Johann Nepomuk Beck
Encyclopedia
Johann Nepomuk Beck was a Hungarian
opera
tic baritone
. He possessed a flexible and strong voice that was particularly suited to the French and Italian operatic repertoire. Beginning in 1853, he sang for more than thirty years at the Hofoper
(now the Vienna State Opera), particularly excelling in works by Giacomo Meyerbeer
, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
and Giuseppe Verdi
. He notably portrayed the role of King Solomon in the world première of Karl Goldmark
’s Die Königin von Saba
in 1875.
, Beck first trained as a theology student there but was an active member of the choral society. During a touring season at Budapest from the Vienna Hofoper in about 1847, he sought advice over his 'splendid baritone' voice from the bass Karl Formes
and tenor Josef Erl. Formes coached him in the role of Riccardo in I puritani
and performed the opera with him in the same season. He then studied singing
in Vienna
and made his professional opera début as the Speaker in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte at the Hofoper in 1851. He spent the next two years in short commitments at the opera houses in Hamburg
, Bremen
, Cologne
, Düsseldorf
, Mainz
, Würzburg
and Wiesbaden
. He also sang in several operas in Frankfurt
including Friedrich of Telramund in Lohengrin
(1852) and in the German premiere of Ambroise Thomas
's Le songe d'une nuit d'été
(1853).
In 1853 Beck was hired as a member of the company at the Hofoper where he sang roles for more than the next three decades. He notably performed the title role in Mozart's Don Giovanni
for the opening of the new opera house in 1869. He also sang the role of Hans Sachs in Vienna's first performance of Wagner's Die Meistersinger in 1870 and the role of King Solomon in the world première of Karl Goldmark
’s Die Königin von Saba
in 1875. His other opera roles included Pizarro in Beethoven's Fidelio
, Alfonso in Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia
, the tile role in Donizetti's Belisario
, Nélusko in Meyerbeer's L’Africaine, Tsar Peter in Meyerbeer's L'étoile du nord
, Count Almaviva in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, the title role in Rossini's William Tell
, King Froila in Franz Schubert
's Alfonso und Estrella
, Don Carlo in Verdi's Ernani
, and the title role in Verdi's Rigoletto
among others. His last opera performance was as Mikéli in Luigi Cherubini
's Les deux journées
in 1885.
In the late 1880s Beck began to show signs of mental instability and was hospitalized in a mental institution in Inzersdorf
. He was eventually released in the early 1890s into the care of his son, Joseph Beck
, who gave up a successful opera career to look after his father. They lived together happily first in Vienna and then in Pressburg (modern Bratislava
) until Joseph became ill and died in 1903. Johann died the following year.
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
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...
tic baritone
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...
. He possessed a flexible and strong voice that was particularly suited to the French and Italian operatic repertoire. Beginning in 1853, he sang for more than thirty years at the Hofoper
Vienna State Opera
The Vienna State Opera is an opera house – and opera company – with a history dating back to the mid-19th century. It is located in the centre of Vienna, Austria. It was originally called the Vienna Court Opera . In 1920, with the replacement of the Habsburg Monarchy by the First Austrian...
(now the Vienna State Opera), particularly excelling in works by Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer was a noted German opera composer, and the first great exponent of "grand opera." At his peak in the 1830s and 1840s, he was the most famous and successful composer of opera in Europe, yet he is rarely performed today.-Early years:He was born to a Jewish family in Tasdorf , near...
, 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...
and 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...
. He notably portrayed the role of King Solomon in the world première of Karl Goldmark
Karl Goldmark
Karl Goldmark, also known originally as Károly Goldmark and later sometimes as Carl Goldmark; May 18, 1830, Keszthely – January 2, 1915, Vienna) was a Hungarian composer.- Life and career :...
’s Die Königin von Saba
Die Königin von Saba
Die Königin von Saba is an opera in four acts by Karl Goldmark. The German libretto by Hermann Salomon Mosenthal, sets a love triangle into the context of the Queen of Sheba's visit to the court of King Solomon, recorded in First Kings...
in 1875.
Biography
Born at BudapestBudapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
, Beck first trained as a theology student there but was an active member of the choral society. During a touring season at Budapest from the Vienna Hofoper in about 1847, he sought advice over his 'splendid baritone' voice from the bass Karl Formes
Karl Formes
Karl Johann Franz Formes , also called Charles John Formes, was a German bass opera and oratorio singer who had a long international career especially in Germany, London and New York...
and tenor Josef Erl. Formes coached him in the role of Riccardo in I puritani
I puritani
I puritani is an opera in three acts by Vincenzo Bellini. It was his last opera. Its libretto is by Count Carlo Pepoli, based on Têtes rondes et Cavaliers by Jacques-François Ancelot and Joseph Xavier Saintine, which is in turn based on Walter Scott's novel Old Mortality. It was first produced at...
and performed the opera with him in the same season. He then studied singing
Singing
Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
and made his professional opera début as the Speaker in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte at the Hofoper in 1851. He spent the next two years in short commitments at the opera houses in Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
, Bremen
Bremen
The City Municipality of Bremen is a Hanseatic city in northwestern Germany. A commercial and industrial city with a major port on the river Weser, Bremen is part of the Bremen-Oldenburg metropolitan area . Bremen is the second most populous city in North Germany and tenth in Germany.Bremen is...
, Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
, Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...
, Mainz
Mainz
Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire...
, Würzburg
Würzburg
Würzburg is a city in the region of Franconia which lies in the northern tip of Bavaria, Germany. Located at the Main River, it is the capital of the Regierungsbezirk Lower Franconia. The regional dialect is Franconian....
and Wiesbaden
Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden
The Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden is the State Theatre of the German state Hesse in the capital Wiesbaden, producing operas, plays, ballets, musicals and concerts on four stages. It is also known as Staatstheater Wiesbaden or Theater Wiesbaden...
. He also sang in several operas in Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
including Friedrich of Telramund in Lohengrin
Lohengrin (opera)
Lohengrin is a romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach and its sequel, Lohengrin, written by a different author, itself...
(1852) and in the German premiere of 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...
's Le songe d'une nuit d'été
Le songe d'une nuit d'été
Le songe d'une nuit d'été is an opéra-comique in three acts composed by Ambroise Thomas to a French libretto by Joseph-Bernard Rosier and Adolphe de Leuven. It premiered on 20 April 1850 at the first second Salle Favart in Paris...
(1853).
In 1853 Beck was hired as a member of the company at the Hofoper where he sang roles for more than the next three decades. He notably performed the title role in Mozart's Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
for the opening of the new opera house in 1869. He also sang the role of Hans Sachs in Vienna's first performance of Wagner's Die Meistersinger in 1870 and the role of King Solomon in the world première of Karl Goldmark
Karl Goldmark
Karl Goldmark, also known originally as Károly Goldmark and later sometimes as Carl Goldmark; May 18, 1830, Keszthely – January 2, 1915, Vienna) was a Hungarian composer.- Life and career :...
’s Die Königin von Saba
Die Königin von Saba
Die Königin von Saba is an opera in four acts by Karl Goldmark. The German libretto by Hermann Salomon Mosenthal, sets a love triangle into the context of the Queen of Sheba's visit to the court of King Solomon, recorded in First Kings...
in 1875. His other opera roles included Pizarro in Beethoven's Fidelio
Fidelio
Fidelio is a German opera in two acts by Ludwig van Beethoven. It is Beethoven's only opera. The German libretto is by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly which had been used for the 1798 opera Léonore, ou L’amour conjugal by Pierre Gaveaux, and for the 1804 opera Leonora...
, Alfonso in Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia
Lucrezia Borgia
Lucrezia Borgia [luˈkrɛtsia ˈbɔrʤa] was the illegitimate daughter of Rodrigo Borgia, the powerful Renaissance Valencian who later became Pope Alexander VI, and Vannozza dei Cattanei. Her brothers included Cesare Borgia, Giovanni Borgia, and Gioffre Borgia...
, the tile role in Donizetti's Belisario
Belisario
Belisario is a tragedia lirica, or opera, in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian libretto after Luigi Marchionni's adaptation of Eduard von Schenk's play. The plot is loosely based on the life of the famous general Belisarius of the 6th century Byzantine Empire...
, Nélusko in Meyerbeer's L’Africaine, Tsar Peter in Meyerbeer's L'étoile du nord
L'étoile du nord
L'étoile du nord is an opéra comique in three acts by Giacomo Meyerbeer. The French-language libretto was by Eugène Scribe....
, Count Almaviva in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, the title role in Rossini's William Tell
William Tell (opera)
Guillaume Tell is an opera in four acts by Gioachino Rossini to a French libretto by Etienne de Jouy and Hippolyte Bis, based on Friedrich Schiller's play Wilhelm Tell. Based on the legend of William Tell, this opera was Rossini's last, even though the composer lived for nearly forty more years...
, King Froila in Franz Schubert
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
's Alfonso und Estrella
Alfonso und Estrella
Alfonso und Estrella is an opera with music by Franz Schubert, set to a German libretto by Franz von Schober, written in 1822...
, Don Carlo in Verdi's Ernani
Ernani
Ernani is an operatic dramma lirico in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the play Hernani by Victor Hugo. The first production took place at La Fenice Theatre, Venice on 9 March 1844...
, and the title role in Verdi'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...
among others. His last opera performance was as Mikéli in Luigi Cherubini
Luigi Cherubini
Luigi Cherubini was an Italian composer who spent most of his working life in France. His most significant compositions are operas and sacred music. Beethoven regarded Cherubini as the greatest of his contemporaries....
's Les deux journées
Les deux journées
Les deux journées, ou Le porteur d'eau is an opera in three acts by Luigi Cherubini with a libretto by Jean-Nicolas Bouilly. It takes the form of an opéra comique, meaning not that the subject matter is humorous, but that the piece is a mixture of spoken dialogue and musical numbers...
in 1885.
In the late 1880s Beck began to show signs of mental instability and was hospitalized in a mental institution in Inzersdorf
Inzersdorf im Kremstal
Inzersdorf im Kremstal is a municipality in the district of Kirchdorf an der Krems in Upper Austria, Austria.-References:...
. He was eventually released in the early 1890s into the care of his son, Joseph Beck
Joseph Beck (opera singer)
----Joseph Beck was an Austrian operatic baritone of Hungarian descent, and the son of opera singer Johann Nepomuk Beck. Possessing a rich dramatic voice, he became a particularly lauded artist within the repertoire of Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi...
, who gave up a successful opera career to look after his father. They lived together happily first in Vienna and then in Pressburg (modern Bratislava
Bratislava
Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...
) until Joseph became ill and died in 1903. Johann died the following year.