Paul Frey

The storyplot of singer Paul Frey’s entry in to the world of music may be the sort which should inspire just about anyone that has ever felt even the hint of a concept about exploring a concealed talent. Blessed in Heidelberg, Ontario, in 1941 to a Mennonite family members, he sang within a cathedral quartet being a guy, but despite having the encouragement of his instructors to go after music, he adopted a more regular route for his existence — he produced a living traveling a truck, ultimately owning his personal business, and also performed hockey. As he informed the story inside a film by Werner Herzog, there arrived a spot in the first ’70s where Frey fractured his hip throughout a video game and discovered himself laid up for weeks. Throughout that time, a pal offered him a Mario Lanza record to hear, almost like a gag present; rather, Frey was fascinated plenty of by the past due screen legend’s performing that a totally new section in his existence exposed. Where his musical limitations as a grown-up got previously been referred to by the task of Elvis Presley, he abruptly became fascinated with opera. He used serious voice research, offered his trucking business, and gained a scholarship towards the College or university of Toronto Opera College. He got the music programs he had a need to fill up the spaces in his education, and in 1976 was involved to sing Werther opposing Maureen Forrester inside a concert creation. Two years later on, he produced his formal operatic debut performing Werther in the Stadttheater Basel, Switzerland; he also sang Fidelio as well as the Bartered Bride-to-be that yr, in what became a long-term engagement. And in 1985, he was initially offered the opportunity to sing Lohengrin at Bayreuth, which he dropped due to his obligations towards the Basel business. A year later on, however, he changed an indisposed Peter Hoffmann as Lohengrin at Mannheim, where he was noticed by Wolfgang Wagner, who involved him to sing at Bayreuth, where he produced his debut in 1987. He afterwards repeated the function in following years, including two productions under Werner Herzog. That same calendar year, furthermore to functioning at every one of the main opera homes in European countries, Frey produced his Metropolitan Opera debut as Bacchus in Ariadne Auf Naxos; a calendar year later he changed Plácido Domingo as Lohengrin at Covent Backyard. The majority of Frey’s profession continues to be spent in European countries, and he resided in Switzerland because the 1970s. Furthermore to essaying many established roles suitable to his heldentenor range, he in addition has had the fairly rare possibility, in the present day musical world, to make an operatic function as Captain Alfred Dreyfus in the 1994 Berlin premiere of Jost Meier and George R. Whyte’s The Alfred Dreyfus Affair.