Christian Boesch

Christian Boesch (born July 27, 1941, in Vienna) is an internationally acclaimed Austrian operatic baritone. He is the son of the soprano Ruthilde Boesch, and studied at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna, from 1959 to 1964. He was the pupil of Alfred Jerger, and made his official debut at the Stadttheater, Bern, in 1966. He joined the Vienna Volksoper in 1975.

It was in 1978 when Boesch came to prominence, as Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, at the Salzburg Festival, in Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's production, conducted by James Levine. The next year, the singing-actor made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera, as Papageno. He returned for the same opera in 1981 (now with Lucia Popp and Gail Robinson alternating as Pamina, and Zdzisława Donat as the Queen of Night), and the same season sang Monsieur Presto in the Met premiere of Les mamelles de Tirésias (directed by John Dexter). In 1983, he appeared again at that theatre for their Centennial Gala and Don Giovanni (as Masetto), opposite James Morris, Edda Moser, Carol Neblett, Paul Plishka, Roberta Alexander and John Macurdy. His final appearances at the Met were in the title part of Wozzeck, in 1985. In 1989, he was seen in a film version of Der Schauspieldirektor.

In Paris, in 1991, he resumed his most famous part, Papageno, in Robert Wilson's production of Die Zauberflöte, conducted by Armin Jordan. The Kammersänger was also responsible for the concept and script of "Die Zauberflöte für Kinder," which introduced many youngsters to opera, and was published on DVD in 2007. Boesch himself is the father of seven children. His second son, Florian Boesch is also a very succsesfull bariton, who performs all over the world. Christian Boesch retired from his singer/actor career and now he lives in the south of chile with his second wife and two youngest children, and lives the dream of his childhoud. In the year 2004 he started a new project, he fouded the Musicschool Papageno in the small city of villarrica in the south of chile, one part of it was to introduce obligatory music class first, in his kids school and four surrounding schools and as the years passed and the project grew, also in small rural schools with not more than 20 kids of low lifecuality. The number of schools has increased to more than 50 and will become even bigger. Christian Boesch, with the support and help of his wife Henrike Boesch and a good teacher and working team help to change the life of these kids, because its proven that music helps people to become better people, and for kids it means a complete different lifestyle.

Discography

Decorations and awards

References

  1. ↑ "Reply to a parliamentary question" (pdf) (in German). p. 1717. Retrieved 23 January 2013.

External links