Werner Güra
Encyclopedia
Werner Güra is a German classical tenor in opera, concert and Lied
, also an academic teacher in Zurich
.
and Theo Adam
.
On the opera stage he performed as a guest artist at the Frankfurt Opera and the Theater Basel
. He was a member of the Semperoper
in Dresden from 1994 to 1999, singing especially parts of Mozart and Rossini. Since 1998 he has been a guest at the Staatsoper Berlin
.
In concert he performed in Mendelssohn’s Elijah
with Philippe Herreweghe
at the Salzburg Festival
. He also collaborated with conductors such as Peter Schreier
, Wolfgang Gönnenwein
and Friedemann Layer. In 2002 he recorded the tenor arias in Bach's St Matthew Passion, conducted by Enoch zu Guttenberg
, with Marcus Ullmann
as the Evangelist
and Klaus Mertens
as Jesus. In 2004 he appeared at the Rheingau Musik Festival
in Handel's Messiah
, with che choir and orchestra Bamberger Symphony conducted by Rolf Beck in Eberbach Abbey
, recorded live. In 2008 he sang in Mendelssohn’s Paulus
with the Kammerchor Stuttgart and the Klassische Philharmonie Stuttgart, conducted by Frieder Bernius, at the Tonhalle Düsseldorf
. In 2009 he appeared again at the Rheingau Musik Festival in Schumann's Das Paradies und die Peri
.
In the field of historically informed performance
, Güra was the tenor (Evangelist and arias) in a 1997 recording of Bach's Christmas Oratorio
, conducted by René Jacobs, with the RIAS Kammerchor
, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin
, Dorothea Röschmann
, Andreas Scholl
and Klaus Häger. In 1998 he recorded the arias of the St Matthew Passion with Philippe Herreweghe
, the Collegium Vocale Gent, Evangelist Ian Bostridge
, Jesus Franz-Josef Selig, Sibylla Rubens
, Andreas Scholl
and Dietrich Henschel. In 2006 he was the Evangelist in Bach's Christmas Oratorio with Nikolaus Harnoncourt
, the Arnold Schoenberg Chor, the Concentus Musicus Wien
, Christine Schäfer
, Bernarda Fink
, Gerald Finley
and Christian Gerhaher
, recorded live in the Musikverein Vienna. In 2007 he recorded with the same ensemble Bach's cantata
Wir danken dir, Gott, wir danken dir, BWV 29.
Werner Güra is a notable singer of Lied
er, mostly accompanied by Christoph Berner. Their recording of Schubert's Winterreise
, using a Rönisch fortepiano
of 1872, was reviewed in The Times
by Hugh Canning in 2010:
In 2011 he performed the Liebesliederwalzer of Brahms
and Spanische Liebeslieder op. 138 of Schumann
with Ruth Ziesak
, Anke Vondung and Konrad Jarnot
at the Rheingau Musik Festival
at Schloss Johannisberg
.
He is teaching voice and chamber music at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste.
Lied
is a German word literally meaning "song", usually used to describe romantic songs setting German poems of reasonably high literary aspirations, especially during the nineteenth century, beginning with Carl Loewe, Heinrich Marschner, and Franz Schubert and culminating with Hugo Wolf...
, also an academic teacher in Zurich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
.
Professional career
Werner Güra studied at the Mozarteum University of Salzburg. He continued his studies with Kurt Widmer at the Musik-Akademie der Stadt Basel and with Margreet Honig in Amsterdam. He took courses in acting with Ruth BerghausRuth Berghaus
Ruth Berghaus was a German choreographer and opera and theatre director.Berghaus was born in Dresden and studied Expressionist dance and Dance direction with Gret Palucca there and was an advanced student at the German Academy of Arts in Berlin, at least part of the time under Walter Felsenstein -...
and Theo Adam
Theo Adam
Theo Adam is a distinguished German classical bass-baritone who had an active international career in operas, concerts, and recitals from the 1940s through the 1990s. He particularly excelled in portraying roles from the operas of Richard Wagner...
.
On the opera stage he performed as a guest artist at the Frankfurt Opera and the Theater Basel
Theater Basel
Theater Basel is the municipal theatre of the city of Basel, Switzerland, which is home to the city's opera and ballet companies. The theatre also presents plays and musicals in addition to operas and operettas....
. He was a member of the Semperoper
Semperoper
The Semperoper is the opera house of the Sächsische Staatsoper Dresden and the concert hall of the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden . It is located near the Elbe River in the historic center of Dresden, Germany.The opera house was originally built by the architect Gottfried Semper in 1841...
in Dresden from 1994 to 1999, singing especially parts of Mozart and Rossini. Since 1998 he has been a guest at the Staatsoper Berlin
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:...
.
In concert he performed in Mendelssohn’s Elijah
Elijah (oratorio)
Elijah, in German: Elias, is an oratorio written by Felix Mendelssohn in 1846 for the Birmingham Festival. It depicts various events in the life of the Biblical prophet Elijah, taken from the books 1 Kings and 2 Kings in the Old Testament....
with Philippe Herreweghe
Philippe Herreweghe
Philippe Herreweghe is a Flemish conductor.In his school years at the University of Ghent, Herreweghe combined studies in medical science and psychiatry with a musical education at the Ghent Conservatory, where Marcel Gazelle, Yehudi Menuhin's accompanist, was his piano teacher...
at the Salzburg Festival
Salzburg Festival
The Salzburg Festival is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer within the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart...
. He also collaborated with conductors such as Peter Schreier
Peter Schreier
Peter Schreier is a German tenor and conductor.-Early life:Schreier was born in Meissen, Saxony, and spent his first years in the small village of Gauernitz, near Meissen, where his father was a teacher, cantor and organist...
, Wolfgang Gönnenwein
Wolfgang Gönnenwein
Wolfgang Gönnenwein is a German conductor and an academic.- Biography :Wolfgang Gönnenwein studied music and German studies at the University of Heidelberg and the University of Tübingen...
and Friedemann Layer. In 2002 he recorded the tenor arias in Bach's St Matthew Passion, conducted by Enoch zu Guttenberg
Enoch zu Guttenberg
Georg Enoch Robert Prosper Philipp Franz Karl Theodor Maria Heinrich Johannes Luitpold Hartmann Gundeloh Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg , known as Enoch zu Guttenberg, is a German conductor...
, with Marcus Ullmann
Marcus Ullmann
- Professional career :Marcus Ullmann received his first musical training as a choir boy in the Dresdner Kreuzchor. He studied at the Dresden Music Academy and graduated with honours in Lieder, Choral Work and Opera...
as the Evangelist
Evangelist (Bach)
The Evangelist in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach is the tenor part in his oratorios and Passions who narrates the exact words of the Bible, translated by Martin Luther, in recitative, namely in the works St John Passion, St Matthew Passion, and the Christmas Oratorio, also in the St Mark...
and Klaus Mertens
Klaus Mertens
Klaus Mertens is a German bass and bass-baritone singer who is known especially for his interpretation of the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach.-Professional career:Klaus Mertens took singing lessons while attending school...
as Jesus. In 2004 he appeared at the Rheingau Musik Festival
Rheingau Musik Festival
The Rheingau Musik Festival is an international summer music festival in Germany, founded in 1987. It is mostly for classical music, but includes other genres...
in Handel's Messiah
Messiah (Handel)
Messiah is an English-language oratorio composed in 1741 by George Frideric Handel, with a scriptural text compiled by Charles Jennens from the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. It was first performed in Dublin on 13 April 1742, and received its London premiere nearly a year later...
, with che choir and orchestra Bamberger Symphony conducted by Rolf Beck in Eberbach Abbey
Eberbach Abbey
Eberbach Abbey is a former Cistercian monastery near Eltville am Rhein in the Rheingau, Germany. On account of its impressive Romanesque and early Gothic buildings it is considered one of the most significant architectural heritage sites in Hesse, Germany...
, recorded live. In 2008 he sang in Mendelssohn’s Paulus
St. Paul (oratorio)
St. Paul , Op. 36, is an oratorio by Felix Mendelssohn.The libretto was begun in 1832 by the composer with Pastor Julius Schubring, a childhood friend, pulling together passages from the New Testament and Old Testament...
with the Kammerchor Stuttgart and the Klassische Philharmonie Stuttgart, conducted by Frieder Bernius, at the Tonhalle Düsseldorf
Tonhalle Düsseldorf
Tonhalle Düsseldorf is a concert hall in Düsseldorf. It was built by the architect Wilhelm Kreis.-History:It was built in 1926 as a planetarium, the biggest in the world at the point of construction. During the 1970s it was converted into a concert hall....
. In 2009 he appeared again at the Rheingau Musik Festival in Schumann's Das Paradies und die Peri
Paradise and the Peri
Paradise and the Peri, in German Das Paradies und die Peri, is a cantata for soloists, chorus, and orchestra by Robert Schumann. Completed in 1843, the work was published as Schumann's Op. 50....
.
In the field of historically informed performance
Historically informed performance
Historically informed performance is an approach in the performance of music and theater. Within this approach, the performance adheres to state-of-the-art knowledge of the aesthetic criteria of the period in which the music or theatre work was conceived...
, Güra was the tenor (Evangelist and arias) in a 1997 recording of Bach's Christmas Oratorio
Christmas Oratorio
The Christmas Oratorio BWV 248, is an oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach intended for performance in church during the Christmas season. It was written for the Christmas season of 1734 incorporating music from earlier compositions, including three secular cantatas written during 1733 and 1734 and a...
, conducted by René Jacobs, with the RIAS Kammerchor
RIAS Kammerchor
The RIAS Kammerchor is a professional chamber choir of the RIAS in Berlin, founded originally for contemporary music, with an international reputation.-History:...
, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin is a German chamber orchestra founded in East Berlin in 1982...
, Dorothea Röschmann
Dorothea Röschmann
Dorothea Röschmann is a German opera soprano from Flensburg.-Education and early life:Röschmann studied at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg, under Barbara Schlick at the Akademie für Alte Musik in Bremen, and subsequently in Los Angeles, New York, Tel Aviv, and under Vera Rózsa in London...
, Andreas Scholl
Andreas Scholl
Andreas Scholl is a German countertenor, a male classical singer in the alto vocal range. He is noted as a specialist in Baroque music.-Childhood:...
and Klaus Häger. In 1998 he recorded the arias of the St Matthew Passion with Philippe Herreweghe
Philippe Herreweghe
Philippe Herreweghe is a Flemish conductor.In his school years at the University of Ghent, Herreweghe combined studies in medical science and psychiatry with a musical education at the Ghent Conservatory, where Marcel Gazelle, Yehudi Menuhin's accompanist, was his piano teacher...
, the Collegium Vocale Gent, Evangelist Ian Bostridge
Ian Bostridge
Ian Bostridge CBE is an English tenor, well known for his performances as an opera singer and as a song recitalist.-Early life and education:...
, Jesus Franz-Josef Selig, Sibylla Rubens
Sibylla Rubens
- Biography :Sibylla Rubens studied voice at the Staatliche Musikhochschule in Trossingen and at the Hochschule für Musik in Frankfurt and in master classes with Edith Mathis....
, Andreas Scholl
Andreas Scholl
Andreas Scholl is a German countertenor, a male classical singer in the alto vocal range. He is noted as a specialist in Baroque music.-Childhood:...
and Dietrich Henschel. In 2006 he was the Evangelist in Bach's Christmas Oratorio with Nikolaus Harnoncourt
Nikolaus Harnoncourt
Nikolaus Harnoncourt is an Austrian conductor, particularly known for his historically informed performances of music from the Classical era and earlier. Starting out as a classical cellist, he founded his own period instrument ensemble in the 1950s, and became a pioneer of the Early Music movement...
, the Arnold Schoenberg Chor, the Concentus Musicus Wien
Concentus Musicus Wien
Concentus Musicus Wien is a baroque music ensemble founded by Nikolaus and Alice Harnoncourt in 1953. It generated the now well-established movement in performance and recordings to play early music on period instruments....
, Christine Schäfer
Christine Schäfer
Christine Schäfer is a German soprano. She studied from 1984 until 1991 at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin, where her teachers were Ingrid Figur, Aribert Reimann and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. She also took masterclasses with Arleen Augér and Sena Jurinac.After finishing her studies in 1992,...
, Bernarda Fink
Bernarda Fink
Bernarda Fink Inzko is an Argentinian mezzo-soprano. Born in Buenos Aires to Slovene parents, Bernarda Fink studied at the "Instituto Superior de Arte del Teatro Colón" in Buenos Aires. She won First Prize at the Nuevas Voces Líricas competition in 1985 and moved to Europe...
, Gerald Finley
Gerald Finley
-Career:He was born in Montreal and received his musical education in St. Matthew's Anglican Church, Ottawa, the University of Ottawa, King's College, Cambridge and the Royal College of Music in London, England...
and Christian Gerhaher
Christian Gerhaher
Christian Gerhaher is a German baritone and bass singer in opera, concert and notably Lied.- Biography :Christian Gerhaher studied with Paul Kuen and Raimund Grumbach at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München, and Lied with Friedemann Berger, already together with his accompanist for decades...
, recorded live in the Musikverein Vienna. In 2007 he recorded with the same ensemble Bach's cantata
Bach cantata
Bach cantata became a term for a cantata of the German Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach who was a prolific writer of the genre. Although many of his works are lost, around 200 cantatas survived....
Wir danken dir, Gott, wir danken dir, BWV 29.
Werner Güra is a notable singer of Lied
Lied
is a German word literally meaning "song", usually used to describe romantic songs setting German poems of reasonably high literary aspirations, especially during the nineteenth century, beginning with Carl Loewe, Heinrich Marschner, and Franz Schubert and culminating with Hugo Wolf...
er, mostly accompanied by Christoph Berner. Their recording of Schubert's Winterreise
Winterreise
Winterreise is a song cycle for voice and piano by Franz Schubert , a setting of 24 poems by Wilhelm Müller. It is the second of Schubert's two great song cycles on Müller's poems, the earlier being Die schöne Müllerin...
, using a Rönisch fortepiano
Fortepiano
Fortepiano designates the early version of the piano, from its invention by the Italian instrument maker Bartolomeo Cristofori around 1700 up to the early 19th century. It was the instrument for which Haydn, Mozart, and the early Beethoven wrote their piano music...
of 1872, was reviewed in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
by Hugh Canning in 2010:
By comparison with the veteran Peter Schreier, the younger tenor has a more rounded, agreeable basic timbre, but, like Schreier, he uses a wide palette of vocal and expressive colours to make this Winter’s Journey a spiritual and emotional trajectory through some of Schubert’s most bleak and harrowing soundscapes.
In 2011 he performed the Liebesliederwalzer of Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
and Spanische Liebeslieder op. 138 of Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
with Ruth Ziesak
Ruth Ziesak
- Biography :Ruth Ziesak studied voice at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts with Elsa Cavelti and Christoph Prégardien. She has been a member of the Municipal Theatre Heidelberg since 1988 and the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in 1990....
, Anke Vondung and Konrad Jarnot
Konrad Jarnot
Konrad Jarnot is an English baritone who works in opera and oratorio and is a notable performer of Lieder. He is a teacher at the Robert Schumann Hochschule.-Early life:...
at the Rheingau Musik Festival
Rheingau Musik Festival
The Rheingau Musik Festival is an international summer music festival in Germany, founded in 1987. It is mostly for classical music, but includes other genres...
at Schloss Johannisberg
Schloss Johannisberg
Schloss Johannisberg is a winery in the Rheingau wine-growing region in Germany, that has been making wine for over 900 years. The winery is most noted for its claim to have "discovered" late harvest wine.- History :...
.
He is teaching voice and chamber music at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste.
External links
- Werner Güra on farao-classics.de
- Werner Güra on Harmonia MundiHarmonia MundiHarmonia Mundi is an independent music record label founded in 1958 by Bernard Coutaz in Arles . The Latin phrase means "world harmony"....
- Werner Güra at the Lucerne FestivalLucerne Festival- History :The festival was founded in 1938 with a series of concerts in the gardens of Wagner's villa conducted by Arturo Toscanini, who had formed an orchestra with members of different orchestras and soloists for the concert...
- Werner Güra at the Beethovenfest Bonn (in German)
- Entries for recordings by Werner Güra on WorldCatWorldCatWorldCat is a union catalog which itemizes the collections of 72,000 libraries in 170 countries and territories which participate in the Online Computer Library Center global cooperative...