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BBC Cardiff Singer Of the World 2009 - Master Classes:  Master classes for young singers taking part in BBC Cardiff Singer of the World 2009 - Saturday, June 13th New Theatre and Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Cardiff (MS)


Legendary opera singers and musicians are giving public master classes with six of the talented singers who have taken part in BBC Cardiff Singer of the World 2009, which is organised by BBC Cymru Wales.  The details are:

New Theatre, Cardiff, 11am: Kurt Moll with New Zealand bass Wade Kernot. Dame Gwyneth Jones with Latvian soprano Dana Bramane.

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  New Theatre, Cardiff, 3pm: Giacomo Aragall with Mexican baritone Octavio Moreno. Richard Bonynge with Bulgarian soprano Emiliya Ivanova.

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  Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, 12.30pm: Ann Murray with Australian mezzo-soprano Katharine Tier.

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  New Theatre, Cardiff, 4pm: Helmut Deutsch with Irish soprano Helen Kearns. Tickets are available from the New Theatre box office on the day and costs £8.
  
  The Singers:
  
  Australia: Mezzo soprano Katharine Tier, 27, studied at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and at San Francisco Opera’s Merola Opera Program.
  
  Bulgaria: Emiliya Ivanova is a 27-year-old soprano who began studying opera performance at the age of 14 and has taken part in several national and international opera competitions.
  
  Ireland: Helen Kearns, a 27-year-old soprano, studied at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Dublin, and won first prize and the audience prize at the International Young Singers competition in Vienna.
  
  Latvia: Soprano Dana Bramane, 25, is now studying for her master's degree and made her debut last year with Latvian National Opera.
  
  Mexico: Octavio Moreno is a 27-year-old baritone who studied at the Universidad de Sonora and the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia and is a first year artist with the Houston Grand Opera Studio.
  
  New Zealand: Bass Wade Kernot, 28, studied at the Australian Opera Studio, Perth, and is currently at the National Opera Studio, London.
  
  The Masters
  
  Giacomo Aragall was born in Barcelona. His debut in a leading tenor role was at La Fenice, Venice in 1963, in Verdi's Jerusalemme.  Since then, he has sung in theatres including La Scala, Milan, Teatro Comunale, Bologna and Teatro dell'Opera, Rome, Hamburg, Munich, Bonn, Cologne, Berlin, Vienna State Opera, Metropolitan Opera, New York, Paris, Marseilles, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Theâtre de la Monnaie, Brussels, Zürich, Budapest, Prague, Liceu, San Francisco, Washington, Chicago, Houston, Buenos Aires, Caracas, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore and Cape Town.
  
  Mr Aragall also performed at festivals such as Verona, Orange, Bregenz and Edinburgh. Conductors include Claudio Abbado, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Sir Georg Solti, Sir Colin Davis, Sir Charles Mackerras, Carlos Kleiber, Lorin Maazel, Sylvain Cambreling, Georges Prêtre, Richard Bonynge, Zubin Mehta, Jesús López-Cobos, Plácido Domingo and Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos: and stage directors including Luchino Visconti, Jean Villar, Otto Schenk, Franco Zeffirelli, Roman Polanski, Jean-Pierre Ponnelle and Bob Wilson.
  Giacomo Aragall has given concerts and recitals in venues such as the Concertgebouw, Salle Pleyel, Musikverein, Palau de la Música Catalana, Teatro Real and Herculessaal. His awards include Honorary Patron of the Orfeó Català Foundation, Cross of St George, Kammersänger from the Austrian government, Gold Medal of the Fine Arts from the Spanish government and Doctor Honoris Causa, University of Girona. Giacomo Aragall's discography includes La traviata, Faust, Rigoletto, Tosca, Simon Boccanegra and Madama Butterfly, as well as concerts and recitals.
  
  Richard Bonynge studied at the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music and the Royal College of Music, London. As a conductor, his extensive knowledge of the human voice and his instinctive sympathy for singers has been the inspiration for many of the great artists of our time. He has held the positions of artistic director of Vancouver Opera and music director of the Australian Opera. Honours include CBE and the AO (Order of Australia), Commandeur de l'Ordre National des Arts et des Lettres and Soci d'onore, R Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna.
  
  Richard Bonynge is acknowledged as a scholar of bel canto opera, 19th century French opera and 19th century ballet music. He has conducted at most of the world's great opera houses including La Scala, Metropolitan Opera, New York and Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. His repertoire consists mainly of 18th and 19th century opera, including the bel canto repertoire.
  
  Mr Bonynge has been responsible for the revival of many operas, notably Les Huguenots (Meyerbeer), Semiramide and Sigismondo (Rossini), La fille du regiment, Maria Stuarda, Anna Bolena, Lucrezia Borgia (Donizetti), Esclarmonde, Therèse (Massenet), Medea (Pacini), Orfeo (Haydn), I masnadieri (Verdi). He has conducted recordings of over 50 complete operas and many video recordings. He is married to the soprano Dame Joan Sutherland.
  
  Ann Murray, mezzo-soprano, was born in Dublin and studied with Frederick Cox at the Royal Manchester College of Music.  She has close links with English National Opera, for whom she has sung Handel's Xerxes and Ariodante and Donizetti's Maria Stuarda, and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, where her roles have included Cherubino, Dorabella, Despina, Idamantes, Sifare, the Composer, Octavian, Rosina, Amaltea, Ruggiero and Giulio Cesare.
  
  She has appeared with the world's great orchestras and conductors in the major concert halls and has been a regular guest at the BBC Promenade Concerts. Her discography reflects both her broad concert and recital repertoire and also her great operatic roles.
  
  Her operatic engagements have taken her to Hamburg, Brussels, Paris, Berlin, Cologne, Amsterdam, Chicago, the Metropolitan Opera, New York, the Vienna State Opera, and notably, the Bavarian State Opera. She is an Honorary Doctor of Music at the National University of Ireland, a Kammersängerin at the Bavarian State Opera and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music.  In the 2002 Golden Jubilee Queen's Birthday Honours she was appointed an honorary Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.
  
  Kurt Moll, bass, was born in Cologne and studied at the Cologne Conservatory. In 1970 he joined the Staatsoper Hamburg and in the same year made his debut at the Salzburger Festspiele as Sarastro Die Zauberflöte under Wolfgang Sawallisch.
  
  He has sung at all the major opera houses across the world, including La Scala, Milan, Metropolitan Opera, New York, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Vienna State Opera, Paris Opera, Bayreuth Festival, San Francisco Opera, Staatsoper München, Chicago Opera, L'Opera de la Bastille and Tokyo Opera. Roles include Osmin Die Entführung aus dem Serail, King Marke Tristan und Isolde, Gurnemanz Parsifal, Seneca L'incoronazione di Poppea, Commendatore Don Giovanni, Gremin Eugene Onegin, Baron Ochs Der Rosenkavalier, Rocco Fidelio, Kaspar Der Freischütz, Sparafucile Rigoletto and Daland Der fliegende Holländer.  He has also performed and recorded much of the Lieder repertoire, including the works of Schubert, Richard Strauss and Carl Loewe.
  
  Kurt Moll has made more than 100 recordings of opera and oratorio with conductors including Herbert von Karajan, Georg Solti, Carlos Kleiber, Leonard Bernstein, Rafael Kubelik, Bernard Haitink, James Levine and Nikolaus Harnoncourt.  He has been awarded many honours, including the prestigious title of Kammersänger (court singer) from three opera houses.
  
  Dame Gwyneth Jones was born in Pontnewynydd, South Wales and studied at the Royal College of Music, Opera Studio, Zürich and with Maria Carpi in Geneva.  She made her debut at Zürich Opera in 1962, became a member of The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 1963, followed by debut at Vienna State Opera, Munich State Opera and Deutsche Oper Berlin in 1966, and has performed regularly in all these houses, as well as Hamburg, Paris, Milan, Barcelona, The Metropolitan Opera House, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires and Tokyo.
  
  Festival appearances  include Bayreuth, Salzburg, Verona, Orange, Edinburgh. One of the most successful, versatile sopranos in the world, her vast repertoire includes Senta, Sieglinde, Eva, Elisabeth, Venus, Kundry, Brünnhilde, Isolde, Ortrud, Octavian, Marschallin, Ägyptische Helena, Ariadne, Salome, Herodias, Färberin, Chrysothemis, Elektra, Klytämnestra, Amelia, Lady Macbeth, Leonora, Desdemona, Aida, Elisabetta, Butterfly, Tosca, Turandot, Fanciulla, Fidelio, Donna Anna, Poppea, Medea, Santuzza, La Voix Humaine, Erwartung, Kostelnička, Kabanicha, Kurt Weill's Begbick, Merry Widow, Unsuk Chin's Queen of Hearts.
  
  Her many honours include Dame Commander of the British Empire; Bundesverdienstkreuz 1 Klasse, Germany; Austrian Cross of Honour for Arts 1 Class; Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France; Kammersängerin in Austria and Bavaria; Honorary Member Vienna State Opera; Premio Puccini Award; President Wagner Society, London; Honorary Doctor of Music, Universities of Wales and Glamorgan; Fellow and Vice President, Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama.
  Dame Gwyneth has made many important recordings and films and given master classes throughout the world. She has directed a new production of Der fliegende Holländer at the Weimar National Theatre.
  
  Helmut Deutsch was born in Vienna, where he studied piano, composition and musicology. He was awarded the Vienna Composition Prize for his creative achievements.  He has specialized in chamber music and Lieder accompaniment since his student days, and has played for many world-renowned instrumentalists, involving himself in all forms of chamber music.
  
  His career as an accompanist began with the famous soprano Irmgard Seefried. Helmut Deutsch has since played for such renowned singers as Juliane Banse, Barbara Bonney, Grace Bumbry, Ileana Cotrubas, Brigitte Fassbaender, Angelika Kirchschlager, Rita Streich, Ruth Ziesak, Olaf Bär, Matthias Goerne, Dietrich Henschel, Jonas Kaufmann, Thomas Moser, Christoph Pregardien, Andreas Schmidt, Bo Skovhus, Bernd Weikl. For twelve years he was the regular recital partner of Hermann Prey. 
  
  Helmut Deutsch is a frequent guest at important music centres and festivals throughout the world and appears on many prize-winning recordings. From 1967-1979 he taught at the Vienna University of Music.  Currently,  Helmut Deutsch is a professor at the Hochschule für Musik in Munich and regularly gives master classes in Europe and Japan.
  
  Mike Smith
  
  
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