Barry McDaniel

Barry McDaniel (October 18, 1930 – June 18, 2018) was an American operatic baritone who spent his career almost exclusively in Germany, including 37 years at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. He appeared internationally at major opera houses and festivals, and created roles in several new operas, including Henze's "Der junge Lord", Nabokov's "Love's Labour's Lost", and Reimann's "Melusine". He was also a celebrated concert singer and recitalist, focused on German "Lied" and French "mélodie". He was the first singer of Wilhelm Killmayer's song cycle "Tre Canti di Leopardi". He recorded both operatic and concert repertory.
Career.
McDaniel was born in Lyndon, Kansas, to musical parents who soon became aware of his talent. From the age of nine he took systematic lessons in singing, piano and percussion and enjoyed considerable local popularity as a boy soprano soloist in churches and private concerts. When his voice changed from soprano to baritone, he studied voice first at the University of Kansas, and from 1950 at the Juilliard School of Music in New York as a student of the Mack Harrell. After graduating from Juilliard with honors, he was among the first young singers to go to Germany on a Fulbright scholarship in 1953. He studied with Alfred Paulus and Hermann Reutter at the Musikhochschule Stuttgart, where he worked on his already extensive repertoire of German and French art song. He made his first professional appearance as a recitalist in Stuttgart in 1953. Hermann Reutter – a renowned composer in his own right – was to become one of his favorite accompanists throughout his career. After a first contract with the Staatstheater Mainz in the 1954/55 season, he had to serve in the U.S. Army for two years. He was a member of the Staatsoper Stuttgart from 1957 to 1959, when he moved to the opera at the Staatstheater Karlsruhe.
In autumn 1961, Egon Seefehlner, the deputy director and talent scout of the newly reopened Deutsche Oper Berlin, heard him in a performance in Karlsruhe and recruited him for his opera. McDaniel remained under contract with the Deutsche Oper from 1962 till 1999, singing more than 1,800 performances, in the premieres of 54 productions. He collaborated with some of Germany's most distinguished stage directors such as Rudolf Sellner, Götz Friedrich or Günther Rennert, in an ensemble that included singers such as Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Elisabeth Grümmer, Josef Greindl, Ernst Haefliger, James King, Pilar Lorengar and Edith Mathis. His stage repertoire of 98 roles encompassed Gluck and Mozart, Italian bel canto and Richard Strauss as well as contemporary opera, in which he created several roles. He was the first to appear as Cuauhtemoc in "Montezuma" by Roger Sessions in 1964, and as the Secretary in Hans Werner Henze's "Der junge Lord" in 1965. He created the title role in Isang Yun's "The Dream of Liu-Tung" at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin in 1965. In 1966, he took part in the premiere of "Amerika" by Roman Haubenstock. In 1973, he appeared as Merowne in the premiere of Nicolas Nabokov's "Love's Labour's Lost", given by the Deutsche Oper Berlin at La Monnaie in Brussels. In 1976, he performed in the premiere of "Der Tempelbrand" by Toshiro Mayuzumi. In addition to his more than 2,100 stage and concert performances in Berlin, he gave frequent guest performances and recitals in opera houses of Hamburg and Frankfurt, and appeared regularly at the Munich Opera Festival for 11 years. He performed in Vienna, Geneva, Amsterdam, Mexico and Japan. In 1964 he appeared as Wolfram in Wagner's "Tannhäuser" at the Bayreuth Festival. He appeared as a male lead, Count Lusignan, in the premiere of Aribert Reimann's opera "Melusine" at the Schwetzingen Festival of 1971, in a production that was also shown at the Edinburgh International Festival that year, with Catherine Gayer in the title role. In 1972 he made his debut as Pelléas in Debussy's "Pelléas et Mélisande" at the New York Metropolitan Opera.
McDaniel displayed remarkable versatility as an oratorio singer and recitalist, with compositions from Baroque to contemporary. His focus in sacred music was on Bach cantatas, and being the vox Christi (voice of Christ) in both Bach's "St Matthew Passion" and the "St John Passion", and works by Georg Philipp Telemann. With "Lied", he focused on Franz Schubert's great song cycles, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms and Hugo Wolf. He was also a frequent performer of French "mélodies", such as by Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel and Francis Poulenc, and a specialist of contemporary scores by composers such as Aribert Reimann, Anton Webern, Günter Bialas, Luigi Dallapiccola and Carl Orff. In 1967, he performed the vocal part in the premiere of Wilhelm Killmayer's song cycle "Tre Canti di Leopardi" in Munich, conducted by Reinhard Peters.
In 1970 he was awarded the title of Kammersänger by the Senate of Berlin. In the late 1980s, McDaniel began to cut back on his opera and concert performances and finally retired in 1999, after a series of solo concerts dedicated to the popular songs of his native country. He lived in Berlin, where he died on June 18, 2018.
Operatic roles.
McDaniel's roles on the opera stage included: