Janet Baker

Janet Baker是20世紀(jì)最著名的聲樂藝術(shù)家之一，她1933年生于英國約克郡，年幼時已在當(dāng)?shù)睾铣犻_始了自己的藝術(shù)生涯，20歲時拜伊賽普、圣克勒和洛蒂·雷曼為師學(xué)習(xí)聲樂，之后又入皇家音樂學(xué)院深造。Janet Baker的真正成名始于1964、1965年演出布里頓《盧克萊修受辱記》和普賽爾《狄朵和埃涅阿斯》。在她歷時半個世紀(jì)的演唱活動中，Janet Baker不僅唱遍了歐洲歌劇中的眾多女中音角色，而且也因?qū)Π秃铡⒑嗟聽柕那宄獎∫约笆娌?、馬勒、埃爾加、肖松的藝術(shù)歌曲的杰出詮釋而蜚聲樂壇。鋼琴伴奏家Gerald Moore曾經(jīng)說“Janet Baker和Fischer-Dieskau乃是當(dāng)今全世界兩位最偉大的歌曲演唱家”。1977年，Janet Baker被英國女王授予Dame（女爵士）的封號，成為屈指可數(shù)的獲得這一榮譽的女藝術(shù)家之一。
 
Janet Baker是Kathleen Ferrier之后最好的馬勒女中音，她能夠唱到女高音的聲域，因此演唱女中音更加游刃有余，其演唱體現(xiàn)出感情真摯、格調(diào)高雅、氣息悠長、意境雋永的特點。她和Barbirolli、Horenstein、Kempe、Bernstein等馬勒名家合作，多次演出錄制了《大地之歌》、帶有人聲的第2、第8交響曲以及藝術(shù)歌曲。
 
Dame Janet Abbott Baker, CH, DBE, FRSA (born 21 August 1933) is an English mezzo-soprano best known as an opera, concert, and lieder singer.
 
She was particularly closely associated with baroque and early Italian opera and the works of Benjamin Britten. During her career, which spanned the 1950s to the 1980s, she was considered an outstanding singing actress and widely admired for her dramatic intensity, perhaps best represented in her famous portrayal as Dido, the tragic heroine of Berlioz's magnum opus, Les Troyens. As a concert performer, Dame Janet was noted for her interpretations of the music of Gustav Mahler and Edward Elgar. David Gutman, writing in Gramophone, described her performance of Mahler's Kindertotenlieder as &intimate, almost self-communing.&