Erich Syri (8 December 1937 – 8 September, 2022)
was a German
Bass
Bass or Basses may refer to:
Fish
* Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species
Wood
* Bass or basswood, the wood of the tilia americana tree
Music
* Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in th ...
opera singer.
Life
Syri was born in
Andernach
Andernach () is a town in the district of Mayen-Koblenz, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, of about 30,000 inhabitants. It is situated towards the end of the ''Neuwied basin'' on the left bank of the Rhine between the former tiny fishing village ...
. After initial singing lessons with Elly Lauer in
Neuwied
Neuwied (, ) is a town in the north of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, capital of the Neuwied (district), District of Neuwied. Neuwied lies on the east bank of the Rhine, 12 km northwest of Koblenz, on the railway from Frankfurt ...
, he studied singing with Professor Clemens Glettenberg at the State University of Music in Cologne. He debuted as Sarastro in Mozart's ''
The Magic Flute
''The Magic Flute'' (, ), K. 620, is an opera in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. It is a ''Singspiel'', a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue. The work premiered on ...
'' in 1962 in Passau at the
Landestheater Niederbayern, a theatre in Lower Bavaria. He had his first engagement as a at the
Linz State Theatre
The Linz State Theatre () is a theatre in Linz, Austria. The largest theater in Upper Austria (OÖ), it consists of three venues: the Musiktheater am Volksgarten, the Schauspielhaus (formerly Großes Haus) and the Kammerspiele on the Promenade in ...
from 1963 to 1966. From 1966 to 1968 he was engaged in the same position at the
Theater Saarbrücken
Theater Saarbrücken, officially Saarländisches Staatstheater since 1971, is the state theatre of Saarland in its capital Saarbrücken, Germany. It has several divisions (opera, drama, dance, concert) and offers annually around 30 new production ...
with the artistic director
Hermann Wedekind and conductor
Siegfried Köhler. A season followed at the
Theater Freiburg in
Breisgau
The Breisgau () is an area in southwest Germany extending along the Rhine River and enveloping portions of the Black Forest. Part of the state of Baden-Württemberg, it centers on the city of Freiburg im Breisgau. The district of Breisgau-Hoch ...
with Hans-Reinhard Müller and Austrian conductor
Leopold Hager.
In 1969 he was engaged by German conductor
Horst Stein
Horst Walter Stein (2 May 1928 – 27 July 2008) was a German conductor.
Biography
Stein was born in Elberfeld, Germany; his father was a mechanic. At school in Frankfurt, he studied piano, oboe, and singing. Later, he continued studies ...
at the
Mannheim National Theatre, where he worked until 1999.
Syri starred in the world premiers of
Helmut Eder
Helmut Eder (December 26, 1916, Linz – February 8, 2005, Salzburg) was an Austrian composer.
Eder studied until 1948 at the Linz Conservatory, later studying with Johann Nepomuk David in Stuttgart and Carl Orff in Munich. Returning to Linz, ...
's s ''Der Kardinal'' in the title role, and in
Giselher Klebe
Giselher Wolfgang Klebe (28 June 19255 October 2009) was a German composer, and an academic teacher. He composed more than 140 works, among them 14 operas, all based on literary works, eight symphonies, 15 solo concerts, chamber music, piano work ...
's s ''
Der Jüngste Tag'' as ''Orest''. He co-wrote and starred in the
monodrama
A monodrama is a theatrical or operatic piece played by a single actor or singer, usually portraying one character.
In opera
In opera, a monodrama was originally a melodrama with one role such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau's '' Pygmalion'', which w ...
''Die Sternstunde des Josef Bieder'' by .
Syri died in
Lampertheim.
Roles (selection)
* Pimpinone – ''
Pimpinone'' (
Georg Philipp Telemann
Georg Philipp Telemann (; – 25 June 1767) was a German Baroque composer and multi-instrumentalist. He is one of the most prolific composers in history, at least in terms of surviving works. Telemann was considered by his contemporaries to b ...
)
* Baculus – ''
Der Wildschütz'' (
Albert Lortzing
Gustav Albert Lortzing (23 October 1801 – 21 January 1851) was a German composer, librettist, actor and singer. He is considered to be the main representative of the German ''Spieloper'', a form similar to the French ''opéra comique'', which ...
)
* Pogner – ''
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 ...
'' (
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most o ...
)
* Hagen – ''
Götterdämmerung
' (; ''Twilight of the Gods''), Wagner-Werk-Verzeichnis, WWV 86D, is the last of the four epic poetry, epic music dramas that constitute Richard Wagner's Literary cycle, cycle ''Der Ring des Nibelungen'' (English: ''The Ring of the Nibelung''). I ...
'' (Richard Wagner)
* Fasolt – ''
Das Rheingold
''Das Rheingold'' (; ''The Rhinegold''), Wagner-Werk-Verzeichnis, WWV 86A, is the first of the four epic poetry, epic music dramas that constitute Richard Wagner's Literary cycle, cycle ''Der Ring des Nibelungen'' (English: ''The Ring of the Nib ...
'' (Richard Wagner)
* Fafner – ''Das Rheingold'' (Richard Wagner)
* Daland – ''
Der fliegende Holländer
' (''The Flying Dutchman''), Wagner-Werk-Verzeichnis, WWV 63, is a German-language opera, with libretto and music by Richard Wagner. The central theme is redemption through love. Wagner Conducting, conducted the premiere at the Königliches Hofthe ...
'' (Richard Wagner)
* Graf Waldner – ''
Arabella
''Arabella'', Op. 79, is a lyric comedy, or opera, in three acts by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, their sixth and last operatic collaboration.
Performance history
It was first performed on 1 July 1933 at the D ...
'' (
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss (; ; 11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a German composer and conductor best known for his Tone poems (Strauss), tone poems and List of operas by Richard Strauss, operas. Considered a leading composer of the late Roman ...
)
* Procolo – ''
Viva la mamma'' (
Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti (29 November 1797 – 8 April 1848) was an Italian Romantic music, Romantic composer, best known for his almost 70 operas. Along with Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini, he was a leading composer of the ''be ...
)
* King Philipp – ''
Don Carlos
''Don Carlos'' is an 1867 five-act grand opera composed by Giuseppe Verdi to a French-language libretto by Joseph Méry and Camille du Locle, based on the 1787 play '' Don Karlos, Infant von Spanien'' (''Don Carlos, Infante of Spain'') by Fried ...
'' (
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi ( ; ; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for List of compositions by Giuseppe Verdi, his operas. He was born near Busseto, a small town in the province of Parma ...
)
* Mephisto – ''
Faust
Faust ( , ) is the protagonist of a classic German folklore, German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust (). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a deal with the Devil at a ...
'' (
Charles Gounod
Charles-François Gounod (; ; 17 June 181818 October 1893), usually known as Charles Gounod, was a French composer. He wrote twelve operas, of which the most popular has always been ''Faust (opera), Faust'' (1859); his ''Roméo et Juliette'' (18 ...
)
* Lothario – ''
Mignon
''Mignon'' () is an 1866 ''opéra comique'' (or opera in its second version) in three acts by Ambroise Thomas. The original French libretto was by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on Goethe's 1795-96 novel '' Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre''. ...
'' (
Ambroise Thomas
Charles Louis Ambroise Thomas (; 5 August 1811 – 12 February 1896) was a French composer and teacher, best known for his operas ''Mignon'' (1866) and ''Hamlet (opera), Hamlet'' (1868).
Born into a musical family, Thomas was a student at the C ...
)
* Kecal the marriage broker – ''
The Bartered Bride
''The Bartered Bride'' (, ''The Sold Bride'') is a comic opera in three acts by the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana, to a libretto by Karel Sabina. The work is generally regarded as a major contribution towards the development of Czech music. It ...
'' (
Bedřich Smetana
Bedřich Smetana ( ; ; 2 March 1824 – 12 May 1884) was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style that became closely identified with his people's aspirations to a cultural and political "revival". He has been regarded ...
)
* Kontschak – ''
Prince Igor
''Prince Igor'' (, ) is an opera in four acts with a prologue, written and composed by Alexander Borodin.
The composer adapted the libretto from the early Russian epic '' The Lay of Igor's Host'', which recounts the campaign of the 12th-centur ...
'' (
Alexander Porfirjewitsch Borodin)
* Kardinal – ''
The Maid of Orleans'' (
Pjotr Iljitsch Tschaikowski)
* Athlet – ''
Lulu
Lulu may refer to:
Companies
* LuLu, an early automobile manufacturer
* Lulu.com, an online e-books and print self-publishing platform, distributor, and retailer
* Lulu Hypermarket, a retail chain in Asia
* Lululemon Athletica or simply Lulu, a C ...
'' (
Alban Berg
Alban Maria Johannes Berg ( ; ; 9 February 1885 – 24 December 1935) was an Austrian composer of the Second Viennese School. His compositional style combined Romantic lyricism with the twelve-tone technique. Although he left a relatively sma ...
)
Honors
* 1989: Appointment as
Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg ( ; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a states of Germany, German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million i ...
Kammersänger
Kammersänger (male; ) or Kammersängerin (female; ), abbreviated Ks. or KS, is a German Title of honor, honorific title for distinguished singers of opera and classical music. It literally means "chamber singer". Historically, the title was besto ...
by Premier
Lothar Späth
Lothar Späth (16 November 1937 – 18 March 2016) was a German politician of the CDU.
Life
Späth was born in Sigmaringen.
From 30 August 1978 to 13 January 1991 Späth was the 5th Minister President of Baden-Württemberg and chairman of ...
.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Syri, Erich
2022 deaths
1937 births
German operatic basses
People from Andernach
Musicians from Rhineland-Palatinate