Jury 2019

German operatic baritone Olaf Bär is considered to be one of the foremost Lieder interpreters of his generation, and he regularly appears in the world’s greatest recital venues. Bär received his musical training in his home city of Dresden, studying at the city’s Hochschule für Musik. His career has concentrated on lieder and on the lyric baritone roles of the operatic repertoire. Many of his early lieder performances were accompanied by Geoffrey Parsons.

His operatic debut was in 1981 in Dresden and he was a member of that city’s opera company (Semperoper) from 1985 to 1991. His voice has been compared favorably with that of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.

In 1982 he won the 1st Prize in Dvořák vocal competition in Karlovy Vary, and, in 1983, 1st prize in the vocal competition sponsored by the East German opera houses and the Walter Grüner Lieder Competition in London. In 1984 he was a prizewinner in the first Mirjam Helin International Singing Competition.

Olaf Bär has made major recital tours of Australia and Japan and has given recitals in New York, San Francisco, Washington and Philadelphia, in addition to many international festivals including Salzburg.

Olaf Bär is equally at home in the concert hall and opera house. He has appeared with many of the world’s finest orchestras and conductors including the London Symphony Orchestra under Michael Tilson Thomas, and Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala under Riccardo Muti. His work in Opera includes appearances at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (Harlekin/Ariadne auf Naxos and Papageno), at La Scala, Milan (Papageno), at the Aix-en-Provence Festival (Harlekin/Gugliemo), in Frankfurt (Gugliemo), at the Vienna State Opera (Harlekin, Olivier/Capriccio), the Netherlands Opera (Count/Le Nozze di Figaro), and the title role in Don Giovanni at Glyndebourne, as well as many principal roles at the Semper Oper in Dresden.

His recordings of opera and concert repertoire include performances in Ein Deusches Requiem and Die Zauberflöte with Roger Norrington and the London Classical Players, a disc of Bach Cantatas with Peter Schreier and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and both Maurice Duruflé and Gabriel Fauré Requiems. All are available on EMI Classics.

In the summer of 1985 Olaf Bär made his first Lieder record for EMI Classics, a programme of Robert Schumann’s Dichterliebe Op.48 and Liederkreis Op.39. Since then, under his exclusive contract for Lieder with EMI Classics, he has recorded much of the most important Lieder repertoire, including Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin, (which won a Gramophone award) Winterreise and Schwanengesang, a selection of Wolf’s Mörike Lieder, Robert Schumann’s Liederkreis Op.24 and Kerner-Lieder Op.35, and a disc of songs by J. Brahms.

Photo: Matthias Creutziger

Ben Heppner is universally renowned as a fine dramatic tenor who excels in the most challenging roles, from Wagner’s Tristan and Lohengrin to Verdi’s Otello and Berlioz’s Aeneas. He is acclaimed worldwide for his beautiful voice, intelligent musicianship and sparkling dramatic sense, and his performances on the opera stage, in concert and in recordings have set new standards in his demanding repertoire.

Ben Heppner first gained national attention in 1979 as the winner of the Canadian Broadcasting Company’s Talent Festival. In 1988, he was the winner of the Metropolitan Opera auditions, and he has been both a Grammy and a Juno Award winner. In 2002, he was named an Officer of the Order of Canada.

He has performed throughout Europe and North America, including Carnegie Hall, the Berlin Philharmonie and the New York Metropolitan. His performance in Tristan und Isolde at the Met was simulcast in cinemas throughout North America and the UK.

After retiring from singing in 2014 Heppner is currently a broadcaster on Canadian radio, hosting Saturday Afternoon at the Opera and Backstage with Ben Heppner on CBC Radio.

The Bulgarian mezzo-soprano Vesselina Kasarova has a diploma as a concert pianist and abandoned her career in this profession to become a singer. After her first engagements at the opera houses of Vienna and Zurich she performed in 1991 for the first time at the Salzburg Festival. Within a short time she won the hearts of the audience and became “the darling of the public”. Since then she has sung at the most important international opera houses like La Scala in Milan, the Royal Opera House in London, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Opéra Bastille and the Opéra Garnier in Paris, the Liceu in Barcelona, the Munich State Opera, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Zurich Opera House, the Hamburg State Opera – just to name a few.

Vesselina Kasarova has become world famous for her interpretation of Mozart operas, the belcanto fach and the French opera. She has worked with some of the greatest conductors. Concerts and recitals led her to all grand music centres of the world.

She has done numerous recordings: tancredi, werther, i capuleti e i montecchi, la favorite, italiana in algieri, la clemenza di tito, Aria CDs and Bulgarian songs.

For her recordings she was awarded with the Echo Klassik prize several times and received distinctions from the international review for her outstanding performances on the opera stage.

In 2012 Vesselina Kasarova’s appreciated book “Ich singe mit Leib und Seele” (English:”I sing with heart and soul”) was published. It allows looking at the ups and downs of the profession of a singer and it contains a biography of the artist written by Marianne Zelger-Vogt.

Today Vesselina Kasarova is one of the most demanded mezzo-sopranos and on the opera stage as well as in the concert hall press and audience celebrate her enthusiastically.

Photo: Suzanne Schwiertz

François Le Roux began his vocal studies with François Loup at the age of 19, and later he studied under Vera Rosza and Elisabeth Grümmer at the Opéra Studio, Paris. He is a winner of international competitions in Barcelona (“Maria Canals”), and Rio de Janeiro.

He was a member of the Lyon Opera Company from 1980 to 1985 since when he has been a guest with all the major European opera houses and festivals.

He has appeared at the Glyndebourne Festival (as Ramiro in Ravel’s L’Heure Espagnole), in Hamburg and Oslo (as Marcello in Puccini’s La Bohême), in Frankfurt (as Orestes in Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride), at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London (among other parts as Lescaut in Massenet’s Manon, as Papageno in Mozart’s Magic Flute conducted by Colin Davis, as Figaro in Rossini’s Barbiere di Siviglia).

In 1988, he made his debut as Valentin in Gounod’s Faust at the Paris Opera. In 1987, the role of Don Giovanni played at the Paris Opera-Comique enjoyed a real triumph and brought him the French critics’ award “Prix de la Révélation de l’année”. As Don Giovanni, Le Roux has also appeared in Zürich (under Nikolaus Harnoncourt) in England, Scotland and in Spain.

For the first time in 1985 he was cast in the role of Pelléas in Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, and at once was appointed by critics “the greatest Pelléas of his generation”. He has played this role over a hundred times on the most renowned operatic stages throughout the world and has recorded it for Deutsche Grammophon under Claudio Abbado; since 1998, he has switched to the part of Golaud in the same opera, to great acclaim, in Paris, in Bordeaux, and at the famous Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires (Argentina); it was him who was Golaud, for the centenary of the world premiere of the opera (30 april 2002), at the Paris Opéra-Comique, and recently, for the Russian staged premiere ever of the opera.

His wide repertoire covers all Mozart baritone parts, a range of parts from the italian repertoire (Figaro, Dandini, Malatesta, Marcello), and also baroque opera  (title roles of Monteverdi’s Orfeo at the Vienna festival, and Ulisse, Campra’s Tancrède -title role-, and Rameau’s Pollux in Castor et Pollux at the Aix en Provence Festival), as well as contemporary opera (Henze’s Der Prinz von Homburg -title role- in Munich conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch, and World premieres of Birtwistle’s Gawain -title role- at Covent Garden, Von Bose’s Die Leiden des jungen Werthers -title role- at the Schwetzingen Festival, Georges Boeuf’s Verlaine Paul -title role- in Nancy and Marseille, David Lang’s Modern Painters -part of John Ruskin- at the Santa Fé Opera), and Thilloy’s Jour des Meurtres (as Claudius) in Metz.

In addition to numerous operatic recordings for EMI, Erato, and BMG-RCA, Le Roux has released several records of the French song repertoire for EMI, REM (e.g. complete songs of Duparc and Fauré), HYPERION (Saint-Saëns songs, Séverac Songs, & Louis Durey Songs with Graham Johnson), and DECCA-Universal, which were enthusiastically received, gaining him the name of Gérard Souzay’s successor.

Besides, François Le Roux gives numerous recitals accompanied by such renowned names as Graham Johnson, Roger Vignoles, Christian Ivaldi, Olivier Godin and Jeff Cohen, and also conducts master courses dedicated to the interpretation of French songs and recital repertoire.

From 2006 to 2011, he has been teaching at the Académie Maurice Ravel in Saint Jean-de-Luz, a position first detained by the famous Pierre Bernac. He is artistic Director of the Académie Francis Poulenc in Tours, which he created in 1997, where students are taught every year the interpretation of French Song. He has been organizing the French Song Concert Seasons of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris between 1997 and 2002.

His first book Le Chant intime, on the interprétation of French Art Song, published by Fayard in August 2004, with co-author Romain Raynaldy, has received the René Dumesnil Price 2004 of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts (a translation in Japanese has been published by Shunjusha in Tokyo, in 2009, and Oxford University Press will issue the English translation in 2018).

He has been awarded the grade of Chevalier in the French National Order of “Les Arts et Lettres”in 1996, and chosen as Musical Personality of the year 1997 by the French Critics Union. He has been nominated for the Victoires de la musique twice, in 2015 and 2018. A former vocal teacher at the National Music Conservatoire in Paris (CNSMDP), he is teaching at the Ecole Normale de Musique Alfred Cortot de Paris (ENMP).

Photo: Paul Montag

Before devoting herself fully to her singing career, German mezzo-soprano Waltraud Meier studied English and Romance languages. In 1976 she made her debut at the Würzburg Opera as Lola in Cavalleria Rusticana. With her triumphant success as Kundry in Wagner’s Parsifal at the 1983 Bayreuth Festival, she launched her international career. Celebrated as one of the foremost Wagner singers of our times she has regularly been invited to all big stages in London, New York, Chicago, Milan, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Munich and other places.

Also in the Italian and French repertoire the great power of her musical and dramatic expression enjoys worldwide demand.

Waltraud Meier has collaborated with such significant directors as Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, Luc Bondy, Harry Kupfer, Götz Friedrich, Klaus-Michael Grüber, Heiner Müller, Jürgen Flimm and Patrice Chéreau as well as great directors as Daniel Barenboim, Riccardo Muti, Claudio Abbado, James Levine, Zubin Mehta, Christian Thielemann, Valery Gergiev, Sir Simon Rattle, Riccardo Chailly and Antonio Pappano.

Being a singer and artist who has never ceased to seek out new challenges and to venture on new paths, she devoted her 2003/04 season exclusively on singing in its purest form: recitals and concerts. She has since been committing a large part of her work to this expressive potential.

Her extremely fruitful collaboration with Patrice Chéreau on Alban Berg’s Wozzeck brought about the desire for further joint productions. At the opening of the 2007/2008 Scala season Waltraud Meier sang – under the baton of Barenboim – in Chéreau’s psychologically deeply profound production of Tristan and Isolde.

In the summer of 2010 she appeared for the first time as Klytämnestra at the Salzburg Festival, a role she will later sing in Patrice Chéreau’s new production of ELEKTRA on many different important stages.

An extensive discography and videography as well as many productions available on DVD testify to the versatility of this unique singer’s power of interpretation, musicality, vocal beauty, and art of singing. A highly acclaimed winner of many awards Waltraud Meier was honored with the title of “Kammersängerin” by both the Bavarian State Opera and the Vienna State Opera. She lives in Munich and is since June 2017 Honorary Member of the Vienna State Opera.

Kiri Te Kanawa gained legendary status almost overnight after her sensational debut as the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 1971.  From then, she moved rapidly into the front rank of international opera, becoming one of the most famous sopranos in the world.

Besides opera, she developed as an accomplished recitalist, concert soloist and recording artist, and became one of the most sought after performers in the music world.

Created a Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1982, she was invested with the Order of Australia in 1990 and in the 1995 Queen’s Birthday Honours List, she was awarded the prestigious Order of New Zealand.

Dame Kiri now devotes her time to teaching and mentoring the next generation of talented young singers. In 2004, The Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation was launched; a charity which aims to give support and financial aid to dedicated singers and musicians and in 2011 she became Patron of the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition.

In the 2018 Queen’s Birthday Honours List, she was made a Companion of Honour.

www.kiritekanawa.org/

As Brünnhilde in Harry Kupfer’s 1988 staging of Richard Wagner’s Niebelungen in Bayreuth, Deborah Polaski emerged as one of the most promising dramatic sopranos. In two consecutive Ring cycles on the “Grüner Hügel” (with Daniel Barenboim 1988, with James Levine 1994), she sang this role more than any other soprano since the Second World War. Although she had already sung in opera houses such as La Scala, Munich and Berlin, it was after her debut in Bayreuth, that she received offers to sing in all of the world’s major opera houses: Paris, London, New York, Sydney, Barcelona, Dresden, Vienna and Salzburg, to name just a few.

Her repertoire comprises primarily dramatic soprano roles, such as the Wagnerian roles of Isolde in Tristan und Isolde, Brünnhilde (Der Ring des Nibelungen), Kundry (Parsifal) and Ortrud (Lohengrin), and Richard Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos and Elektra, Berlioz’ Didon and Cassandre (Les Troyens), Berg’s Marie (Wozzeck) and Janáček’s Kostelnička (Jenůfa). Many of her Wagner performances are also released on DVD.

In 2003, in recognition of her accomplishment as an artist of distinguished quality and subsequent contribution to Viennese cultural life, the Austrian government rendered her the prestigious title of Austrian Kammersänger. After concluding her active stage career in 2015, she intensified her commitment to teaching, both in master classes and in her private studio.

Artistic Director of the Savonlinna Opera Festival between 2014 and 2019, Jorma Silvasti (tenor) studied in Helsinki and Frankfurt and was a member of the chorus of the Finnish National and Frankfurt am Main operas 1980–1982. Victory in the Timo Mustakallio Competition (Savonlinna Opera Festival) in 1982 paved the way for a solo career and a contract with the Krefeld-Mönchengladbach Opera in Germany. He spent from 1985 to 1988 at the Baden State Opera in Karlsruhe, and from 1991 to 2014 was a member of the solo ensemble of the Finnish National Opera.

Jorma Silvasti made his international breakthrough with his debut at the Vienna State Opera in 1993, in Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail. He appeared in the Finnish debut season of Das Rheingold in Richard Wagner’s Ring tetralogy, and sang the part of Laca in Léoš Janáček’s Jenůfa. The parts of Loge, and of Erik in The Flying Dutchman at the Bayreuth Festival in 1998 and 1999 brought invitations to appear on the leading German stages, such as the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

Guest appearances have taken Jorma Silvasti to such illustrious venues as the Vienna State Opera, London’s Covent Garden, Berlin, Munich and Paris. He made his New York Metropolitan debut in 2004, as Boris in Léoš Janáček’s Kát’a Kabanova, and has sung at the Bayreuth Festival and the Savonlinna Opera Festival.

In 2004, Jorma Silvasti was awarded a Grammy for Best Opera Recording – of  the ROH Covent Garden performance of Léoš Janáček’s Jenůfa conducted by Bernard Haitink.

Among Jorma Silvasti’s major operatic roles in recent years have been Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes, Laca in Léoš Janáček’s Jenůfa and Boris in Kát’a Kabanova. He also has an extensive concert repertoire taking in the tenor parts in great works by J.S. Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Gustav Mahler and Igor Stravinsky, but also works by contemporary composers.

Jorma Silvasti has worked with such conductors as James Levine, Kurt Masur, Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa, Antonio Pappano, Simon Rattle, Leif Segerstam, Ulf Söderblom and Christian Thielemann.

Jorma Silvasti was the chairman of the Jury in the Mirjam Helin International Singing Competition 2019, 2014 and 2009.

Photo: Heikki Tuuli