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Biography |
by Joseph Stevenson
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The Dutch baritone Maarten Koningsberger has established a successful European career in opera and song recitals in a wide repertory ranging from Monteverdi to Maderna.
He studied music in Amsterdam. His teachers have been Max von Egmond, Udo Reinemann, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, and Margreet Honig.
After graduation, he joined the School of Lyric Art of the Opéra de Paris, that institution's program for young singers. This gave him the opportunity to sing in several opera productions in France and Italy by composers as diverse as Debussy, Maderna, Menotti, Mozart, Offenbach, Poulenc, Rameau, and Strauss.
His recital repertory is similarly broad and includes mastery of standard and period performance styles. He sang as a soloist on a tour with William Christie and Les Arts Florissants. As a solo recitalist, he is often accompanied by such major artists as Irwin Gage and Graham Johnson and has recorded CD programs of songs by Schubert, Robert Schumann, and Milhaud and solo cantatas by Campra and Blankenburg.
Critics assess his voice as well suited to the intimacy of the song form with a compelling quality even in quiet passages. The voice is characterized as lyrical, warm, and deep, yet with the authentic baritone rather than bass quality.
Koningsberger has broadcast on several European radio companies and teaches at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam and the Baroque Music Center in Versailles, France. He records for the Hyperion label and has participated in the company's epochal traversal of the entire song literature of Franz Schubert with Graham Johnson as pianist. |
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