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The American baritone, George Fortune, studied at Brown University in Providence (Rhode Island), the University of Boston and the Institute of Language and Linguistics in Washington. Todd Duncan was one of his singing teachers. He came to West Germany for further training and made his debut at the Stadttheater in Ulm in 1960 as Herr Fluth in Nicolai's 'Lustige Weibern von Windsor'.
George Fortune became known since 1967 as a long-time member of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, where he appeared for more than 25 years. In 1973 he took part in the world premiere of the opera Verlorene Liebesmüh by Nabokow. The highlights of his repertoire included roles such as the Count and Figaro in W.A. Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, Guglielmo in W.A. Mozart's Così fan tutte, the eponymous hero in George Frideric Handel's Giulio Cesare, Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor, Germont in La Traviata, Iago in Verdi's' Othello, Amonasro in Aida, Posa in Don Carlos, Gérard in Andrea Chénier by Giordano (Deutsche Oper Berlin 1995), harpless in Madame Butterfly, Scarpia in Tosca, Figaro in Rossini's' Il barbiere di Siviglia, Wolfram in Tannhauser, Heerrufer in Lohengrin, Donner in Rheingold, Escamillo in Georges Bizet's Carmen (Deutsche Oper Berlin 1996) and Alfred Ill in G. von Einem's Visit of the Old Lady.
Guest performances have taken George Fortune to the operas of Bordeaux and Brussels, Strasbourg Opéra du Rhin, the State Operas of Hamburg and Munich, Deutsche Oper am Rhein Düsseldorf-Duisburg, the opera houses in Frankfurt aM and Zürich, and La Scala in Milan, to the Opera of Santa Fé (including the American premiere of Boulevard Solitude by H.W. Henze in 1967) and to the Glyndebourne Festival, where he sang the Count in Le nozze di Figaro in 1964. In 1988, at the Teatro San Carlos in Lisbon as he appeared as Scarpia in Puccini's Tosca; In 1989 he sang the High Priest in Samson et Dalila by Camille Saint-Saëns at the Deutsche Oper Berlin; in 1992 Count Luna in Il Trovatore and Don Carlos in La forza del destino; and in 1991 Tonio in Bajazzo at the Teatro Liceo in Barcelona '. He also performed this role as well as Marcello in La Bohème at the New York Metropolitan Opera.
George Fortune was also a great concert and oratorio singer, particularly valued in the field of sacred music; he worked as a teacher at the Berliner Kirchenmusikschule im Johannes-Stift in Berlin-Spandau.
Recordings: Schwann-Verlag (complete opera Thérèse by Massenet), CBS-Metronome (Christus by Franz Liszt), Orfeo (Olympie by Spontini, Armida by Dvorák), Vispro-Classic (aria recital), Koch (La Vita nuova by E. Wolf-Ferrari). |
