Anton Dermota
Encyclopedia
Kammersänger
Anton Dermota (June 4, 1910 –June 22, 1989) was a Slovene tenor
.
He was born in a poor family Born in the Upper Carniola
n village of Kropa
, in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire (now in Slovenia
). He went to the Ljubljana Conservatory with the intention of studying composition
and organ
, but in 1934 he received a scholarship
which sent him to Vienna
. There, he devoted himself exclusively to vocal study with Marie Radó.
Dermota made his debut at the opera in Cluj
in 1934, and was promptly invited by Bruno Walter
to perform at the Wiener Staatsoper. Here he made his début as a Man in Armor in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
's The Magic Flute
in 1936 and got a contract immediately. His first leading role was Alfredo in Giuseppe Verdi
's La traviata
, which he sang in 1937. In the same year Dermota made his début at the Salzburg Festival
in a production of Richard Wagner
's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
, conducted by Arturo Toscanini
.
Dermota quickly became a favorite of the Viennese audience and remained with the State Opera's company for more than forty years. He was a witness (and helped to save parts of the furniture) when the opera house burned down after an allied air raid on March 13, 1945. After the war he stayed with the company in its provisional lodgings at Theater an der Wien
, and was one of the stars of the reopening of the original house in 1955 (as Florestan in Ludwig van Beethoven
's Fidelio
). As early as 1946 Dermota was honoured for his loyalty with the title of Kammersänger
.
Anton Dermota sang as a tenor as Alfred in Die Fledermaus in the 1950 London Gramophone recording LLP 305.
For 20 years Dermota sang at the Salzburg Festival
almost every summer. As guest he gave acclaimed performances at the Royal Opera House
Covent Garden
London
, in Paris
and Rome
, at Teatro di San Carlo
in Naples
, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires
, in Australia
, Czechoslovakia
and Hungary
.
Dermota was best known for his Mozart roles - especially his Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni
. But he sang a good deal of the lyric tenor repertory during his career, including more modern parts, such as Oedipus
in Igor Stravinsky
's Oedipus rex
, the title role of Hans Pfitzner
's Palestrina
and Flamand in Richard Strauss
's Capriccio
. Later in life he ventured into heldentenor territory, essaying parts such as the title role in Bedřich Smetana
's Dalibor
and Florestan. All told, his repertoire included some 80 roles.
An accomplished Lieder singer, he gave many recitals accompanied by his wife, the pianist Hilde Berger-Weyerwald. He began a second career as a singing coach at the Wiener Musikhochschule in 1966.
To celebrate his 70th birthday, Dermota sang Tamino in The Magic Flute at the Staatsoper. A year later he sang the Shepherd in Carlos Kleiber
's famous recording of Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde
, sounding astonishingly young.
He died in Vienna less than a month after his 79th birthday.
Kammersänger
Kammersänger , abbreviation: "Ks.", literally means "Chamber singer." It is a German honorific title for distinguished singers...
Anton Dermota (June 4, 1910 –June 22, 1989) was a Slovene tenor
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...
.
He was born in a poor family Born in the Upper Carniola
Upper Carniola
Upper Carniola is a traditional region of Slovenia, the northern mountainous part of the larger Carniola region. The centre of the region is Kranj, while other urban centers include Jesenice, Tržič, Škofja Loka, Kamnik, and Domžale.- Historical background :...
n village of Kropa
Kropa, Radovljica
Kropa is a settlement in the Radovljica municipality in the Upper Carniola region of Slovenia.It is famous for its traditional smithies which produce a variety of decorative metal fittings. There is an Iron Forging Museum in Kropa...
, in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire (now in Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
). He went to the Ljubljana Conservatory with the intention of studying composition
Musical composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...
and organ
Organ (music)
The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...
, but in 1934 he received a scholarship
Scholarship
A scholarship is an award of financial aid for a student to further education. Scholarships are awarded on various criteria usually reflecting the values and purposes of the donor or founder of the award.-Types:...
which sent him to 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...
. There, he devoted himself exclusively to vocal study with Marie Radó.
Dermota made his debut at the opera in Cluj
Cluj-Napoca
Cluj-Napoca , commonly known as Cluj, is the fourth most populous city in Romania and the seat of Cluj County in the northwestern part of the country. Geographically, it is roughly equidistant from Bucharest , Budapest and Belgrade...
in 1934, and was promptly invited by Bruno Walter
Bruno Walter
Bruno Walter was a German-born conductor. He is considered one of the best known conductors of the 20th century. Walter was born in Berlin, but is known to have lived in several countries between 1933 and 1939, before finally settling in the United States in 1939...
to perform at the Wiener Staatsoper. Here he made his début as a Man in Armor in 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...
's The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
in 1936 and got a contract immediately. His first leading role was Alfredo 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 La traviata
La traviata
La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...
, which he sang in 1937. In the same year Dermota made his début at 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...
in a production of Richard 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...
's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is an opera in three acts, written and composed by Richard Wagner. It is among the longest operas still commonly performed today, usually taking around four and a half hours. It was first performed at the Königliches Hof- und National-Theater in Munich, on June 21,...
, conducted by Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. One of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century, he was renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory...
.
Dermota quickly became a favorite of the Viennese audience and remained with the State Opera's company for more than forty years. He was a witness (and helped to save parts of the furniture) when the opera house burned down after an allied air raid on March 13, 1945. After the war he stayed with the company in its provisional lodgings at Theater an der Wien
Theater an der Wien
The Theater an der Wien is a historic theatre on the Left Wienzeile in the Mariahilf district of Vienna. Completed in 1801, it has seen the premieres of many celebrated works of theatre, opera, and symphonic music...
, and was one of the stars of the reopening of the original house in 1955 (as Florestan in Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
'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...
). As early as 1946 Dermota was honoured for his loyalty with the title of Kammersänger
Kammersänger
Kammersänger , abbreviation: "Ks.", literally means "Chamber singer." It is a German honorific title for distinguished singers...
.
Anton Dermota sang as a tenor as Alfred in Die Fledermaus in the 1950 London Gramophone recording LLP 305.
For 20 years Dermota sang at 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...
almost every summer. As guest he gave acclaimed performances at the Royal Opera House
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
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...
London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, in Paris
Palais Garnier
The Palais Garnier, , is an elegant 1,979-seat opera house, which was built from 1861 to 1875 for the Paris Opera. It was originally called the Salle des Capucines because of its location on the Boulevard des Capucines in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, but soon became known as the Palais Garnier...
and Rome
Teatro dell'Opera di Roma
The Teatro dell'Opera di Roma is an opera house in Rome, Italy. Originally opened in November 1880 as the 2,212 seat Costanzi Theatre, it has undergone several changes of name as well modifications and improvements...
, at Teatro di San Carlo
Teatro di San Carlo
The Real Teatro di San Carlo is an opera house in Naples, Italy. It is the oldest continuously active such venue in Europe.Founded by the Bourbon Charles VII of Naples of the Spanish branch of the dynasty, the theatre was inaugurated on 4 November 1737 — the king's name day — with a performance...
in Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
, in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
and Hungary
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...
.
Dermota was best known for his Mozart roles - especially his Don Ottavio in 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...
. But he sang a good deal of the lyric tenor repertory during his career, including more modern parts, such as Oedipus
Oedipus
Oedipus was a mythical Greek king of Thebes. He fulfilled a prophecy that said he would kill his father and marry his mother, and thus brought disaster on his city and family...
in Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
's Oedipus rex
Oedipus rex (opera)
Oedipus rex is an "Opera-oratorio after Sophocles" by Igor Stravinsky, scored for orchestra, speaker, soloists, and male chorus. The libretto, based on Sophocles's tragedy, was written by Jean Cocteau in French and then translated by Abbé Jean Daniélou into Latin...
, the title role of Hans Pfitzner
Hans Pfitzner
Hans Erich Pfitzner was a German composer and self-described anti-modernist. His best known work is the post-Romantic opera Palestrina, loosely based on the life of the great sixteenth-century composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina.-Biography:Pfitzner was born in Moscow, Russia, where his...
's Palestrina
Palestrina (opera)
Palestrina is an opera by the German composer Hans Pfitzner, first performed in 1917. The composer referred to it as a Musikalische Legende , and wrote the libretto himself, based on a legend about the Renaissance musician Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, who saves the art of contrapuntal music ...
and Flamand in Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
's Capriccio
Capriccio (opera)
Capriccio is the final opera by German composer Richard Strauss, subtitled "A Conversation Piece for Music". The opera received its premiere performance at the Nationaltheater München on October 28, 1942. Clemens Krauss and Strauss himself wrote the German libretto...
. Later in life he ventured into heldentenor territory, essaying parts such as the title role in Bedřich Smetana
Bedrich Smetana
Bedřich Smetana was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style which became closely identified with his country's aspirations to independent statehood. He is thus widely regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music...
's Dalibor
Dalibor
Dalibor is a Czech opera in three acts by Bedřich Smetana. The libretto was written in German by Josef Wenzig, and translated into Czech by Ervin Špindler. It was first performed at the New Town Theatre in Prague on 16 May 1868...
and Florestan. All told, his repertoire included some 80 roles.
An accomplished Lieder singer, he gave many recitals accompanied by his wife, the pianist Hilde Berger-Weyerwald. He began a second career as a singing coach at the Wiener Musikhochschule in 1966.
To celebrate his 70th birthday, Dermota sang Tamino in The Magic Flute at the Staatsoper. A year later he sang the Shepherd in 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 :...
's famous recording of Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde is an opera, or music drama, in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the romance by Gottfried von Straßburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting...
, sounding astonishingly young.
He died in Vienna less than a month after his 79th birthday.
External links
- http://www.antondermota.com
- History of the Tenor - Sound Clips and Narration