René Kollo
Encyclopedia
René Kollo is a German tenor
.
. He attended a photography school in Hamburg
, although he had always been interested in music, particularly conducting. He did not begin to perform (as a self-taught drummer) until the mid-50s. He played in jazz clubs and studied acting with Else Bongers in Berlin. To prepare for musical roles, he studied with Elsa Varena, who quickly recognized that he had an unusual gift.
He signed his first recording contract at 20 and recorded popular hits. He made his operatic debut in Braunschweig
in 1965 in three Stravinsky
one-act operas: Mavra, Renard, and Œdipus Rex. He stayed in Braunschweig for two years, singing most of the lyric tenor repertoire. In 1967, he went to the Deutsche Oper am Rhein
in Düsseldorf
, still singing lyric roles.
In the same year, he married pop singer Dorthe Larsen and became the father of a daughter, Nathalie.
He was guest soloist in Munich
, Frankfurt
, Milan
, and Lisbon
. He began his now legendary association with Wagner
and his Heldentenor roles at Bayreuth
in 1969, where he sang the Helmsman in The Flying Dutchman
. The major Wagnerian roles followed in quick succession: Erik in 1970, Lohengrin in 1971, Walter in 1973, Parsifal in 1975, Siegfried in 1976, Tristan and Tannhäuser in 1981. He has since sung these roles at major opera houses throughout the world, including the Metropolitan Opera
, where he was seen in Lohengrin (1976, conducted by James Levine
) and Ariadne auf Naxos
(1979).
He has also directed Parsifal
in Darmstadt
in 1986 and Tiefland by Eugen d'Albert in Ulm
in 1991.
He also has sung non-Wagnerian roles, including Hermann in Tchaikovsky
's The Queen of Spades
, Florestan in Fidelio
, Britten
's Peter Grimes
, and Verdi
's Otello
. In fact, he has an unusually wide repertoire for a Heldentenor. Another tenor role he sang was that of Count Danilo, in Herbert von Karajan
's 1972-73 recording of Franz Lehár
's operetta The Merry Widow
, with Elizabeth Harwood
and Teresa Stratas
.
He has not confined himself to grand opera, but made many television appearances, singing lighter repertoire, including an operetta he composed himself.
He has been married since 1982 to Beatrice Bouquet, a dancer, and they have three children, Florence, Magali, and Oliver Walter.
He has made numerous recordings, both in the classical and in the operetta repertoire, including Tannhäuser (conducted by Sir Georg Solti
, 1970), Die Meistersinger (with Karajan, 1970), Parsifal (Solti, 1971-72), Die tote Stadt (with Carol Neblett
, conducted by Erich Leinsdorf
, 1975), The Bartered Bride (opposite Teresa Stratas
and Janet Perry
, 1975), Der fliegende Holländer (Solti, 1976), Ariadne auf Naxos (Solti, 1977), Fidelio (under Leonard Bernstein
, 1978), Der Freischütz (1979), Lohengrin (with Dunja Vejzovic
as Ortrud, led by Karajan, 1975-81), Siegfried (1982), Tristan und Isolde (with Carlos Kleiber
conducting, 1980-82), Götterdämmerung (1983) and Die Frau ohne Schatten (1987). Kollo has also recorded the "Wesendonck-Lieder."
On video, two performances of his Tristan can be found: A 1983 production staged at the Bayreuth Festival
by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle
(with Johanna Meier
as Isolde) and a 1993 production from Berlin, directed by Götz Friedrich
(with Dame Gwyneth Jones as the Irish princess). He has also composed and written text for numerous songs, following in the steps of both his father and his grandfather, who were operetta composers.
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...
.
Biography
He was born René Kollodzieyski in Berlin and grew up in Wyk auf FöhrWyk auf Föhr
Wyk auf Föhr is the only town on Föhr, the second largest of the North Frisian Islands on the German coast of the North Sea. Like the entire island it belongs to the district of Nordfriesland...
. He attended a photography school 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...
, although he had always been interested in music, particularly conducting. He did not begin to perform (as a self-taught drummer) until the mid-50s. He played in jazz clubs and studied acting with Else Bongers in Berlin. To prepare for musical roles, he studied with Elsa Varena, who quickly recognized that he had an unusual gift.
He signed his first recording contract at 20 and recorded popular hits. He made his operatic debut in Braunschweig
Braunschweig
Braunschweig , is a city of 247,400 people, located in the federal-state of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located north of the Harz mountains at the farthest navigable point of the Oker river, which connects to the North Sea via the rivers Aller and Weser....
in 1965 in three Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
one-act operas: Mavra, Renard, and Œdipus Rex. He stayed in Braunschweig for two years, singing most of the lyric tenor repertoire. In 1967, he went to the Deutsche Oper am Rhein
Deutsche Oper am Rhein
The Deutsche Oper am Rhein is an opera company based in Düsseldorf and Duisburg. The opera also has an associated classical ballet company....
in 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...
, still singing lyric roles.
In the same year, he married pop singer Dorthe Larsen and became the father of a daughter, Nathalie.
He was guest soloist in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, 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...
, Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
, and Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
. He began his now legendary association with Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
and his Heldentenor roles at Bayreuth
Bayreuth Festspielhaus
The or Bayreuth Festival Theatre is an opera house north of Bayreuth, Germany, dedicated solely to the performance of operas by the 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner...
in 1969, where he sang the Helmsman in The Flying Dutchman
The Flying Dutchman (opera)
Der fliegende Holländer is an opera, with music and libretto by Richard Wagner.Wagner claimed in his 1870 autobiography Mein Leben that he had been inspired to write "The Flying Dutchman" following a stormy sea crossing he made from Riga to London in July and August 1839, but in his 1843...
. The major Wagnerian roles followed in quick succession: Erik in 1970, Lohengrin in 1971, Walter in 1973, Parsifal in 1975, Siegfried in 1976, Tristan and Tannhäuser in 1981. He has since sung these roles at major opera houses throughout the world, including 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...
, where he was seen in Lohengrin (1976, conducted by James Levine
James Levine
James Lawrence Levine is an American conductor and pianist. He is currently the music director of the Metropolitan Opera and former music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Levine's first performance conducting the Metropolitan Opera was on June 5, 1971, and as of May 2011 he has...
) and Ariadne auf Naxos
Ariadne auf Naxos
Ariadne auf Naxos is an opera by Richard Strauss with a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Bringing together slapstick comedy and consuming beautiful music, the opera's theme is the competition between high and low art for the public's attention.- First version :The opera was originally...
(1979).
He has also directed Parsifal
Parsifal
Parsifal is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner. It is loosely based on Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, the 13th century epic poem of the Arthurian knight Parzival and his quest for the Holy Grail, and on Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, the Story of the Grail.Wagner first conceived the work...
in Darmstadt
Darmstadt
Darmstadt is a city in the Bundesland of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine Main Area.The sandy soils in the Darmstadt area, ill-suited for agriculture in times before industrial fertilisation, prevented any larger settlement from developing, until the city became the seat...
in 1986 and Tiefland by Eugen d'Albert in Ulm
Ulm
Ulm is a city in the federal German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the River Danube. The city, whose population is estimated at 120,000 , forms an urban district of its own and is the administrative seat of the Alb-Donau district. Ulm, founded around 850, is rich in history and...
in 1991.
He also has sung non-Wagnerian roles, including Hermann in Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
's The Queen of Spades
The Queen of Spades (opera)
The Queen of Spades, Op. 68 is an opera in 3 acts by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to a Russian libretto by the composer's brother Modest Tchaikovsky, based on a short story of the same name by Alexander Pushkin. The premiere took place in 1890 in St...
, Florestan in 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...
, Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
's Peter Grimes
Peter Grimes
Peter Grimes is an opera by Benjamin Britten, with a libretto adapted by Montagu Slater from the Peter Grimes section of George Crabbe's poem The Borough...
, and 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....
. In fact, he has an unusually wide repertoire for a Heldentenor. Another tenor role he sang was that of Count Danilo, in Herbert von Karajan
Herbert von Karajan
Herbert von Karajan was an Austrian orchestra and opera conductor. To the wider world he was perhaps most famously associated with the Berlin Philharmonic, of which he was principal conductor for 35 years...
's 1972-73 recording of 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 operetta 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,...
, with Elizabeth Harwood
Elizabeth Harwood
Elizabeth Harwood was an English lyric soprano. After a music school, she enjoyed an operatic career lasting for over two decades and worked with such conductors as Colin Davis and Herbert von Karajan...
and Teresa Stratas
Teresa Stratas
Teresa Stratas, OC , is a retired Canadian operatic soprano. She is especially well-known for her award-winning recording of Alban Berg's Lulu.-Early life and career:...
.
He has not confined himself to grand opera, but made many television appearances, singing lighter repertoire, including an operetta he composed himself.
He has been married since 1982 to Beatrice Bouquet, a dancer, and they have three children, Florence, Magali, and Oliver Walter.
He has made numerous recordings, both in the classical and in the operetta repertoire, including Tannhäuser (conducted by Sir Georg Solti
Georg Solti
Sir Georg Solti, KBE, was a Hungarian-British orchestral and operatic conductor. He was a major classical recording artist, holding the record for having received the most Grammy Awards, having personally won 31 as a conductor, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In addition to his...
, 1970), Die Meistersinger (with Karajan, 1970), Parsifal (Solti, 1971-72), Die tote Stadt (with Carol Neblett
Carol Neblett
Carol Neblett is an American operatic soprano.-Life and career:Neblett studied at the University of California, Los Angeles, and in 1969, made her operatic debut with the New York City Opera, playing the part of Musetta in Puccini's La bohème...
, conducted by Erich Leinsdorf
Erich Leinsdorf
Erich Leinsdorf was a naturalized American Austrian conductor. He performed and recorded with leading orchestras and opera companies throughout the United States and Europe, earning a reputation for exacting standards as well as an acerbic personality...
, 1975), The Bartered Bride (opposite Teresa Stratas
Teresa Stratas
Teresa Stratas, OC , is a retired Canadian operatic soprano. She is especially well-known for her award-winning recording of Alban Berg's Lulu.-Early life and career:...
and Janet Perry
Janet Perry
Janet Perry is a celebrated operatic soprano. As a child of eleven, she was seen in a stage-version of The Wizard of Oz, at the St Paul Civic Opera...
, 1975), Der fliegende Holländer (Solti, 1976), Ariadne auf Naxos (Solti, 1977), Fidelio (under Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
, 1978), Der Freischütz (1979), Lohengrin (with Dunja Vejzovic
Dunja Vejzovic
Dunja Vejzovic , née Crnković, in Zagreb, Croatia, on October 20, 1943, is an acclaimed operatic soprano who began her career with the Zagreb National Theatre, where she made her "real" debut in 1970, as Ariel in Stjepan Šulek's Oluja...
as Ortrud, led by Karajan, 1975-81), Siegfried (1982), Tristan und Isolde (with Carlos Kleiber
Carlos Kleiber
Carlos Kleiber was a German-born, Austrian classical conductor who spent most of his early life in Berlin, Buenos Aires, Vienna and New York City, and from the early 1960s his professional career in Germany.- Early career :...
conducting, 1980-82), Götterdämmerung (1983) and Die Frau ohne Schatten (1987). Kollo has also recorded the "Wesendonck-Lieder."
On video, two performances of his Tristan can be found: A 1983 production staged at the Bayreuth Festival
Bayreuth Festival
The Bayreuth Festival is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th century German composer Richard Wagner are presented...
by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle
Jean-Pierre Ponnelle
Jean-Pierre Ponnelle was a noted French opera director.-Biography:Ponnelle was born in Paris. He studied philosophy, art, and history there and, in 1952, began his career in Germany as a theatre designer for Hans Werner Henze's opera Boulevard Solitude...
(with Johanna Meier
Johanna Meier
Johanna Meier is an American operatic soprano, known as "one of the foremost Wagnerian sopranos of her era". She had an international career, including fourteen years at the Metropolitan Opera and three summers singing the role of Isolde in Wagner's Tristan und Isolde for the Bayreuth...
as Isolde) and a 1993 production from Berlin, directed by Götz Friedrich
Götz Friedrich
Götz Friedrich was a German opera and theatre director.He was a student and assistant of Walter Felsenstein at the Komische Oper Berlin in Berlin, where he went on to direct his early productions...
(with Dame Gwyneth Jones as the Irish princess). He has also composed and written text for numerous songs, following in the steps of both his father and his grandfather, who were operetta composers.