Alan Titus
Encyclopedia
Alan Titus is an internationally-celebrated 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 studied under Aksel Schiøtz
Aksel Schiøtz
Aksel Schiøtz was a Danish tenor who was considered one of Europe's leading Lieder singer of post World War II, and later baritone....

 at the Colorado School of Music, and Hans Heinz at The Juilliard School. His official debut was as Marcello in La bohème, in Washington, DC, in 1969. He came to prominence, however, in 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...

's theatre piece MASS, as the Celebrant, in 1971. That same year, he created the role of Archie Kramer in Lee Hoiby
Lee Hoiby
Lee Henry Hoiby was an American composer and classical pianist. Best known as a composer of operas and songs, he was a disciple of composer Gian Carlo Menotti. Like Menotti, his works championed lyricism during a time when such compositions were deemed old fashioned and irrelevant to modern society...

's Summer and Smoke (after Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...

) in St Paul. The latter was the opera of his debut the same year at the New York City Opera
New York City Opera
The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...

, where he was a leading baritone for many seasons, participating in nationally-televised performances of Il barbiere di Siviglia (with Beverly Sills
Beverly Sills
Beverly Sills was an American operatic soprano whose peak career was between the 1950s and 1970s. In her prime she was the only real rival to Joan Sutherland as the leading bel canto stylist...

, 1976), Il Turco in Italia (1978), La Cenerentola (opposite Susanne Marsee
Susanne Marsee
Susanne Marsee is an American mezzo-soprano of note. She was one of the New York City Opera's leading mezzo-sopranos from 1970, when she debuted opposite Beverly Sills, Plácido Domingo and Louis Quilico, in Donizetti's Roberto Devereux, with Julius Rudel conducting Tito Capobianco's...

 and Rockwell Blake
Rockwell Blake
Rockwell Blake is an American operatic tenor, particularly known for his roles in Rossini operas. He was the first winner of the Richard Tucker Award.-Biography:...

, 1980), and Madama Butterfly (conducted by Christopher Keene
Christopher Keene
Christopher Keene was an American conductor.Born in Berkeley, California, Keene studied at the University of California, Berkeley. Associated with the Spoleto Festival from 1968 , he was co-founder of the Spoleto Festival USA, where he was Music Director from 1977 to 1980...

, 1982). He made his only appearances with 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...

 in 1976, as Harlekin in Ariadne auf Naxos, with Montserrat Caballé
Montserrat Caballé
Montserrat Caballé is a Spanish operatic soprano. Although she sang a wide variety of roles, she is best known as an exponent of the bel canto repertoire, notably the works of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti and Verdi....

.

In 1973, Titus made his European debut, in Amsterdam, as Pelléas. He has since been heard at Glyndebourne, Munich, Milan (Teatro alla Scala), Madrid, Barcelona, Vienna, Paris, Rome, London (Covent Garden
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...

), Berlin, etc. In 2000, he was Wotan in Der Ring des Nibelungen 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...

; he had previously portrayed the name part in Der fliegende Holländer (1998 and 1999).

In 1994, the singing-actor was awarded the title of Kammersänger, in Munich.

In his discography are recordings of Beethoven's Fidelio (as Don Pizzaro), Bizet's Carmen, Catalani's La Wally, Donizetti's Don Pasquale (with Sills, conducted by Sarah Caldwell
Sarah Caldwell
Sarah Caldwell was a notable American opera conductor, impresario, and stage director of opera.- Life :Caldwell was born in Maryville, Missouri, and grew up in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She was a child prodigy and gave public performances on the violin by the time she was ten years old...

), Haydn's La fedeltà premiata (conducted by Antal Doráti
Antal Doráti
Antal Doráti, KBE was a Hungarian-born conductor and composer who became a naturalized American citizen in 1947.-Biography:...

), Lehár's Die lustige Witwe (excerpts, in English, under Julius Rudel
Julius Rudel
Julius Rudel is an American opera and orchestra conductor who emigrated to the United States from Austria at the age of 17 and studied conducting at the Mannes College of Music in New York City. He then forged a 35-year career with the New York City Opera, from 1944 to 1979, and was the Music...

), Leoncavallo's La bohème, Mozart's Don Giovanni (led by Rafael Kubelík
Rafael Kubelík
Rafael Jeroným Kubelík was a Czech conductor and composer.-Early life:Kubelík was born in Býchory, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary, today's Czech Republic. He was the sixth child of the Bohemian violinist Jan Kubelík, whom the younger Kubelík described as "a kind of god to me." His mother was a Hungarian...

) and Le nozze di Figaro (as Figaro, conducted by Sir Colin Davis
Colin Davis
Sir Colin Rex Davis, CH, CBE is an English conductor. His repertoire is broad, but among the composers with whom he is particularly associated are Mozart, Berlioz, Elgar, Sibelius, Stravinsky and Tippett....

), Puccini's La bohème (led by Kent Nagano
Kent Nagano
__FORCETOC__Kent George Nagano is an American conductor and opera administrator. He is currently the music director of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and the Bavarian State Opera.-Biography:...

), and Verdi's Falstaff (as Ford, with Sir Colin).

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