Heinz Zednik-9834 (9024019202) (cropped)

Heinz Zednik (born February 21, 1940) is an Austrian operatic

buffo tenor A tenor is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The low extreme for tenors is wide ...

, closely associated with the character tenor roles of Wagner such as Mime and Loge ('' Der Ring des Nibelungen'') and David (''

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 ...

''). He is also distinguished in roles such as Valzacchi ('' Der Rosenkavalier''), Monostatos ('' The Magic Flute''), Pedrillo ('' Die Entführung aus dem Serail''), the Scribe ('' Khovanshchina''), the Captain in '' Wozzeck'', and the Director ( Luciano Berio's ''Un re in ascolto''). Zednik studied singing in Vienna before making his professional opera début in 1964 at Graz as Maestro Trabuco in ''

La forza del destino ' (; ''The Power of Fate'', often translated ''The Force of Destiny'') is an Italian opera by Giuseppe Verdi. The libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on a Spanish drama, ' (1835), by Ángel de Saavedra, 3rd Duke of Rivas, wi ...

''. Shortly thereafter he was engaged by the Vienna State Opera where he remains a member to this day. He appeared at the

Bayreuth Festival The Bayreuth Festival (german: link=no, Bayreuther Festspiele) is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner are presented. Wagner himself conceived ...

annually from 1970 through 1980, and was seen as the successor to Gerhard Stolze. During his time at the festival, he sang Loge and Mime in the '' Jahrhundertring'' (''Centenary Ring'') in 1976, celebrating the centenary of both the festival and the first performance of the complete cycle, conducted by

Pierre Boulez Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (; 26 March 1925 – 5 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war Western classical music. Born in Mont ...

and staged by Patrice Chéreau, recorded and filmed in 1979 and 1980. Zednik made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1981 as Mime in '' Das Rheingold''. He returned to that house numerous times through 1998 in such roles as Don Basilio in ''

The Marriage of Figaro ''The Marriage of Figaro'' ( it, Le nozze di Figaro, links=no, ), K. 492, is a ''commedia per musica'' (opera buffa) in four acts composed in 1786 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with an Italian libretto written by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It premie ...

'', the Dancing Master in '' Ariadne auf Naxos'', Monostatos, Pedrillo, and Prince Shuisky in ''

Boris Godunov Borís Fyodorovich Godunóv (; russian: Борис Фёдорович Годунов; 1552 ) ruled the Tsardom of Russia as ''de facto'' regent from c. 1585 to 1598 and then as the first non-Rurikid tsar from 1598 to 1605. After the end of his ...

''. He played Mime in the 1990 PBS broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera, for the largest viewing-audience (world-wide) of the Ring in history. He won two Grammy Awards, in 1982 and 1989, both for recording Wagner roles.

References

* ''Heinz Zednik: Mein Opernleben'' (Edition

Steinbauer Steinbauer is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Anja Steinbauer (born 1966) Sinologist and philosopher * Ben Steinbauer (born 1977), American documentary film director * Jodi Appelbaum-Steinbauer (born 1956), American pro ...

)

External links

Playing Loge, on YouTube

Playing Mime the evil dwarf, on YouTube

Recordings of rehearsals and productions with Heinz Zednik
at the Salzburg Festival in the Online Archive of the Österreichischen Mediathek {{DEFAULTSORT:Zednik, Heinz 1940 births Living people 20th-century Austrian people 21st-century Austrian people Austrian operatic tenors Wienerlied Grammy Award winners Austrian people of Czech descent Musicians from Vienna