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“Johannes M. Kösters as Georg Friedrich Haendel, the
Bass-Bariton who has already interpreted so many important character
roles in worldwide premiers, has once again set an example for
unaffected but profound interpretation…”
wrote the Amsterdam newspaper “Opera Gazet” after the world premier
of “Styx”, a commissioned work of the Karlsruhe Haendel
Festival in 2001 by the composer Franz Hummel. Styx was the 10th
world premiere of an opera since 1991 in which Johannes M. Kösters
starred as the protagonist. By now he has reached his 15th
world premiere, his last part having been the Johann Faustus in an
opera with the same title by Friedrich Schenker, that was staged in
the national theatre of Kassel in 2004.
The 2005/6 season marks the 25th anniversary of the singer’s
career, whose first experience was with the
National Theatre
in Mannheim in 1981, and where he stayed through 1987. From 1987-1991
Kösters was a member of the ensemble of the
Musical theatre in the Revier in Gelsenkirchen,
where, for the most part, he sang French
and Italian repertoire.
In 1991 Johannes M. Kösters began to sing independently as a
singer in the German premiere of the opera “Vincent” by
the Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara at the Kiel Opera. It was
a smashing success. The newspaper “Frankfurter Rundschau”
reported:
“ … an impressive success of the experienced baritone,
who has also starred in Wolfgang Rihms Hamletmaschine”
For Kösters, the 1987 production of “Hamletmaschine”
was the first great challenge of contemporary vocal literature. Ever
since then the works of this important German composer have been one
of the focal points of Mr. Köster’s career, which becomes
further apparent when one looks at the world premieres and premieres
that followed in operas, concerts and Lieder.
In one dedication to the baritone, Mr. Rihm expresses his admiration
for the singer, stating:
“ … music, sung music, is for Kösters mental
speaking which he knows how to combine with emotion: a modern artist
in the best sense. His incredible wealth of experience with
contemporary repertoire make him one of the most prominent vocal
artists for contemporary classical music in Germany”.
In 1993 Kösters first worked with Claudio Abbado with the Berlin
Philharmonics. The production staged Rihms “Hölderlin
Fragments”, which are also available as a CD (Sony).
Further productions with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra followed,
among these a Lieder recital which included five world premieres
based on Büchner texts, several commissioned works by Abbado for
the Berlin Festival in 1996, as well as a production in which Kösters
starred as the lead in Rhim’s opera “Jakob Lenz” ,
a coproduction of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and the Grand
Opera of Lyon in 1997. In 1999 Koesters was invited to sing at the
Easter Festival in Salzburg as Melot in “Tristan and Isolde”.
The great successes with both the press and the audience in
contemporary musical theatre of the early nineties have apparently
contributed to Johannes M. Kösters’s continuous
interpretation of important historical characters, who in turn have
inspired many composers. Among these character roles one could
mention Vincent Van Gogh, Heinrich Heine, Jacob Lenz, Hamlet,
Ödipus, Einstein, Martin Luther, Johann Faust, etc. Since 1991 the
baritone has starred in nearly forty productions in thirty theatres
throughout Germany (Kiel, Frankfurt, Krefeld, Stralsund,
Bielefeld, Karlsruhe, Darmstadt among others), Austria
(Innsbruck, Vienna Festival), Switzerland (Basel, Luzern),
France
(Strasbourg, Nancy, Lyon), Italy (Venice) and the USA
(Los Angeles) as the lead protagonist in each of the above
productions.
Johannes M. Koesters received his professional training at the
Musikhochschule Frankfurt am Main, where he worked with Martin
Gründler from 1975 to 1980. A scholarship from the DAAD allowed
him to study at the opera school in Bloomington, Indiana, USA, where
he worked with Margret Harshaw on interpretation in 1981. He later
studied with Rolf Sartorius in Wiesbaden. In 1978 and 1981, the young
baritone was a prize winner at the international voice competitions
in Geneva and San Luis Potosi, Mexiko.
Since 1986 Mr. Kösters has been teaching voice at the “Hochschule
für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Mannheim”. Some of his
students, like the bass-baritone Jürgen Linn and the soprano
Annette Postel, have become remarkable, well-known singers.
The foundations for Kösters’s musicality, noted by so many
conductors and colleagues, were laid at a very young age when as a
child he sang for many years in the Regensburg boy chorus.
Translated by Sonya Isaak
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