bavarian State Opera, while...
, with Martha Mödl
Martha Mödl
Martha Mödl was a German soprano, and later a mezzo-soprano. She specialized in large dramatic roles, most notably Wagnerian roles such as Isolde, Kundry, and Brünnhilde...
and Ernst Haefliger
Ernst Haefliger
Ernst Haefliger was a Swiss tenor.Haefliger was born in Davos, Switzerland and studied at the Zürich Conservatory. He studied with Fernando Capri in Geneva and Julius Patzak in Vienna....
.
In 1970 he recorded Bach's cantata
Bach cantata
Bach cantata became a term for a cantata of the German Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach who was a prolific writer of the genre. Although many of his works are lost, around 200 cantatas survived....
Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis, BWV 21, with Helmuth Rilling
Helmuth Rilling
Helmuth Rilling is an internationally known German choral conductor, founder of the Gächinger Kantorei , the Bach-Collegium Stuttgart , the Oregon Bach Festival , the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart and other Bach Academies worldwide, and the "Festival Ensemble Stuttgart"...
and the Gächinger Kantorei
Gächinger Kantorei
Gächinger Kantorei is an internationally known German mixed choir, founded by Helmuth Rilling in 1954 in Gächingen and still conducted by him. A "Kantorei" is a choir of high standard dedicated mostly, but not exclusively, to sacred music. The ensemble operates in Stuttgart now and is therefore...
.
In 1973 he recorded the part of Moses in Schoenberg's Moses und Aron
Moses und Aron
Moses und Aron is a three-act opera by Arnold Schoenberg with the third act unfinished. The German libretto was by the composer after the Book of Exodus.-Compositional history:...
, conducted by Michael Gielen
Michael Gielen
-Professional career:Gielen was born in Dresden, Germany, to opera director Josef Gielen. Through his mother, Rose, he is the nephew of Eduard Steuermann and Salka Steuermann Viertel. He began his career as a pianist in Buenos Aires, where he studied with Erwin Leuchter and gave an early...
, and in 1975 with Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...
conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra
BBC Symphony Orchestra
The BBC Symphony Orchestra is the principal broadcast orchestra of the British Broadcasting Corporation and one of the leading orchestras in Britain.-History:...
. The Gielen recording was the soundtrack
Soundtrack
A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...
for the film Moses und Aron
Moses und Aron (film)
Moses und Aron, known in English as Moses and Aaron, is a 1973 film by the French filmmaking duo of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet based on the unfinished opera of the same title by Arnold Schoenberg...
of Jean-Marie Straub
Jean-Marie Straub
Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet were a duo of filmmakers who made two dozen films between 1963 and 2006...
and Danièle Huillet.
In 1974 he performed Bruckner
Anton Bruckner
Anton Bruckner was an Austrian composer known for his symphonies, masses, and motets. The first are considered emblematic of the final stage of Austro-German Romanticism because of their rich harmonic language, complex polyphony, and considerable length...
's Große Messe No. 3 f-Moll
Mass No. 3 (Bruckner)
The Mass No. 3 in F minor WAB 28 by Anton Bruckner is a setting of the mass ordinary for vocal soloists, chorus, orchestra and organ. After the 1867 success of Bruckner's Mass No...
and Te Deum
Te Deum (Bruckner)
The Te Deum in C major WAB 45 by Anton Bruckner is a setting of the early Christian Te Deum hymn text for chorus, soloists and orchestra, and organ ad libitum...
with the choir Philharmonischer Chor Schwäbisch Gmünd
Schwäbisch Gmünd
Schwäbisch Gmünd is a town in the eastern part of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. With a population of around 62,000, the town is the second largest in the Ostalbkreis and the whole region of East Württemberg after Aalen...
, Kari Lövaas, Hildegard Rütgers and Kurt Huber
Kurt Huber (tenor)
Kurt Huber is a Swiss tenor for concert and Lieder.- Biography :Kurt Huber studied voice in Vienna with Anton Dermota....
in the Münster of the Zwiefalten Abbey
Zwiefalten Abbey
- References :...
. He recorded the part of the narrator in Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder
Gurre-Lieder
Gurre-Lieder is a massive cantata for five vocal soloists, narrator, chorus and large orchestra, composed by Arnold Schoenberg, on poems by the Danish novelist Jens Peter Jacobsen...
with Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...
.
In 1976 he was the narrator in a recording of Schoenberg's A Survivor from Warsaw
A Survivor from Warsaw
A Survivor from Warsaw, Op. 46, is a work for narrator, men's chorus, and orchestra written by the Austrian composer Arnold Schönberg in 1947. The initial inspiration for the work was a suggestion from the Russian émigrée dancer Corinne Chochem for a work to pay tribute to the Holocaust victims of...
, described as disturbingly dramatic, again with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Boulez.
In 1979 he appeared as the duke in the production of Schreker's Die Gezeichneten
Die Gezeichneten
Die Gezeichneten is an opera in three acts by Franz Schreker, libretto by the composer.-Composition history:...
at the Frankfurt opera, conducted by Gielen, with William Cochran
William Cochran (tenor)
William Cochran was born on June 23, 1943, in Columbus, Ohio, and is an internationally-noted Heldentenor. He studied at the Curtis Institute of Music with Martial Singher. A winner of the Lauritz Melchior Heldentenor Foundation Award, he debuted with the Metropolitan Opera, as Vogelgesang in Die...
and June Card
June Card
June Card is an American soprano and stage director who had an active career in operas and concerts from the 1960s through the 2000s...
.