![Anton van Rooy as The Wanderer in Siegfried 1906 - Aimé Dupont](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Anton_van_Rooy_as_The_Wanderer_in_Siegfried_1906_-_Aim%C3%A9_Dupont.jpg)
Anton van Rooy (1 January 1870 – 28 November 1932) was a Dutch
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 thr ...
. He had a voice of enormous proportions and is most remembered for his association with the music dramas of
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...
, especially the ''
Ring Cycle
(''The Ring of the Nibelung''), WWV 86, is a cycle of four German-language epic music dramas composed by Richard Wagner. The works are based loosely on characters from Germanic heroic legend, namely Norse legendary sagas and the ''Nibelung ...
'', ''
The Mastersingers of Nuremberg
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in En ...
'' and ''
Parsifal
''Parsifal'' ( WWV 111) is an opera or a music drama in three acts by the German composer Richard Wagner and his last composition. Wagner's own libretto for the work is loosely based on the 13th-century Middle High German epic poem ''Parzival'' ...
''.
Born in
Rotterdam
Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"N ...
, van Rooy studied with the famous voice teacher
Julius Stockhausen
The gens Julia (''gēns Iūlia'', ) was one of the most prominent patrician (ancient Rome), patrician families in ancient Rome. Members of the gens attained the highest dignities of the state in the earliest times of the Roman Republic, Republic ...
in
Frankfurt
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...
. He made his operatic debut at the
Bayreuth Festival
The Bayreuth Festival (german: link=no, Bayreuther Festspiele) is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner are presented. Wagner himself conceived ...
in 1897, singing Wotan in ''
Der Ring des Nibelungen
(''The Ring of the Nibelung''), WWV 86, is a cycle of four German-language epic music dramas composed by Richard Wagner. The works are based loosely on characters from Germanic heroic legend, namely Norse legendary sagas and the '' Nibe ...
''. The year 1898 saw his debuts in
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
and at the
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House (ROH) 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. It is the home of The Royal Op ...
in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
; and on 14 December that same year he sang for the first time at the
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is operat ...
,
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, as
Wotan
(''The Ring of the Nibelung''), WWV 86, is a cycle of four German-language epic music dramas composed by Richard Wagner. The works are based loosely on characters from Germanic heroic legend, namely Norse legendary sagas and the ''Nibelun ...
in ''
Die Walküre
(; ''The Valkyrie''), WWV 86B, is the second of the four music dramas that constitute Richard Wagner's ''Der Ring des Nibelungen'' (English: ''The Ring of the Nibelung''). It was performed, as a single opera, at the National Theatre Munich on ...
''.
He remained with the Met until 1908, during which time he was heard in all the leading baritone Wagnerian roles. Most notably, he created
Amfortas in the American
premiere
A première, also spelled premiere, is the debut (first public presentation) of a play, film, dance, or musical composition.
A work will often have many premières: a world première (the first time it is shown anywhere in the world), its first ...
of ''Parsifal'' in 1903. Four years later, he created the part of John the Baptist in the initial New York production of
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss (; 11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a German composer, conductor, pianist, and violinist. Considered a leading composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras, he has been described as a successor of Richard Wag ...
's then controversial opera ''
Salome
Salome (; he, שְלוֹמִית, Shlomit, related to , "peace"; el, Σαλώμη), also known as Salome III, was a Jewish princess, the daughter of Herod II, son of Herod the Great, and princess Herodias, granddaughter of Herod the Great, an ...
''.
Van Rooy also continued to sing regularly at Bayreuth until 1903, when he was banned by
Cosima Wagner
Francesca Gaetana Cosima Wagner ( née Liszt; 24 December 1837 – 1 April 1930) was the daughter of the Hungarian composer and pianist Franz Liszt and Franco-German romantic author Marie d'Agoult. She became the second wife of the German co ...
from any further performances at the festival, because the Met performances of ''Parsifal'' that he had participated in breached German copyright law. His appearances in London spanned the years 1898-1913. He made
gramophone
A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...
discs and
cylinder
A cylinder (from ) has traditionally been a three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a prism with a circle as its base.
A cylinder may also be defined as an infin ...
recordings, too, and was a noted song recitalist and soloist in
oratorio
An oratorio () is a large musical composition for orchestra, choir, and soloists. Like most operas, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an instrumental ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias. However, opera is mus ...
.
Although the acoustically recorded discs and cylinders that van Rooy cut during the early 1900s were incapable of capturing the full majesty of his voice, they do demonstrate the strength of his high notes, the dark beauty of his tone and the sensitivity of his
phrasing. They show why, to quote the ''Oxford Dictionary of Opera'' (second edition), "he was considered the finest
ans
Ans or ANS or ''variation'', may refer to:
Places
* Ans, Belgium, a municipality in Belgium
* Ans, Denmark, a village in Denmark
* Angus, Scotland, UK; a council area by its Chapman code
* Ainsdale railway station, England, UK (by station code ...
Sachs, Kurwenal and Wotan of the first decade" of the 20th century. (Some of his recordings are available on CD reissues.)
After leaving the Metropolitan Opera, van Rooy became the leading Wagnerian baritone of the
Frankfurt
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...
Opera; but by this juncture his voice had deteriorated prematurely due to vigorous over-use and his willingness to sing roles with a higher range than was ideal for his sonorous instrument.
Anton van Rooy died in
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...
in 1932, at the age of 62.
Notes
References and further reading
* David Ewen, ''Encyclopedia of the Opera: New Enlarged Edition''. New York; Hill and Wang, 1963.
* Harold Rosenthal & John Warrack, ''The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera'' (second edition). London; Oxford University Press, 1980.
* Michael Scott, ''The Record Of Singing'' (volume one). London; Duckworth, 1977.
* Klaus Ulrich Spiegel: "Primat für Gesangskunst - Der epochale Wagnersänger Anton van Rooy" - Edition HAfG Acoustucs Hamburg 2014
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rooy, Anton van
1870 births
1932 deaths
20th-century Dutch male opera singers
Operatic baritones
Musicians from Rotterdam