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Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau

German baritone (1925–2012)

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Sujet : Fischer-Dieskau, Dietrich (1925-....) -- Portraits Appartient à l’ensemble documentaire : BNUStr003 Appartient à l’ensemble documentaire : BNUStras1 Appartient à l’ensemble documentaire : BNUS
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Through Nazi Germany

Because he recorded an array of repertoire (spanning centuries), musicologist Alan Blyth asserted, "No singer in our time, or probably any other has managed the range and versatility of repertory achieved by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Opera, Lieder and oratorio in German, Italian or English came alike to him, yet he brought to each a precision and individuality that bespoke his perceptive insights into the idiom at hand." In addition, he recorded in French, Russian, Hebrew, Latin and Hungarian. He was described as "one of the supreme vocal artists of the 20th century" and "the most influential singer of the 20th Century".

Fischer-Dieskau was ranked the second greatest singer of the century (after Jussi Björling) by Classic CD (United Kingdom) "Top Singers of the Century" Critics' Poll (June 1999). The French dubbed him "Le miracle Fischer-Dieskau" and Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf called him "a born god who has it all." At his peak, he was greatly admired for his interpretive insights and exceptional control of his soft, beautiful voice. He dominated both the opera and concert platforms for over thirty years.

Life and career

Albert Dietrich Fischer was born in 1925 in Berlin to Albert Fischer, a school principal, and Theodora (née Klingelhoffer) Fischer, a teacher. In 1934, his father added the hyphenated "Dieskau" to the family name (through his mother, he was descended from the Kammerherr von Dieskau, for whom Johann Sebastian Bach wrote the "Peasant Cantata"). He started singing as a child and began formal voice lessons at the age of 16. When he was drafted into the Wehrmacht during World War II in 1943, tending horses on the Russian Front, Fischer-Dieskau had just completed his secondary school studies and one semester at the Berlin Conservatory. He served in Grenadier Regiment 146 of the 65th Infantry Division south of Bologna in the winter of 1944–45 and entertained his comrades at soldiers' evenings behind the lines.

He was captured in Italy in 1945 and spent two years as an American prisoner of war. During that time, he sang Lieder in POW camps to homesick German soldiers. He had a physically and intellectually impaired brother, Martin, who was sent to an institution by the Nazi regime and starved to death. Their family home was destroyed during the war.

Singing career

In 1947, Fischer-Dieskau returned to Germany, where he launched his professional career as a singer in Badenweiler, singing in Brahms's Ein Deutsches Requiem without any rehearsal. (He was a last-minute substitute for an indisposed singer.) He gave his first Lieder recital in Leipzig in late 1947 and followed it soon afterwards with a highly successful first concert at Berlin's Titania-Palast.

From early in his career he collaborated with famous lyric sopranos Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Irmgard Seefried, and the recording producer Walter Legge, issuing instantly successful albums of Lieder by Schubert and Hugo Wolf.

In late 1948, Fischer-Dieskau was engaged as principal lyric baritone at the Städtische Oper Berlin (Municipal Opera, West Berlin), making his debut as Posa in Verdi's Don Carlos under Ferenc Fricsay. This company, known after 1961 as the Deutsche Oper, would remain his artistic home until his retirement from the operatic stage, in 1978.

Subsequently, Fischer-Dieskau made guest appearances at the Vienna State Opera and the Bavarian State Opera. After 1949 he made concert tours in the Netherlands, Switzerland, France and Italy. In 1951, he made his Salzburg Festival concert debut with Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler. The same year he also made his British debut, at the Royal Albert Hall in London during the Festival of Britain. He appeared in Frederick Delius's A Mass of Life, conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham. He made regular opera appearances at the Bayreuth Festival between 1954 and 1961 and at the Salzburg Festival from 1956 until the early 1970s.

As an opera singer, Fischer-Dieskau performed mainly in Berlin and at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. He also made guest appearances at the Vienna State Opera, at the Royal Opera House in London, at the Hamburg State Opera, in Japan, and at the King's Theatre in Edinburgh during the Edinburgh Festival. His first tour in the United States took place in 1955, when he was 29, with his concert debut in Cincinnati on 15 April (Bach's cantata Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen), BWV 56, and 16 April (Brahms: Ein Deutsches Requiem). His American Lieder debut, singing Franz Schubert songs, took place in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on 19 April. His New York City debut occurred on 2 May at The Town Hall, where he sang Schubert's song cycle Winterreise without an interval. Both American recitals were accompanied by Gerald Moore.

In 1951, Fischer-Dieskau made his first of many recordings of Lieder with Gerald Moore at Abbey Road Studios in London, including a complete Die schöne Müllerin, and they performed the work on 31 January 1952 at the Kingsway Hall, London, in the Mysore Concerts of the Philharmonia Concert Society. They gave recitals together until Moore retired from public performance in 1967. They continued to record together until 1972, in which year they completed their massive project of recording all of the Schubert lieder appropriate for the male voice. Moore retired completely in 1972, and died in 1987, aged 87. Their recordings of Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise are highly prized as examples of their artistic partnership.

Fischer-Dieskau also performed many works of contemporary music, including Benjamin Britten (who chose Fischer-Dieskau as the baritone soloist when writing War Requiem), Samuel Barber, Hans Werner Henze, Karl Amadeus Hartmann (who wrote his Gesangsszene for him), Charles Ives, Ernst Krenek, Witold Lutosławski, Siegfried Matthus, Othmar Schoeck, Winfried Zillig, Gottfried von Einem and Aribert Reimann. He participated in the 1975 premiere and 1993 recording of Gottfried von Einem's cantata An die Nachgeborenen, written in 1973 as a commission of the UN, both with Julia Hamari and the Wiener Symphoniker conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini.

Beyond his recordings of Lieder and the German opera repertoire, Fischer-Dieskau also recorded performances in the Italian operatic field. His recordings of Verdi's Rigoletto (alongside Renata Scotto and Carlo Bergonzi) and Rodrigo in Verdi's Don Carlos are probably the most respected of these ventures. (Others, such as the title role in Verdi's Macbeth (with Elena Souliotis), Giorgio Germont in Verdi's La traviata, and Scarpia in Puccini's Tosca (with Birgit Nilsson), are not delivered by him with the same degree of effectiveness.) As conductor Ferenc Fricsay put it, "I never dreamed I'd find an Italian baritone in Berlin."

Retirement

Fischer-Dieskau retired from opera in 1978, the year he recorded his final opera, Reimann's Lear, which the composer had written at his suggestion. He retired from the concert hall as of New Year's Day, 1993, at age 67, and dedicated himself to conducting, teaching, (especially the interpretation of Lieder), painting and writing books. He still performed as a reciter, reading for example the letters of Strauss to Hugo von Hofmannsthal (whose part was read by Gert Westphal), for the Rheingau Musik Festival in 1994; and both performing and recording Strauss's melodrama Enoch Arden. He also became an honorary member of the Robert Schumann Society.

Personal life

In 1949, Fischer-Dieskau married the cellist Irmgard Poppen; they had three sons: Mathias (a stage designer), Martin (a conductor), and Manuel (a cellist with the Cherubini Quartet). Irmgard died in 1963 of complications following childbirth. Fischer-Dieskau was later married to the actress Ruth Leuwerik, from 1965 to 1967, and Kristina Pugell, from 1968 to 1975. In 1977 he married the soprano Júlia Várady.

His older brother Klaus Fischer-Dieskau was a Berlin choral director who conducted for Fischer-Dieskau several times, including in his only recording of a passion by Heinrich Schütz in 1961.

Fischer-Dieskau smoked during a large part of his career. In an interview with B.Z.-News aus Berlin in 2002 he said, "I quit smoking 20 years ago. I smoked for 35 years, and then stopped in a single day."

On 18 May 2012, Fischer-Dieskau died in his sleep at his home in Berg, Upper Bavaria, 10 days before his 87th birthday.

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