Angela Brower is an American mezzo-soprano opera singer from Arizona. She is known for performing trouser roles, such as the title role of Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss in the opera's Colombia premiere.
Angela Brower is an American mezzo-soprano opera singer from Arizona. She is known for performing trouser roles, such as the title role of Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss in the opera's Colombia premiere.
Brower was born and raised in Arizona with five brothers. [1] She is a 2006 Bachelor of Music in vocal performance graduate of the School of Music in Arizona State University's Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. [2] She also studied at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. [3]
Brower began her career at the Glimmerglass Opera Young American Artists Programme in 2008. [4] Although she passed up on the formal auditions for the Bavarian State Opera during her summer at Glimmerglass, her audition was requested by Florian Scholz (director of Stadttheater Klagenfurt). [1] Brower joined the Bavarian State Opera in Munich in 2009 in its Opera Studio and then from 2010 through 2016 in its ensemble. [4] In 2009, she earned the Munich Opera Festival Prize for her portrayal of Dorabella in Mozart's Così fan tutte . [4] In her performance as Cherubino in his Le nozze di Figaro , she was part of a cast conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin that resulted in a 2017 Grammy Awards nomination in the Best Opera Recording category. [3] [5] Brower made her South American and Latin American debut on September 1, 2018, at the Teatro Mayor in the title role of Octavian in the Colombia premiere of Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss. [6] [7] She had previously played Octavian several times, [6] including a Carnegie Hall performance, [8] and considers it her signature role. [6] She is known for trouser roles. [4] [9]
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A mezzo-soprano or mezzo (; Italian: [ˈmɛddzo soˈpraːno]; meaning "half soprano") is a type of classical female singing voice whose vocal range lies between the soprano and the contralto voice types. The mezzo-soprano's vocal range usually extends from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above (i.e. A3–A5 in scientific pitch notation, where middle C = C4; 220–880 Hz). In the lower and upper extremes, some mezzo-sopranos may extend down to the F below middle C (F3, 175 Hz) and as high as "high C" (C6, 1047 Hz). The mezzo-soprano voice type is generally divided into the coloratura, lyric, and dramatic mezzo-soprano.
Christa Ludwig was a German mezzo-soprano and occasional dramatic soprano, distinguished for her performances of opera, lieder, oratorio, and other major religious works like masses, passions, and solos in symphonic literature. Her performing career spanned almost half a century, from the late 1940s until the early 1990s.
Der Rosenkavalier, Op. 59, is a comic opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to an original German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It is loosely adapted from the novel Les amours du chevalier de Faublas by Louvet de Couvrai and Molière's comedy Monsieur de Pourceaugnac. It was first performed at the Königliches Opernhaus in Dresden on 26 January 1911 under the direction of Max Reinhardt, Ernst von Schuch conducting. Until the premiere, the working title was Ochs auf Lerchenau.
Evelyn Shulman Lear was an American operatic soprano. Between 1959 and 1992, she appeared in more than forty operatic roles, appeared with every major opera company in the United States and won a Grammy Award in 1966. She was well known for her musical versatility, having sung all three main female roles in Der Rosenkavalier. Lear was also known for her work on 20th century pieces by Robert Ward, Alban Berg, Marvin David Levy, Rudolf Kelterborn and Giselher Klebe. She was married to the American bass-baritone Thomas Stewart until his death in 2006.
Yvonne Fay Minton CBE is an Australian-born but mostly British-resident opera singer. She is variously billed as a soprano, mezzo-soprano or contralto.
Brigitte Fassbaender, is a German mezzo-soprano opera singer and a stage director. From 1999 to 2012 she was intendant of the Tyrolean State Theatre in Innsbruck, Austria. She holds the title Kammersängerin from the Bavarian State Opera in Munich and the Vienna Staatsoper.
Tatiana Troyanos was an American mezzo-soprano of Greek and German descent, remembered as "one of the defining singers of her generation". Her voice, "a paradoxical voice — larger than life yet intensely human, brilliant yet warm, lyric yet dramatic" — "was the kind you recognize after one bar, and never forget", wrote Cori Ellison in Opera News.
Irmgard Seefried was a distinguished German soprano who sang opera, sacred music, and lieder.
Dame Sarah Patricia Connolly is an English mezzo-soprano. Although best known for her baroque and classical roles, Connolly has a wide-ranging repertoire which has included works by Wagner as well as various 20th-century composers. She was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2010 New Year Honours and a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2017 Birthday Honours for services to music.
Joyce DiDonato is an American lyric-coloratura mezzo-soprano. She is notable for her interpretations of operas and concert works in the 19th-century romantic era in addition to works by Handel and Mozart.
Frances Lillian Bible was an American operatic mezzo-soprano who had a thirty-year career at the New York City Opera between 1948 and 1978. She also made a number of opera appearances with other companies throughout the United States, but only made a limited number of appearances abroad. Martin Bernheimer wrote in Opera News that, "Frances Bible was cheated by destiny. She never quite achieved the international recognition she deserved. Bible had it all—a mellow, wide-ranging mezzo-soprano, an attractive stage presence, genuine theatrical flair, a probing mind and a technique that allowed her to sing bel-canto filigree one night, Verdian drama the next. She was one of the rare American singers who savor the English language. She understood the value of economy, never stooping to easy effects. Perhaps she was too versatile, too tasteful and — dare one say it? — too intelligent for her own good."
Susanne Mentzer is an American operatic mezzo-soprano. She is best known for singing trouser roles, such as Cherubino in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, Idamante in Mozart's Idomeneo, Octavian in Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier and the composer in Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos, as well as other music of Mozart, Strauss, Rossini, Berlioz and Mahler.
Anke Vondung, is a German mezzo-soprano. She was a member of the Semperoper Dresden from 2003 to 2006.
Katarina Esmé Marie Karnéus is a Swedish mezzo-soprano opera singer, winner of the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition, active on many of the opera world's major stages such as the Metropolitan Opera and the Paris Opera, and named Hovsångerska by the King of Sweden in 2018.
Tara Erraught is an Irish mezzo-soprano, a graduate of the Royal Irish Academy of Music (RIAM).
Delores Ziegler is an American mezzo-soprano who has had an active international performance career since the late 1970s. A former resident artist at the Cologne Opera, she has performed leading roles with many of the world's best opera houses, including La Scala, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Metropolitan Opera, the San Francisco Opera, and the Vienna State Opera. She is currently a professor of voice at the University of Maryland. While she has performed a broad repertoire, she is widely admired for her performances in operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Richard Strauss; particularly Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro, Dorabella in Così fan tutte, Idamante in Idomeneo, and Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier.
Sophie Koch is a French operatic mezzo-soprano who made an international career, performing Rosina in Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Royal Opera House, the Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos by Richard Strauss at the Semperoper in Dresden, and Charlotte in Massenet's Werther at the Paris Opera, among others. Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss became her signature role. She has also performed in concert and recital, and made recordings.
Der Rosenkavalier is a 206-minute studio album of Richard Strauss's opera, performed by a cast led by Jules Bastin, José Carreras, Derek Hammond-Stroud, Evelyn Lear, Frederica von Stade, and Ruth Welting with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Edo de Waart. It was released in 1977.
Hanna Ludwig was a German contralto and mezzo-soprano and an academic voice teacher. She participated in several roles at the first Bayreuth Festival after World War II and performed leading roles at major European opera houses, such as the title role of Der Rosenkavalier at the Vienna State Opera. She toured the world as a lieder singer. After retiring from the stage she turned to teaching in Ankara and, from 1971, at the Mozarteum.
Ute Trekel-Burckhardt is a German operatic mezzo-soprano. She was a long-time lead soloist of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in East Berlin. She took part in world premieres such as Noch einen Löffel Gift, Liebling? by Siegfried Matthus and Heinrich Sutermeister's Le Roi Bérenger. Even before the fall of the Berlin Wall, she appeared internationally, including the Vienna State Opera in her signature role, the tile role of Der Rosenkavalier, and at Opéra de Nancy in Schönberg's Erwartung.
