John Bröcheler (Bass-Baritone)

Born: February 21, 1945 - Vaals, Limburg, Holland

The Dutch bass-baritone, John Bröcheler, studied with Leo Ketelaars in Maastricht and with Pierre Bernac in Paris.

John Bröcheler had appeared first as oratorio, concert and Lieder singer (notably in the Bach Passions, the Choral Symphony and the Johannes Brahms Requiem), and built himself gardually an operatic career, which started in the Netherlands around 1970. He mastered an extensive repertoire, with a sigificant place for modern works. He appeared at the Berlin Festival in the premieres of Die Erprobung des Petrus Hebraicus by Henri Pousseur in 1974 and Mare Nostrum by Kagel in 1975, and created in Amsterdam the title role in Thijl by Van Gilse in 1980.

John Bröcheler sang at San Diego Opera as Sharpless in Madama Butterfly, Ford in Falstaff, and in the 1979 premiere of Menotti's La Loca, with Beverly Sills; at the Netherlands Opera as Germont in Don Giovanni and Marcello and in Donizetti's Maria Stuarda with Joan Sutherland; at Frankfurt Opera in 1983, as Amfortas in Parsifal; at Glyndebourne Festival in 1984, as Mandryka in Arabella; at Los Angeles Opera as Nabucco; at La Scala Milan in 1985, as Jochanaan in Salome and Golaud in Pelleas et Melisande; in Stuttgart in 1985, in Henze's König Hirsch. Other appearances were in Toronto, New York and Paris, Vienna in 1988 - Golaud in Pelleas and Melisande, Bonn in 1989; Wolfram in Tannhäuser in Munich in 1989; Mathis der Maler by Paul Hindemith. He sang Orestes in Elektra at Barcelona in 1990; P. Hindemith's Mathis and Von Einem's Danton at the 1990 Munich Festival. He performed in 1994 a.o. Wozzeck at the "Nederlandse Opera". Further a.o. appearances in the USA, Canada and Israel.

Recordings: Dichterliebe (Schwann); George Frideric Handel's Dettinger Te Deum and Judas Maccabeus; Lucrezia Borgia (Decca); Das Paradies und Die Peri (Supraphon).

Source: Dutch Divas Website; International Who's Who in Music & Musicians' Directory (13^th Edition, 1992/93)
Contributed by Aryeh Oron (May 2001, August 2009); Matthias Hansen (Photo 02 - August 2009)

Recordings of Bach Cantatas & Other Vocal Works

Conductor

As

Works

Helmuth Rilling

Bass

BWV 99, BWV 101, BWV 107

Links to other Sites

Dutch Divas - baritones, part 2