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Beno Blachut (14 June 1913 – 10 January 1985) was a lauded Czech operatic tenor. An icon in his own nation, Blachut drew international acclaim through his many commercial recordings of Czech music. He was an instrumental part of the post-World War II school of Czech opera singers that were responsible for popularizing Czech opera internationally. He was highly regarded for his interpretations of roles in operas by Leoš Janáček,
Antonín Dvořák Antonín Leopold Dvořák ( ; ; 8 September 1841 – 1 May 1904) was a Czechs, Czech composer. Dvořák frequently employed rhythms and other aspects of the folk music of Moravian traditional music, Moravia and his native Bohemia, following t ...
, and Bedřich Smetana.


Biography

Born in Ostrava-Vítkovice, Blachut grew up in a poor family of
miner A miner is a person who extracts ore, coal, chalk, clay, or other minerals from the earth through mining. There are two senses in which the term is used. In its narrowest sense, a miner is someone who works at the rock face; cutting, blasting, ...
s. Blachut was highly involved in his church's music program which provided him with his initial musical training as a child and teenager. In 1927, at the age of 14, he began working at an iron factory and from all appearances it seemed he was destined to live a life similar to that of his parents. In the year 1935 he started to study singing at the Prague conservatory. At the conservatory, Blachut studied under
Luis Kadeřábek Luis is a given name. It is the Spanish form of the originally Germanic name or . Other Iberian Romance languages have comparable forms: (with an accent mark on the i) in Portuguese and Galician, in Aragonese and Catalan, while is archai ...
for four years. He made his professional opera debut at the Olomouc Opera in the role of Jeník in Smetana's '' The Bartered Bride'' on 25 December 1938. He sang at the house for the next two years, portraying eighteen different roles (for example: Faust, Canio in Pagliacci, Laca in Jenůfa, Prince in Rusalka) under the direction of Karel Nedbal. In 1941 he left Olomouc to join the roster of principal tenors at the Czech National Opera in Prague, singing Jenik again for his first appearance at that house. Up to this point, Blachut had mostly portrayed lyric tenor parts, but in Prague he began to sing works from the dramatic repertoire, especially in operas by Janáček, Dvořák, and Smetana. On 3 February 1942 he starred in the world premiere of František Škroup's '' Columbus'' (composed in 1855). Outside the Czech repertoire, he sang Alfredo in ''
La traviata ''La traviata'' (; ''The Fallen Woman'') 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'' (1852), a play by Alexandre Dumas ''fils'' adapted from his own 18 ...
'', Cavaradossi in '' Tosca'', Don José in ''
Carmen ''Carmen'' () is an opera in four acts by the French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the Carmen (novella), novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée. The opera was first perfo ...
'', Ferrando in ''
Così fan tutte (''All Women Do It, or The School for Lovers''), K. 588, is an opera buffa in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It was first performed on 26 January 1790 at the Burgtheater in Vienna, Austria. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte w ...
'', Florestan in '' Fidelio'', Hermann in '' The Queen of Spades'', Lensky in '' Eugene Onegin'', Pierre Bezukhov in '' War and Peace'', Radames in '' Aida'', Walther in ''
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (; "The Master-Singers of Nuremberg"), WWV 96, is a music drama, or opera, in three acts, by Richard Wagner. It is the longest opera commonly performed, taking nearly four and a half hours, not counting two breaks between acts, and is traditio ...
'', and the title roles in '' Faust'' and ''
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, first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on 5 February 1887. Th ...
'' among other roles. By 1945 Blachut's performance credits had grown to include almost all of the major tenor parts from the Czech repertory. At this point he was widely view as Czechoslovakia's leading tenor and he appeared on tour with the Czech National Opera in opera performances in Austria, Belgium, Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Russia. He also appeared with the company in England at the 1964 Edinburgh Festival in an acclaimed portrayal of Luka Kuzmič in Janáček's '' From the House of the Dead''. He returned to Edinburgh for another lauded performance in 1970 as Matěj Brouček in ''
The Excursions of Mr. Brouček ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in En ...
''. That same year he sang in the world premiere of Jiří Pauer's '' Zdravý nemocný'' in Prague after ''Le malade imaginaire'' by Molière. Blachut was also highly regarded internationally for his portrayal of the title role in Smetana's '' Dalibor''. In addition to his performances with the Prague Opera, Blachut also occasionally worked as freelance artist, notably making guest appearances at
La Fenice Teatro La Fenice (, "The Phoenix") is an opera house in Venice, Italy. It is one of "the most famous and renowned landmarks in the history of Italian theatre" and in the history of opera as a whole. Especially in the 19th century, La Fenice beca ...
, Deutsche Oper Berlin, De Nederlandse Opera, the Finnish National Opera, and the Vienna State Opera. In 1959 he appeared at the Holland Festival as Boris in '' Káťa Kabanová''. Blachut was also active as a concert singer, appearing in productions like Dvořák's ''
Stabat Mater The Stabat Mater is a 13th-century Christian hymn to Mary, which portrays her suffering as Jesus Christ's mother during his crucifixion. Its author may be either the Franciscan friar Jacopone da Todi or Pope Innocent III.Sabatier, Paul ''Life o ...
'' and Janáček's '' Glagolitic Mass''. He was particularly known for his interpretation of Janáček's '' The Diary of One Who Disappeared'' and his recording of that work is considered by many critics to be the remaining definitive interpretation. He died in Prague at the age of 71. He is buried at the Vyšehrad cemetery next to
Antonín Dvořák Antonín Leopold Dvořák ( ; ; 8 September 1841 – 1 May 1904) was a Czechs, Czech composer. Dvořák frequently employed rhythms and other aspects of the folk music of Moravian traditional music, Moravia and his native Bohemia, following t ...
. In 2001 was founded in Prague The Beno Blachut Society (Společnost Beno Blachuta) producing historical recordings of Blachut and his artistic colleagues.


Recordings


Opera recordings


Choral and symphonic recordings


Other recordings


References

* http://archiv.narodni-divadlo.cz/default.aspx?jz=cs&dk=Umelec.aspx&ju=1191&sz=0&zz=OPR&pn=456affcc-f402-4000-aaff-c11223344aaa {{DEFAULTSORT:Blachut, Beno 1913 births 1985 deaths Czech operatic tenors Musicians from Ostrava 20th-century Czech male opera singers