Rehearsals for Figaro; Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau et al

 

Did you know that in my dream last night I sang on stage with Hermann Prey, and as he was quite elderly, I helped him step down onto the apron of the stage for the bows, and he thanked me by name?  "Danke liebe Matthew".  Wow.  Almost as amazing as when my one and only dog Rosebud (who passed on in 2007) ran across a green pasture to greet me in a dream... it was the same kind of feeling.  I guess all my thinking about lieder singing has been reactivated by the news of the death of dear old Dietrich this week...

For those of you not in the know, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau is probably the most famous lieder interpreter of the 20th century, if not ever.  He recorded absolutely everything, and in the case of the more famous lieder pieces, several times with different pianists; for most people of my generation, say the words "Schubert lieder" and DF-D's voice is the what they instantly experience, sounding in their mental ear... The photo above is with the Englishman Gerald Moore, an immensely talented pianist and DF-D's most frequent collaborator.  Dietrich died this week ten days short of his 87th birthday.  There's a nice obit here from Toronto musician and music writer John Terauds.

Perhaps such dreams are simply indicative of a reflective time of year... as the school year begins to come to a close the performance season also winds down, and people politely ask in conversation about how things are going.  For me, life is really quite good.  There were lots of firsts for me this past season... several performances of my first Messiah in Brussels, my first Carmina Burana, the Bach solo cantata Ich Will den Kreuzstab Gerne Tragen for the first time in Europe, my first Haydn Creation in English (Canada) and German (Antwerp), my first Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus, my first duo recital with Bruce and Dina in Ottawa, my first french operetta with french dialogue and my Brussels stage debut in La Grand Duchesse de Gerolstein, and my Brussels recital debut here with Die Schöne Müllerin, while reading the translation of each song in between in french for the first time (instead of english), and working for the first time in performance with Peter Tomek.

It's really taken time for things to grow and develop for me here but our life really has so many benefits for the whole family.  These days I'm just rehearsing the John Burge debut opera The Auction for June in Canada, and Le Nozze di Figaro for autumn in Flanders... I just got news of a Fauré Requiem, a Mozart Requiem, and the Bach St. Matthew Passion for this coming season in Belgium, and there are some possibilites emerging for recital tours in New Zealand, so I am feeling very much that I am enjoying success and development in lieder, oratorio and opera, which is all that any singer could ever hope for!  Rediscovering the Mozart Figaro now, after five years in cold storage, is really quite amazing, and I cannot wait to perform it, it is such incredible genius.

As a post-script I must include this fellow, Hans Hotter, who came a little before Prey and Dieskau, but was a wonderful lieder interpreter, as well as singing Bach tremendously well, and then went on to become the most celebrated Wotan of his generation.  So you see it really is possible to do all three well!