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The German mezzo-soprano and singing teacher, Brigitte Fassbaender, was the daughter of screen actress Sabine Peters and the celebrated German baritone, Willi Domgraf-Fassbaender. Growing up in Germany, Brigitte's first love was not music, but theatre. She longed to become an actress like her mother, and it wasn’t until the family settled in Nuremberg after World War II that she began to secretly experiment with her voice. When she felt confident enough, she made a tape of arias and lieder and sent them to her father, who was then the head of the opera department at the Nuremberg Conservatory. Domgraf-Fassbaender promptly took his daughter on as a pupil, and she studied at the conservatory as a mezzo-soprano from 1958 to 1961.
In April 1961, Domgraf-Fassbaender heard that the Bavarian State Opera in Munich was looking for a young mezzo-soprano, he recommended his daughter, who joined the company shortly after. She made her debut in Munich as the Page in Wagner's Lohengrin, which led to other small roles in various operas. Later in 1961, she made what she considers to be her real debut, as Nicklausse in Offenbach’s Les Contes d'Hoffmann. During the next twelve years, Fassbaender learned the difficult and demanding art of singing on stage. In 1970, she was given the Bavarian honorary title of Kammerägerin. In Munich, she appeared as Hänsel in Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hänsel and Gretel, Cherubino in W.A. Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, Fatima in Weber’s Oberon, and Narciso in George Frideric Handel’s Agrippina. The role she is most famous for, though, is Octavian in Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier, which she first sang in 1967.
Octavian launched her international career when she appeared in Der Rosenkavalier at the Royal Opera House (Covent Garden) in London in 1971. It was also as Octavian that she made her Metropolitan Opera debut in February 1974. She sang Octavian for for more than 20 years, and then retired the role from her repertoire in 1988.
As Brigitte Fassbaender's career took off, she began to add many new roles to her repertoire. She has appeared as Clairon in Capriccio, the Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos, Fricka in Die Walküre, Carmen in Georges Bizet's Carmen, Orlovsky in Die Fledermaus, Amneris in Aïda, Maddalena in Rigoletto, and Eboli in Don Carlos. More recently, she added the role of Klytemnestra in Strauss’ Elektra.
Brigitte Fassbaender has also been successful as a Lieder singer. In 1987, she won a Gramophone Award for her Deutsche Gramophon disc of songs by Franz Liszt and Richard Strauss. She has also recorded Schubert’s song cycle Winterreise, as well as Johannes Brahms’ Die Schöne Magelone and Carl Loewe’s little-known Fraünliebe cycle.
Today, Brigitte Fassbaender is a teacher of solo vocal music at the Musikhochschule in Munich and a fellow of Manchester’s Royal College of Music. Among the singers who have studied with her and/or attended her master-classes: Andrés Agudelo (Tenor), Seda Amir-Karayan (Contralto), Benjamin Appl (Baritone), Colin Balzer (Tenor), Juliane Banse (Soprano), Christian Noel Bauer (Baritone), Clara-Sophie Bertram (Mezzo-soprano), Andrea Bierbaum (Mezzo-soprano), Henryk Böhm (Baritone), Yves Brühwiler (Bass-Baritone), Eva Budde (Soprano), Santa Bulatova (Soprano), Anne Buter (Mezzo-soprano), Ronan Caillet (Tenor), Harumi Castro Sashida (Mezzo-soprano), Marie-Claude Chappuis (Mezzo-soprano), Shichao Cheng (Tenor), Susanne Duwe (Soprano), Amira Elmadfa (Mezzo-soprano), Dominique Engler (Mezzo-soprano), Maria Erlacher (Soprano), Irène Friedli (Mezzo-soprano), Johannes Fritsche (Baritone), Valentin Johannes Gloor (Tenor), Kathrin Göring (Mezzo-soprano), Stephanie Hampl (Mezzo-soprano), Anne Hartmann (Mezzo-soprano), Hermine Haselböck (Mezzo-soprano), Jörg Hempel (Baritone), Jana Hruby (Soprano), Angelika Huber (Soprano), Manja Ilgen (Mezzo-soprano/Contralto), Laura Incko (Soprano), Andreas Jäpel (Baritone), Margarete Joswig (Mezzo-soprano), Anja-Maria Kaftan (Soprano), Moritz Kallenberg (Tenor), Renate Kaschmieder (Mezzo-soprano), David Kerber (Tenor), Dominik Köninger (Baritone), Sophia Körber (Soprano), Anna Krawzcuk (Mezzo-soprano), Konstantin Krimmel (Baritone), Natalia Krone (Mezzo-soprano/Contralto), Katarzyna Kuncio (Mezzo-soprano), Annekathrin Laabs (Mezzo-soprano), Horst Lamnek (Bass-Baritone), Christoph Leonhardt (Tenor), Christel Lötzsch (Mezzo-soprano), Silke Marchfeld (Contralto), Eva Marti (Mezzo-soprano), Andreas Mattersberger (Bass), Ludwig Mittelhammer (Baritone), Jonas Müller (Baritone), Marian Müller (Baritone), Cecilia Mutsaerts (Soprano) Ann-Katrin Naidu (Mezzo-soprano), Julia Obert (Soprano), Julia Oesch (Mezzo-soprano), Francesc Ortega (Baritone), Anna-Maria Palii (Soprano), Dora Pavlíková (Soprano), Sofia Pavone (Mezzo-soprano) Stephanie Pfeffer (Soprano), Katja Pieweck (Mezzo-soprano), Esther Putter (Soprano), Wilfried Rogl (Tenor), Gabriel Rollinson (Bass), Marek Rzepka (Bass), Tobias Scharfenberger (Baritone), Tina Scherer (Soprano), Vera Schönenberg (Soprano), Andrè Schuen (Baritone), Ingolf Seidel (Baritone), Marie Seidler (Mezzo-soprano), Theresa Sommer (Soprano), Yorck Felix Speer (Bass-Baritone), Raimonds Spogis (Baritone), Ulrike Staude (Soprano), Birgit Stöckler (Soprano), Cassandre Stornetta (Mezzo-soprano/Contralto), Cheryl Studer (Soprano), Michael Terada (Baritone), Ansgar Theis (Baritone), Dorothee Tsalos (Soprano), Anneka Ulmer (Mezzo-soprano), Mojca Vedernjak (Mezzo-soprano), Anke Vondung (Mezzo-soprano), Martin Wölfel (Counter-tenor), Dominik Wortig (Tenor), Łucja Zarzycka (Soprano), Ulrike Zech (Contralto), Melissa Zgouridi (Mezzo-soprano).
Fassbaender is divorced (she was married to Gerhard Weitzel) and lives in the country, between Munich and Salzburg, with her pets. She is also a passionate sketcher and painter and has begun directing opera productions. |
