Heinz Blankenburg (Baritone)

Born: October 15 (or 16), 1931 - New York, New York, USA

The American baritone, Heinz Blankenburg, has sung for most of the world’s major opera companies, including those in San Francisco, Seattle, Berlin, Rome, Venice, Paris, and the Vienna Staatsoper, the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, among others. While at the Hamburg State Opera, he was one of 19 individuals in 287 years to be awarded the honorary title of “Kammersänger.”

Andrew Porter in The New Yorker wrote: “Blankenburg is a vivid and brilliant artist incapable of a wrong or dull inflection, glance, or gesture. He is a master of timbre and of timing, someone whose performances are to be collected and prized.” His career is further documented in The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, which summarizes him as “an excellent comic actor, [who] used his flexible voice with considerable artistry.”

Heinz Blankenburg is a professor of music at UCLA, where he heads the foreign language diction program for singers. In progress are three foreign language diction books. As a stage director, his activities have ranged from universities to professional opera companies, both in the United States and abroad. He has been on the Music Academy faculty since 1999.

Source: Music Academy of the West Website
Contributed by Aryeh Oron (May 2001)

Recordings of Bach Cantatas & Other Vocal Works

Conductor

As

Works

Karl Münchinger

Bass

BWV 244

Links to other Sites

Heinz Blankenburg – German Coach (Music Academy)