Gidon Saks
Encyclopedia
Bass-baritone
A bass-baritone is a high-lying bass or low-lying "classical" baritone voice type which shares certain qualities with the true baritone voice. The term arose in the late 19th century to describe the particular type of voice required to sing three Wagnerian roles: the Dutchman in Der fliegende...
.
Education
Saks grew up in South Africa. His father was a first generation South African of LithuaniaLithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
n descent. His mother was Scottish of Ukrainian extraction. He had an aunt who was an accomplished opera singer in South Africa but he had no interest in singing at first. He had originally wished to become an actor, dropping out of school at the age of sixteen because "I hated it". He auditioned for drama school at the Little Theatre under the direction of Mavis Taylor but was told he had to be eighteen for admission and they suggested he study singing in the mean time. He began his musical studies under Angelo Gobatto, the director of the opera school at the South African College of Music
South African College of Music
The South African College of Music, abbreviated as SACM, is a department of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Cape Town. It is located on the University's Lower Campus in Rondebosch, Cape Town.-Study opportunities:...
which is a department of the University of Cape Town
University of Cape Town
The University of Cape Town is a public research university located in Cape Town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. UCT was founded in 1829 as the South African College, and is the oldest university in South Africa and the second oldest extant university in Africa.-History:The roots of...
. In order to avoid the military conscription which was mandatory for all white South African males at the time, he moved to the U.K. to study at the Royal Northern College of Music
Royal Northern College of Music
The Royal Northern College of Music is a music school in Manchester, England. It is located on Oxford Road in Chorlton on Medlock, at the western edge of the campus of the University of Manchester and is one of four conservatories associated with the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music...
, after a year at opera school in Cape Town. While still a student at Northern College, he began drawing designs for college productions and these were used in Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
/Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
's Happy End
Happy End (musical)
Happy End is a surrealistic three-act musical comedy by Kurt Weill, Elisabeth Hauptmann, and Bertolt Brecht which first opened in Berlin at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm on September 2, 1929. It closed after seven performances...
, Mascagni
Pietro Mascagni
Pietro Antonio Stefano Mascagni was an Italian composer most noted for his operas. His 1890 masterpiece Cavalleria rusticana caused one of the greatest sensations in opera history and single-handedly ushered in the Verismo movement in Italian dramatic music...
's Cavalleria rusticana
Cavalleria rusticana
Cavalleria rusticana is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from a play written by Giovanni Verga based on his short story. Considered one of the classic verismo operas, it premiered on May 17, 1890 at the Teatro...
, Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
's Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
and Berg
Alban Berg
Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...
's Wozzeck
Wozzeck
Wozzeck is the first opera by the Austrian composer Alban Berg. It was composed between 1914 and 1922 and first performed in 1925. The opera is based on the drama Woyzeck left incomplete by the German playwright Georg Büchner at his death. Berg attended the first production in Vienna of Büchner's...
.
Early career
At the age of 22, at the urging of his voice teacher in Toronto, Patricia Kern, he debuted in Brian MacdonaldBrian Macdonald
Brian Macdonald, CC is a Canadian dancer, choreographer, director of opera, theatre and musical theatre.Born in Montreal, Macdonald was an original member of the National Ballet of Canada...
's production of the The Mikado
The Mikado
The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen operatic collaborations...
at the 1982 Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada, which went on tour as well as being televised. With the Canadian Opera Company
Canadian Opera Company
The Canadian Opera Company is an opera company in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the largest opera company in Canada and the third largest producer of opera in North America. The COC performs in its own opera house, the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.-History:For 40 years until...
, he sang the role of Lord Rochefort in Donizetti
Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...
's Anna Bolena
Anna Bolena
Anna Bolena is a tragedia lirica, or opera, in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Felice Romani wrote the Italian libretto after Ippolito Pindemonte's Enrico VIII ossia Anna Bolena and Alessandro Pepoli's Anna Bolena, both telling of the life of Anne Boleyn...
, with Dame Joan Sutherland
Joan Sutherland
Dame Joan Alston Sutherland, OM, AC, DBE was an Australian dramatic coloratura soprano noted for her contribution to the renaissance of the bel canto repertoire from the late 1950s through to the 1980s....
; Daland in Der fliegende Holländer
The Flying Dutchman (opera)
Der fliegende Holländer is an opera, with music and libretto by Richard Wagner.Wagner claimed in his 1870 autobiography Mein Leben that he had been inspired to write "The Flying Dutchman" following a stormy sea crossing he made from Riga to London in July and August 1839, but in his 1843...
; Wurm in Luisa Miller
Luisa Miller
Luisa Miller is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play Kabale und Liebe by Friedrich von Schiller. The first performance was given at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples on December 8, 1849...
; Bluebeard
Bluebeard
"Bluebeard" is a French literary folktale written by Charles Perrault and is one of eight tales by the author first published by Barbin in Paris in January 1697 in Histoires ou Contes du temps passé. The tale tells the story of a violent nobleman in the habit of murdering his wives and the...
and Boris Godunov
Boris Godunov (opera)
Boris Godunov is an opera by Modest Mussorgsky . The work was composed between 1868 and 1873 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is Mussorgsky's only completed opera and is considered his masterpiece. Its subjects are the Russian ruler Boris Godunov, who reigned as Tsar during the Time of Troubles,...
. He acknowledged in an interview that his performances at this early time in his career were sometimes less than polished. Nevertheless, his admiration for Kern borders on the religious in his own estimation, such was her inspiration and influence on his career.
Switzerland
As has been the case with many aspiring opera singers, the experience Saks gained by performing with some of the myriad small state-funded opera companies on the continent was invaluable. He earned a scholarship to the Zurich OperaZurich Opera
Oper Zürich is an opera company based in Zurich, Switzerland. The company gives performances in the Opernhaus Zürich which has been the company’s home for fifty years.-History:...
Studio which led to a three year contract at the Musiktheater im Revier
Musiktheater im Revier
Musiktheater im Revier is the venue for performing opera, operetta, musical theatre and ballet in Gelsenkirchen, Germany...
in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. Later he earned another three year contract at the Bielefeld Opera
Bielefeld Opera
The Bielefeld Opera is the venue of Städtische Bühnen Bielefeld in Bielefeld, Germany. It is a Dreisparten Haus , offering plays, music , and ballet...
in Bielefeld, Germany. While in Switzerland, he perfected his German and also added several Entartete Kunst roles to his repertoire. During this time he began to receive engagements to sing in Berlin and he performed in the opening concert in the Berliner Festwochen (Berlin Festival) in César Franck
César Franck
César-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck was a composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher who worked in Paris during his adult life....
's Beatitudes under the direction of Vladimir Ashkenazy
Vladimir Ashkenazy
Vladimir Davidovich Ashkenazy is a Russian-Icelandic conductor and pianist. Since 1972 he has been a citizen of Iceland, his wife Þórunn's country of birth. Since 1978, because of his many obligations in Europe, he and his family have resided in Meggen, near Lucerne in Switzerland...
.
Designing and directing
As well as designing the production, he directed Giovanni PaisielloGiovanni Paisiello
Giovanni Paisiello was an Italian composer of the Classical era.-Life:Paisiello was born at Taranto and educated by the Jesuits there. He became known for his beautiful singing voice and in 1754 was sent to the Conservatorio di S. Onofrio at Naples, where he studied under Francesco Durante, and...
's Il Barbiere di Siviglia
Il barbiere di Siviglia (Paisiello)
Il barbiere di Siviglia, ovvero La precauzione inutile is a comic opera by Giovanni Paisiello from a libretto by Giuseppe Petrosellini, even though his name is not identified on the score's title page....
at the Gattières Festival
Gattières
Gattières is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in southeastern France.-References:*...
in France, and as a free-lancer has designed four operas for the Scottish Opera, Glasgow where he also produced and directed Maurice Ravel
Maurice Ravel
Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...
's L'enfant et les sortilèges
L'enfant et les sortilèges
L'enfant et les sortilèges: Fantaisie lyrique en deux parties is an opera in one act, with music by Maurice Ravel to a libretto by Colette. It is Ravel's second opera, his first being L'heure espagnole...
and Puccini's La bohème
La bohème
La bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...
. Later he was responsible for the successful design and direction of the premier of Le Grand Macabre
Le Grand Macabre
Le Grand Macabre is György Ligeti's only opera. The opera has two acts and its libretto – loosely based on the 1934 play, La Balade du grand macabre, by Michel De Ghelderode – was written by Ligeti in collaboration with Michael Meschke...
by György Ligeti
György Ligeti
György Sándor Ligeti was a composer of contemporary classical music. Born in a Hungarian Jewish family in Transylvania, Romania, he briefly lived in Hungary before becoming an Austrian citizen.-Early life:...
in Vienna.
Repertoire
He has sung at the Royal Opera HouseRoyal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
where he made his debut in 1995 as Flint in Billy Budd
Billy Budd (opera)
Billy Budd is an opera by Benjamin Britten, from a libretto by E. M. Forster and Eric Crozier, was first performed at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London on 1 December 1951. It is based on the short novel Billy Budd by Herman Melville....
, the Opéra National de Paris, the San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera is an American opera company, based in San Francisco, California.It was founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola and is the second largest opera company in North America...
, the Berlin State Opera
Berlin State Opera
The Staatsoper Unter den Linden is a German opera company. Its permanent home is the opera house on the Unter den Linden boulevard in the Mitte district of Berlin, which also hosts the Staatskapelle Berlin orchestra.-Early years:...
, the Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera Houston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit, Edward Bing and Charles Cockrell...
, the Teatro Real
Teatro Real
The Teatro Real or simply El Real , is a major opera house located in Madrid, Spain.-History:...
in Madrid, the New York City Opera
New York City Opera
The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...
, at La Monnaie
La Monnaie
Le Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie , or the Koninklijke Muntschouwburg is a theatre in Brussels, Belgium....
in Brussels, the English National Opera
English National Opera
English National Opera is an opera company based in London, resident at the London Coliseum in St. Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden...
, Welsh National Opera
Welsh National Opera
Welsh National Opera is an opera company founded in Cardiff, Wales in 1943. The WNO tours Wales, the United Kingdom and the rest of the world extensively. Annually, it gives more than 120 performances of eight main stage operas to a combined audience of around 150,000 people...
, Scottish Opera
Scottish Opera
Scottish Opera is the national opera company of Scotland, and one of the five national performing arts companies funded by the Scottish Government...
, New Israeli Opera
Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center
The Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center is a performing arts center at King Saul Boulevard in Tel Aviv, Israel. It was designed by Israeli architect Jacob Rechter....
, and the Grand Théâtre de Genève
Grand Théâtre de Genève
Grand Théâtre de Genève is an opera house in Geneva, Switzerland.As with many other opera houses, the Grand Théâtre de Genève is both a venue and an institution. The venue is a majestic building, towering over Place Neuve, officially opened in 1876, partly destroyed by fire in 1951 and reopened in...
. He has also been heard at the KlangBogen Festival
KlangBogen Wien
KlangBogen Wien is an annual festival offering a month of opera productions and classical concerts at different venues in the city of Vienna. There is a range from early to contemporary operas, and from medieval chamber music to experimental 21st century compositions...
in Vienna.
Recent years have included the roles of Hagen (Götterdämmerung
Götterdämmerung
is the last in Richard Wagner's cycle of four operas titled Der Ring des Nibelungen...
) for Seattle Opera
Seattle Opera
The Seattle Opera is an opera company located in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1963 by Glynn Ross, who served as the company's first general director through 1983, Seattle Opera's season runs from August to late May, with five or six operas offered and with eight to ten performances each, often...
and in London for English National Opera, Pizarro (Fidelio
Fidelio
Fidelio is a German opera in two acts by Ludwig van Beethoven. It is Beethoven's only opera. The German libretto is by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly which had been used for the 1798 opera Léonore, ou L’amour conjugal by Pierre Gaveaux, and for the 1804 opera Leonora...
) and Kaspar (Der Freischütz
Der Freischütz
Der Freischütz is an opera in three acts by Carl Maria von Weber with a libretto by Friedrich Kind. It premiered on 18 June 1821 at the Schauspielhaus Berlin...
) for the Deutsche Staatsoper, Philip II (Don Carlos
Don Carlos
Don Carlos is a five-act grand opera composed by Giuseppe Verdi to a French language libretto by Camille du Locle and Joseph Méry, based on the dramatic play Don Carlos, Infant von Spanien by Friedrich Schiller...
) in Geneva and Palermo, Boris Godunov (title role) in London and Toronto, Claggart (Billy Budd) in Paris and London, Nick Shadow (The Rake's Progress
The Rake's Progress
The Rake's Progress is an opera in three acts and an epilogue by Igor Stravinsky. The libretto, written by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman, is based loosely on the eight paintings and engravings A Rake's Progress of William Hogarth, which Stravinsky had seen on May 2, 1947, in a Chicago...
) in London, Daland (Der fliegende Holländer), Kochubei (Mazeppa
Mazeppa (opera)
Mazeppa, properly Mazepa , is an opera in 3 acts by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto was written by Victor Burenin and is based on Pushkin's poem Poltava....
) for Welsh National Opera, Hunding (Die Walküre
Die Walküre
Die Walküre , WWV 86B, is the second of the four operas that form the cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner...
), Hagen (Götterdämmerung), and Scarpia (Tosca
Tosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
) for Washington National Opera
Washington National Opera
The Washington National Opera is an opera company in Washington, D.C., USA. Formerly the Opera Society of Washington and the Washington Opera, the company received Congressional designation as the National Opera Company in 2000. Performances are now given in the Opera House of the John F...
, and the 4 villains (The Tales of Hoffmann) at the Royal Opera House.
Saks has sung world premiere performances of several roles including George Moscone
George Moscone
George Richard Moscone was an American attorney and Democratic politician. He was the 37th mayor of San Francisco, California, US from January 1976 until his assassination in November 1978. Moscone served in the California State Senate from 1967 until becoming Mayor. In the Senate, he served as...
in Stewart Wallace
Stewart Wallace
Stewart Wallace is an American composer and cantor. He has spent much of his career composing experimental operas, from the dance-centered Kabbalah to the surrealist Hopper's Wife...
's Harvey Milk for the Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera Houston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit, Edward Bing and Charles Cockrell...
, New York City Opera and San Francisco Opera which was recorded on Teldec with Donald Runnicles
Donald Runnicles
Donald Runnicles is a Scottish conductor who has worked extensively in other countries, particularly Germany and the USA....
conducting, Hamilcar in Philippe Fénelon's Salammbô
Salammbô
Salammbô may refer to:*Salammbô , the original novel by Gustave Flaubert*Salammbô , an unfinished opera, based on Flaubert's novel, on which Modest Mussorgsky worked between 1863 and 1866...
at the Opéra Bastille
Opéra Bastille
L'Opéra Bastille ' is a modern opera house in Paris, France. It is the home base of the Opéra national de Paris and was designed to replace the Palais Garnier, which is nowadays mainly used for ballet performances....
, and the Messenger in Alexander Goehr
Alexander Goehr
Alexander Goehr is an English composer and academic.Goehr was born in Berlin in 1932, the son of the conductor and Schoenberg pupil Walter Goehr. In his early twenties he emerged as a central figure in the Manchester School of post-war British composers. In 1955–56 he joined Oliver Messiaen's...
's Arianna
Arianna (Goehr)
Arianna is an opera in eight scenes by the British composer Alexander Goehr, premiered at the Royal Opera House, London, in 1995. It is set to the libretto , by Ottavio Rinuccini, used by Claudio Monteverdi in his 1608 opera, L'Arianna. The opera is Goehr's op...
at the Royal Opera House.
Influences
In an interview, Saks spoke about his early love of Leontyne PriceLeontyne Price
Mary Violet Leontyne Price is an American soprano. Born and raised in the Deep South, she rose to international acclaim in the 1950s and 1960s, and was one of the first African Americans to become a leading artist at the Metropolitan Opera.One critic characterized Price's voice as "vibrant",...
's sound, as well as being impressed with Franco Corelli
Franco Corelli
Franco Corelli was a famous Italian tenor who had a major international opera career between 1951 and 1976. Associated in particular with the spinto and dramatic tenor roles of the Italian repertory, he was celebrated universally for his powerhouse voice, electrifying top notes, clear timbre, a...
, Brigitte Fassbaender
Brigitte Fassbaender
Brigitte Fassbaender , is a mezzo-soprano opera singer, a stage director and since 1997 Intendant of the Tiroler Landestheater in Innsbruck, Austria...
and "inevitably" Maria Callas
Maria Callas
Maria Callas was an American-born Greek soprano and one of the most renowned opera singers of the 20th century. She combined an impressive bel canto technique, a wide-ranging voice and great dramatic gifts...
. He was helped greatly in his development by his voice teacher at Northern College, John Cameron, as well as Patricia Kern who encouraged him to go out and audition while he was still a student in Canada. More recently, after his voice was damaged in a Wagnerian role (Der Fliegender Hollander), he sought out voice teacher Susanna Eken of whom he said, "It's fair to say that she rescued me, not so much because my voice was a mess but because my confidence had gone".
Recordings
Recordings include the title roles in Handel's SaulSaul (Handel)
Saul is an oratorio in three acts written by George Frideric Handel with a libretto by Charles Jennens. Taken from the 1st Book of Samuel, the story of Saul focuses on the first king of Israel’s relationship with his eventual successor, David; one which turns from admiration to envy and hatred,...
and Hercules, Claggart (Billy Budd), Appollyon and Lord Hate-Good (The Pilgrim's Progress
The Pilgrim's Progress (opera)
The Pilgrim's Progress is an opera by Ralph Vaughan Williams, based on John Bunyan's allegory The Pilgrim's Progress. The composer himself described the work as a 'Morality' rather than an opera, while nonetheless he intended the work to be performed on stage, rather than in a church or cathedral...
, Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...
). He has also appeared in film versions of Anna Bolena and The Mikado. He sang the part of Scarpia in a production of Tosca for Austrian television, an excerpt of which was used in the 2008 James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
film Quantum of Solace.
Teaching
Saks is also founder and artistic director of Opera Garden, the Aberdeen International Youth FestivalAberdeen International Youth Festival
Aberdeen International Youth Festival is a leading Festival of Youth Arts, and one of Scotland's major international cultural events.Every year Aberdeen International Youth Festival attracts over 1000 of the most talented young people in performing arts companies and music groups from across the...
's Opera Project. He gives vocal master class
Master class
A master class is a class given to students of a particular discipline by an expert of that discipline—usually music, but also painting, drama, or any of the arts....
es at various establishments and is a member of staff at the Royal Conservatory of Ghent
Royal Conservatory of Ghent
The Royal Conservatory of Ghent is a royally chartered musical institution, founded in 1835 under Leopold I of Belgium, and now part of the University College Ghent....
in Belgium.