Best of Brel
Quelle: Amazon.com
Jacques
Brel
I've started with Brel in German. I got to know him many years ago in Antwerp and he said that I had to sing his chansons and now I've hold the performing rights from him. Of his last record I was given the exclusive right to sing the chansons which means not only that I may sing them in German but that they are sung only by him and by me. This is a very great honour for me, and I was very happy.
Michael
Heltau
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Wienerische Lieder
Quelle: Amazon.com
The
Viennese dialect is a blood brother of
music and it is able to obtain when paired with music the most
unmendacious and most perplexing effects. On the record in question, Michael
Heltau knows to sing about this. He is the beloved hero in Schnitzler's and
Hofmannsthal's plays, Giorgio Strehler's King Henry, the German herald of
Jacques Brel, a melancholic Punch and a laughing crocodile, as an interpreter he
is a great catch for each difficult author: awake, humble, self-conscious and
professional.
The Viennese language has found in him a long sought after master in a long time orphaned branch: a singing actor of sad nuances. Vienna isn't rich in urbane or sophisticated figures; Michael Heltau is one of these.
The Viennese language has found in him a long sought after master in a long time orphaned branch: a singing actor of sad nuances. Vienna isn't rich in urbane or sophisticated figures; Michael Heltau is one of these.
André Heller
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Statt zu Spielen
Quelle: Burgtheater
With songs and texts by Jacques Brel, Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, Ralph Benatzky, Charles Chaplin, Joseph Lanner, Loek Huisman, Heinrich von Kleist, Friedrich Hollaender, Paul Abraham, Charles Trenet, Arthur Schnitzler, Jerry Herman, Johann Strauss amongst others.
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Servus du
Quelle: Amazon.com
Entertainment
should be treated like a nature reserve. Nobody is allowed to fish, because
they are little works of art.
These songs, these texts, this atmosphere does not need any explanation. For more than half a century they are measures never reached. These songs are flirts. I adore them! The possible dimensions of this genre I comprehend by listening to records by Fritzi Massary. To her I dedicate this CD.
These songs, these texts, this atmosphere does not need any explanation. For more than half a century they are measures never reached. These songs are flirts. I adore them! The possible dimensions of this genre I comprehend by listening to records by Fritzi Massary. To her I dedicate this CD.
Michael Heltau
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Operette Sich Wer Kann
Quelle: Amazon.com
A live
recording at the Theater an der Wien
A homage to Viennese operetta Haute couture and not ready-made. Works by Ralph Benatzky, Franz Lehár, Johann Strauss, Robert Stolz, Emmerich Kálmán, and Paul Abraham. What is a sleepwalking transition, how to harmonize a slur or a rhythmic refinement, how to accelerate the pulse by a little delay - this art is mastered supremely well by Michael Heltau and his musicians.
A homage to Viennese operetta Haute couture and not ready-made. Works by Ralph Benatzky, Franz Lehár, Johann Strauss, Robert Stolz, Emmerich Kálmán, and Paul Abraham. What is a sleepwalking transition, how to harmonize a slur or a rhythmic refinement, how to accelerate the pulse by a little delay - this art is mastered supremely well by Michael Heltau and his musicians.
Wilhelm Sinkovicz, “Die Presse”
(Vienna)
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Statt zu Singen
Quelle: Amazon.com
Psalms, ballads, songs
A live recording at the Vienna Konzerthaus "... a performance you could not pass by indifferently, an outstanding evening in any sense of the word and the slogan about the boundless applause became real...
A live recording at the Vienna Konzerthaus "... a performance you could not pass by indifferently, an outstanding evening in any sense of the word and the slogan about the boundless applause became real...
“Arbeiter-Zeitung” (Vienna)
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Michael Heltau spricht Lieder der Romantik
Quelle: Amazon.com
Romantic poetry – an attempt to escape.
This I discovered working on this programme.
The idyllic “Biedermeier” you won’t find it.
Everywhere you can feel the threatening precipice.
All thoughts and emotions are about change.
There’s no certitude at all.
These poets are our contemporaries.
Michael Heltau
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Balladen, Romanzen, Unglaubliches
Quelle: Amazon.com
Michael
Heltau is able to fill a public with enthusiasm for classical texts... on stage
there is a distinguished gentleman in his prime but something strange happens
during the passing of the evening. A young hero stands in front of us, a wise
old Mr Ribbeck in Havelland, Bertolt Brecht in the Munich Deutsches Museum, even
a dog full of virtues. Economical is Heltau only as far as stage props are
concerned.
Norbert Meyer, "Die Presse" (Vienna)
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Philharmonische Capriolen
Quelle: Preiser Records
Music by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Rossini, Josef Lanner, Johann Strauss. Stories collected by the Vienna Philharmonic player Camillo Öhlberger.
A live recording of a charity concert on 10 April 1994.
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Quelle: Preiser Records
He has recited the poems in public several times, at the Ossiach Festival, at the Vienna Konzerthaus, and at the Berlin Ensemble. As early as 1975, Heltau made a recording of Rilke's novel "Malte Laurids Brigge" for Deutsche Grammophone. This CD is similarly a studio recording.
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Radetzkymarsch
Quelle: Amazon.com
His
grandfather had saved the emperor's life at the battle of Solferino. His father
is a faithful official of the k. and k. monarchy. But Carl Joseph von Trotta,
grandson of the "hero of Solferino" and an office contre Coeur, is very
sensible and soft. As all the old certitudes crumble away he searches for
diversion in gambling, alcohol, and with women. A picture of three generations,
a portrait of splendour and the decline of the Hapsburg Empire. This novel is
Joseph Roth's masterpiece.
"It is just the most beautiful book in the world. The most sad, the most
sentimental, the most astonishing. It's a miracle."
Volker Weidermann, Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung
Die Kapuzinergruft
Quelle: ORF
When ORF
issued Joseph Roth's „Kapuzinergruft" on CD,
Michael Heltau wrote: "To read in public is no one-way street. On the contrary. An intimate concentration on texts without any patronising by illustrations gives the audience a chance to discover the fancy. Of course this is also my ideal for working as an actor on stage. To avoid overwhelming the listener's fancies! This side of our profession comparable with chamber music has been the most thrilling part. When I'm reading in public I want to seduce someone to literature." "The Kapuzinergruft" is the sequel to Roth's great novel "Radetzkymarsch". The novel opens at the end of World War I and leads up to the annexation of Austria in 1938.
Michael Heltau wrote: "To read in public is no one-way street. On the contrary. An intimate concentration on texts without any patronising by illustrations gives the audience a chance to discover the fancy. Of course this is also my ideal for working as an actor on stage. To avoid overwhelming the listener's fancies! This side of our profession comparable with chamber music has been the most thrilling part. When I'm reading in public I want to seduce someone to literature." "The Kapuzinergruft" is the sequel to Roth's great novel "Radetzkymarsch". The novel opens at the end of World War I and leads up to the annexation of Austria in 1938.
Die Geschichte von der 1002. Nacht
Quelle: Amazon.com
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Die Leiden des jungen Werther
Quelle: Preiser Records
"Die Leiden des jungen Werther" was
Michael Heltau's first recording, now available on CD. In June 1964 he agreed
after an extraordinary success in reading part of the Goethe novel in public to
go into the studio to repeat this for the microphone.
His being involved with Goethe has never ended. In 1968, he played young Goethe in a play by Loek Huisman which was put on not only in Vienna but from coast to coast in the United States, Canada and Israel. In 1976, he performed at the Salzburg Festival an evening entitled "Des Pudels Kern", he read Goethe at the Piccolo teatro di Milano in cooperation with Giorgio Strehler, he took part in concerts of Beethoven's music and Goethe's lyrics of "Egmont", and he presided the Weimar Goethe Festival. Goethe is a lifelong theme for Michael Heltau.
His being involved with Goethe has never ended. In 1968, he played young Goethe in a play by Loek Huisman which was put on not only in Vienna but from coast to coast in the United States, Canada and Israel. In 1976, he performed at the Salzburg Festival an evening entitled "Des Pudels Kern", he read Goethe at the Piccolo teatro di Milano in cooperation with Giorgio Strehler, he took part in concerts of Beethoven's music and Goethe's lyrics of "Egmont", and he presided the Weimar Goethe Festival. Goethe is a lifelong theme for Michael Heltau.
Die kleine Komödie
Quelle: Preiser Records
One might find all of the author's qualities here already. Psychology, playing with identities, erotic attraction, a very precise language when depicting various social milieus. And last, but not least, a great sense of humour. In a one-act play Schnitzler defines the famous formula for all this: "Wir spielen immer, wer es weiß, ist klug." (We all play our roles, but the one who is conscious of this fact is the smartest.)
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