Brigitte Fassbaender
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Brigitte Fassbaender (born 3 July 1939 in Berlin), is a mezzo-soprano opera singer.
[edit] History
Brigitte Fassbaender studied singing with her father, the celebrated baritone Willi Domgraf-Fassbaender, at the Nuremberg Conservatory and joined the Bavarian State Opera in Munich in 1961, where her first leading role was Nicklausse in The Tales of Hoffmann. She first sang Octavian (Der Rosenkavalier) in Munich in 1967, and it was in this role that she launched her international career in 1971 at Covent Garden, and made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 1974. In addition to her operatic triumphs, she also achieved success in the concert hall as a Lieder singer. She played Orlofsky in a 1984 movie version of Strauss' Die Fledermaus.
→She has given master classes for years, and has been Intendantin (artistic director) of the Tiroler Landes Theater in Innsbruck, Austria, for 7 or 8 seasons, and stages several opera productions there each year. She made dozens of recordings -- operas, Lieder (including Schubert's 'Winterreise' and 'Schwanengesang'), oratorios (Bach Christmas Oratorio, Handel Messiah, etc.) and appeared in numerous televised opera productions now available on DVD (e.g. such signature roles as Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier and Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus, both conducted by frequent collaborator Carlos Kleiber, whose birthday (not year) she shares). She received the Bavarian State Opera's honorific 'Kammersaengerin' or 'Court Singer.'