Piotr Beczała (Piotr Beczała) |

Piotr Beczała

Tenors have always received the closest attention, but with the age of the Internet, music lovers from different countries have an additional source of information exchange about the performances of their favorite artists anywhere in the world. The singers themselves use the services of web designers to report reliable information about themselves. Usually on such personal sites you can find a biography, repertoire, discography, press reviews and, most importantly, a schedule of performances – sometimes a year in advance. Then the moderators of music sites download this information, put it in order, put it in calendar order – and the events announced in this way are overgrown with folders with dossiers.

This is helped by visitors to these sites, who are currently closer to the object of attention. For example, if the site moderator works in Paris, and the premiere of X takes place in Zurich, then the Swiss colleagues will send links to all press materials and give a detailed report the night after the premiere. Musicians will only benefit from this – by typing their name in the search bar, they can find out their popularity rating at the moment by the number of links. And for tenors, who by virtue of tradition do not like each other, it is vital to know every minute of their lives whether they are in the top ten and whether someone has covered them. In any case, for the Polish tenor Piotr Bechala, maintaining a stable status quo in the world opera arena is an important thing.

I was interested in this character when I browsed the websites of different theaters in search of interesting musical events in February. Everything pointed to the fact that we should pay attention to Peter Bechala. Last year, he delighted the world with his debuts in the leading theaters of the world, this year also begins with debuts.

For Moscow, Petr Bechala is a well-known person. Music lovers remember his performances with Vladimir Fedoseev’s orchestra. Once he sang at a concert in honor of Sergei Lemeshev – Fedoseev then brought the Polish tenor to Moscow to show off his favorite, with whom he works a lot in Zurich and whose lyrical timbre vaguely resembles Lemeshev’s. And a year before that, Bechala sang Vaudemont in a concert performance of Iolanta, conducted by the same Fedoseev. Kultura wrote in detail about these events of 2002 and 2003.

Piotr Bechala was born in southern Poland. He received his musical education at home, in Katowice, and began to look for a suitable engagement in some European theater. The young singer was invited to a permanent contract at the Austrian Linz Opera House, and from there in 1997 he moved to Zurich, which is to this day his home. Here he sang a good half of the repertoire of the lyric tenor, including operas in Russian and other Slavic languages. Although the singer belongs to that generation of young people who did not study Russian at school without fail, he quickly realized that the ability to sing clearly and, most importantly, correctly intonate in Russian would seriously improve his vocal skills. The lessons of Pavel Lisitsian and the meeting in Zurich with Vladimir Fedoseev helped a lot. In the blink of an eye, he became the main Lensky in Europe, taking bread from our singers who went to Europe to earn money. Poles seem to be very receptive to languages. When the Polish baritone Mariusz Kvechen came to the premiere of Onegin in Moscow, many were amazed by his luxurious diction. Lensky and Vaudemont Bechaly are also impeccable in terms of the Russian language.

Previously, the singer made more claims. Moscow critics, for example, who were present at the concert in honor of Lemeshev, slightly scolded the artist for his omnivorousness, for the exorbitant waste of his voice on the part “not affordable.” Bechala took into account the wishes, today’s reviewers unanimously claim that the singer’s vocal technique has become almost impeccable.

But theater directors dream of getting Bechala to them not only for his strong voice and beautiful timbre. Bechala is first an artist, and only then a singer. He is not embarrassed by any radical production, any quirks of directors. He can do everything or almost everything.

I came across an absolutely wonderful passage in the reports of Parisian music lovers who visited Zurich in February for Bechala’s debut in Lucia di Lammermoor. It said the following: “Existing on stage according to the strict laws of the romantic plot of this opera, during the performance of Edgar’s central aria, the singer, slightly raising his shoulder, conducted a hidden dialogue with the audience, as if mocking the technical difficulties of the role and singing bel canto in general.” In the context of postmodern productions, such messages from the singer testify to his complete inclusion in the context of modern musical theater.

So, over the past year, Petr Bechala was baptized by fire – he made his debut at the New York Metropolitan and Milan’s La Scala as the Duke in Rigoletto, as well as at the Bavarian State Opera again as the Duke and as Alfred (La Traviata). Mastered “Lucia” in Zurich, ahead – debut in the production of the Bolshoi Theater in Warsaw (“Rigoletto”) and several performances at the Munich Festival.

Those wishing to get acquainted with the work of Bechala, I refer to the numerous operas on DVD with his participation. Good quality video clips with solo pieces from operas are posted right on the singer’s website. Highly recommend to visit.

Alexandra Germanova, 2007