Scrapbook
This section contains short, newspaper cuttings in more or less chronological order (most recent first), either by SK or about him, plus photos that don’t seem to fit anywhere else!
Seen in an article on Antonio Pappano in ‘About the House’, the magazine of the Royal Opera House, April 2008
'It's partly a question of compassion,' suggests Simon Keenlyside, who has worked with him on Faust and La boheme, with Don Carlo in prospect. 'Some conductors have a phenomenal musical ability or technique but they're not always so good at knowing what to do when things come adrift. If someone is below par, or gets caught up with something on stage which slows his responses down a few seconds, Tony knows exactly how to bring it back together. It comes down to trust.'
Simon and Zenaida's good news according to the Daily Mail, 17 March 2008
A ballerina's pregnant pause
As a principal dancer at the Royal Ballet, Zenaida Yanowsky knows that every step on stage has to be carefully rehearsed. So when on Saturday night she decided to tell her dance partner David Makhateli she was pregnant, she waited until the curtain came down.
The pair are starring in the technically challenging Sylvia at the Royal Opera House. And Zenaida, 32, who is married to the opera singer Simon Keenlyside, has kept her 11-week pregnancy secret to all but a handful of people in the company.
"She didn't want to put David off with so many lifts in the show, so it was all kept hush-hush," an Opera House insider tells me. "She told him as the curtain fell, which was why David gave her such a big kiss as they took their curtain calls."
News of the pregnancy later emerged at a Crush Room party where guests included carrot-haired Old Etonian actor Damian Lewis and his wife Helen McCrory, crooner Bryan Ferry and designer Kelly Hoppen.
A beaming Zenaida — whose baritone husband has been calling in from Paris to check she doesn't overdo things — said: "It's a hard role, quite strenuous."
From Julius Drake's lovely website
http://www.juliusdrake.com/main.php?rubrik=1
Simon and piano at the Chatelet, Paris 17 December 2007
Wigmore Hall's Mr January 2008
Seen in the Independent, 5 January 2008
Kate Royal in her interview with the BBC Music Magazine, Sept 2007
'If there's one thing that makes me angry, it's singers who lack involvement. I care passionately about people being part of the action. I hate selfishness in a singer. Some singers still think it's good enough to stand, to sing, to bow and walk off. It's not. Singers like Simon Keenlyside are the opposite: he gives of himself, to the audience, to the other singers, challenging them to do more, to take risks. I was watching a ballet company in Paris, and seeing their dedication, the way every single muscle could be read by the audience inspired me. We as singers need to realise that every note, every movement, matters.'
Excerpt from an interview with Susan Graham for www.musicalcriticism.com about upcoming performances of Iphigénie en Tauride.
http://www.musicalcriticism.com/interviews/graham.htm
"One of the big draws of the forthcoming performances is the presence in the cast of English baritone Simon Keenlyside – a favourite at the House and a favourite with Susan Graham too, it seems. 'Simon and I have worked together for years and it's always a joy to see him again. We haven't worked together in a while and it was wonderful on the first day of rehearsals to come back in and pick up where we left off. He is so brilliant in this role. Simon has such depth and such a very vivid inner life. I watched him in rehearsal today; the whole opera is a mad scene for Oreste on one level, and Simon is also a little mad, so it works out very well! He's one of the people in our profession whom I admire the most because by doing little, he can do so much. The way that he sings something while staring blankly into space: you can see lifetimes going on in his head, and you suddenly realise that it's not a blank expression at all. And the sound of his voice is so rich and beautiful and expressive. In this music, that's key to the success of the performance.' "
The 2007 Gramophone Awards as reported in Gramophone magazine [can you spot Simon]
Simon is at the back, second from right
Simon has been nominated twice in the Gramophone Awards 2007:
Below, the announcement from Gramophone, October 2007, plus the three contenders in the two categories in which Simon is nominated
The votes are in, and we can now reveal the top three discs in each category to have made it to the finals of the 2007 Classic FM Gramophone Awards.
Each record company was able to nominate a proportion of its annual release, drawn from the eligible period of June 1, 2006 to May 31, 2007. The long list was whittled down to just six per category by specialist voting committees. Then any of our critics could opt into the Second Round and vote in each of the 15 categories. And that has produced this list of 45. As with last year, it's an impressive selection.
And from the looks of things, there will be some particularly hard-fought categories. Baroque Vocal, for instance, sees star names Rinaldo Alessandrini and Sir John Eliot Gardiner up against the comparatively little-known John Butt's surprise hit Messiah with the Dunedin Consort. Historic Archive has three magnificent issues - Flagstad and Furtwangler in Strauss, the legendary live Giulini Don Carlo and the closer to Joseph Keilberth's sensational Ring cycle. And the Recital category features three of today's most lauded singers - Nina Stem me, Anna Netrebko and Simon Keenlyside.
Almost everywhere there are tantalising duels, fascinating contrasts and above all great testaments to what has been an excellent year for recordings.
• The final results plus details of the artist awards will be revealed in the Awards issue of Gramophone, published on October 4. Don't forget to reserve your copy!
Photos of Simon and Angelika Kirchschlager, (from Beck/Sony BMG) featuring in Opernglas 7/8 2007
Seen on musicalcriticism.com: Rebecca Evans talks to Dominic McHugh
http://www.musicalcriticism.com/interviews/evans.htm
“…Pamina is absolutely my favourite role. It was such a joy to do it with the wonderful Simon Keenlyside in David McVicar’s beautiful production here at the Royal Opera – I think it’s my favourite production of the opera and we had an amazing cast here a couple of years ago. I recorded it with Simon and with Sir Charles Mackerras conducting. Simon is a sublime Papageno; he brings something to it that is heaven-sent...
“…The chance to fulfil one of my greatest ambitions just came up and I had to let it go. My ambition throughout my career since knowing Bryn [Terfel] has always been to sing Figaro with him. I was just invited to sing Susanna at the Met with Bryn doing his last-ever Figaro and Simon Keenlyside as the Count. And I was already booked to do something else, so I had to turn it down. I have wept so many tears over that because it was my absolute wish to have done that glorious piece with him – it would have been my last Susanna and his last Figaro. I can’t believe I couldn’t do it when it finally came around…”
Snippets from Musicalcriticism.com on the current revival of the ROH Don Giovanni
http://www.musicalcriticism.com/opera/roh-giovanni.htm
“…Although his [Erwin Schrott’s] voice is powerful and attractive, I was not remotely convinced by the way Schrott portrayed the character. There was no dignity or wit, such as one might find in Simon Keenlyside’s version of the Don, and he had such a blank expression and stark, pale, glam-rock face and hair that I was reminded, somewhat unfortunately, of Marilyn Manson (though this was partly the result of the production’s deliberate concept of sexual ambiguity).”
“…Ultimately, I think this production will never be wholly satisfactory. Even in the second cast of the original run, with Mackerras and Keenlyside involved, it left questions in the air. But there’s still plenty to enjoy here, and with Poplavskaya, there is the opportunity to hear a star in the making. Don’t miss it on the big screens in Covent Garden and around the country, on Wednesday night.”
Reported in the German press 18 June 2007
ECHO Klassik trophy
Simon is to be awarded the ECHO Klassik 2007 prize “Singer of the Year” for his CD “Tales of Opera”. The event, which is to be staged in Munich on 21 October, will be broadcast live on ZDF TV. Click here for more details and translations of the news story.
From MusicalCritisicm.com: Kyle Ketelsen talks to Dominic McHugh, 26 May 2007
http://www.musicalcriticism.com/interviews/ketelsen.htm
It’s been quite a year for Kyle Ketelsen. Since I interviewed him last June, he’s won rave reviews at the Royal Opera House for his portrayals of Figaro and Zoroastre (Orlando), provided one of the highlights of the Proms playing Leporello and Figaro opposite Simon Keenlyside’s Count and Don Giovanni, and sung Escamillo in the San Francisco Opera’s production of Carmen.
“…Giovanni is a difficult role because you can do it in so many different ways. Simon Keenlyside and Gerald Finley have it down perfectly. You watch them treat a scene in a special way and think, ‘I would never have thought to do it like that but it’s perfect…”
From the Bravo Cura fan site (http://kira.romeoandjuliet.net/kireannasweb/)
The Opera Rara Patric Schmid Bel Canto Prize, held in Duke's Hall, Royal Academy of Music 4 May 2007. The jury were José Cura, Sir Peter Moores, Patricia Bardon, Simon Keenlyside, Edward Gardner
1st Prize – Julia Sporsen - soprano
2nd Prize – Caryl Hughes – mezzo soprano
Other Finalists – Lan Wei – soprano; George von Bergen – baritone; Richard Rowe – tenor; Dong Jun Wang – baritone
Photos courtesy ofhttp://kira.romeoandjuliet.net/kireannasweb/
An extract from Mélisande and I, an interview with Angelika Kirchschlager on classicalsource.com
http://www.classicalsource.com/db_control/db_features.php?id=4469
… before we get down to discussing her role as Mélisande in Debussy’s remarkable opera Pelléas et Mélisande (Stanislas Nordey’s production new to Covent Garden has already been seen at the Salzburg Easter Festival with Simon Keenlyside and Angelika in the title roles). The side of Angelika’s work that stands in contrast to this is to be found in the Broadway songs she has recorded and in her stage appearances in such works as Die Fledermaus and The Merry Widow. I wonder if this stems from being Austrian but she laughs at this suggestion, not in order to deny it but to refer to her Pelléas in this context. “Simon (Keenlyside) is English you know, but he is even crazier about operetta than I am. But I really love it: there’s so much wonderful music there, music that makes us happy. It deserves singers of real ability because, different as it is from opera, it is in fact difficult to sing well. This autumn Simon and I will be doing a European tour providing an evening of operetta and we’ll probably follow that with an American tour. This country? Well, let’s first see how it works, how people respond.”
… “It’s an idea that comes into being when singers like one another and want to spend time together. I think that’s a good reason to start a duo recital, the simple fact that you like each other.”
From an interview with Zenaida Yanowsky in the April edition of
Dancing Times
Interviewer: How has your recent marriage affected you?
ZY: As a person definitely, so as an artist, I would think so; I certainly feel a real sense of well being. It is nice to have a
meeting point in the artistic world, and actually we do tend to think pretty much in the same way and we then go off into our own artistic forms. I know nothing about singing and he knows practically nothing about dancing, so I couldn't even say "oh, you sang the wrong note", which is very unlikely! I love seeing him on stage - there he isn't my husband but rather this wonderful stage creature. I'm a good audience for him!
Interviewer: But he can count your fouettes though!
ZY: That was his mum, who, after
Swan Lake, came up to me and said "thirty-two"!
From an interview with Ian Bostridge in Opera, May 2007
Bostridge is a great proselytizer for Britten. 'I've been trying to persuade Anna Netrebko to sing The Poet's Echo, and talking to Simon Keenlyside about transposing some of the tenor cycles down. I know this is music that is hugely popular and performed everywhere, but I still feel that in terms of style and interpretation, it needs opening up a bit.'
Extracts from an article in Opera Now, May/June 2007
Vox pop : Are the likes of Katherine Jenkins and Russell Watson really popularising opera, or merely presenting a shadow of what it actually has to offer? Mark Glanville gets cross over crossover
"Beyond all the blather about giving high culture a popular edge, the motivation behind all this, as you might expect, is money. Roberto Alagna's recording of Luis Mariano songs sold 300,000 copies in France, vastly more than the collections of operatic arias with which he would more naturally be associated. Katherine Jenkins topped that by selling 500,000 copies of her latest CD in the UK, while even her sales figures are dwarfed by the success of Andrea Bocelli who has sold a staggering 50 million CDs worldwide. Such is Bocelli's value to Universal Records that he has even been allowed to encroach on the hallowed territory of major operatic recordings, uniquely unqualified to do so in a field where every other artist has had to pay their dues on the operatic stage. 'You look at the UK classical music charts,' says Simon Keenlyside, 'and you'll find no voices that are singing on the major stages in the world. You tell me what that says. This is a classical music chart, and most people are not performing live in the theatre. Is it that they choose to ply their trade in the recording field and not the theatre? No it's just that they're not equipped for anything else. There's a whole half of the art form you're missing. I just think that's an odd situation.'"
"Should those of us who already appreciate the glories of opera worry that our enjoyment of the form will be affected by all this? What Simon Keenlyside and others fear is that microphone singers, perhaps with the help of pushy publicists and the avarice of opera houses, will begin to encroach on the operatic stage, compensating for their lack of ability to project with the euphemistically termed 'enhanced acoustic'. Indeed there are already examples of well-known singers from the classical world with limited vocal projection being aided in this way. 'It does happen. If I knew about it during a show, I would not go on,' claims Keenlyside. 'I know it's possible to do the old-fashioned craft without a mike. If we get to the state where we're miking opera in the theatre, we're really on a slippery slope, and I'm glad that I will not be singing by then. I'd rather be a gardener than do that.' The 'garden' of opera, Covent or otherwise, should be left to those who know how to cultivate it best."
Seen on Julius Drake's website
SK messing about in Barcelona
Advert for the forthcoming production of Pelléas et Mélisande at Covent Garden
(Sunday Times 22 April 2007)
Seen in an article on playbillarts.com
http://www.playbillarts.com/news/article/6314.html
"Each November the [Richard Tucker Music] Foundation presents the Richard Tucker Gala at Avery Fisher Hall. The 2007 Gala, to be held on November 4, will feature Renée Fleming, Bryn Terfel, Simon Keenlyside, Dolora Zajick, Marcello Giordani, Susan Graham, Diana Damrau, and Matthew Polenzani, among other artists.”
For more about the Richard Tucker Music Foundation click: http://www.richardtucker.org/
Seen in Classic FM Magazine (sadly omitting SK’s guest appearances on the CD!)
Simon's favorite recordings according to Sony, as published by the German weekly "Welt am Sonntag"
Franz Schubert String Quartet D956 - Aeolian String Quartet (Saga)
Franz Schubert Impromptu D 935, Clifford Curzon (Decca)
Johannes Brahms Violin Concerto, David Oistrach (DG)
Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony Nr. 7, Harnoncourt (Teldec)
Richard Wagner "Die Walkure", Erich Leinsdorf (Decca)
Claudio Villa "Big Night" from "Stornelli amorisi" (Edel)
Louis Armstrong "When the saints go marching in" (FA)
Fats Waller "You' re not the only oyster in the stew" (Jazz forever)
Amalia Rodriguez "Vou dar de beber a dor (Hemisphere)
Billie Holiday "God bless the child" ( Blue Moon)
From the "Clonter Opera Newsletter" from the Clonter Opera
Theatre,http://www.clonteropera.com/
A President for Clonter
With great delight we are able to announce that the international baritone Simon Keenlyside CBE, has agreed to be Clonter Opera's first President. He recently accepted this invitation, and recalled fond memories of his time at clonter in 1984 rehearsing and performing the role of the Count in The Marriage of Figaro. Simon was introduced to Clonter Opera by his teacher, John Cameron. John also recommended his friend Leonard Hancock who subsequently became Clonter's Musical Director, for the next 15 years. Simon still recalls Leonard's "wonderful and patient tuition", and also remembers the care he received from Jeffery Lockett's mother, Betty Bannerman, at the RNCM, "another highlight of my song education".
As many of our Clonter supporters will know, Simon is in great demand on the international opera and concert platform with dates in his diary well into 2010. Simon's recent performances include Count (Marriage of Figaro) and the title role in Don Giovanni at the Vienna State Opera. Simon will be in concert at the Bridgewater Hall,
Manchester at the end of April, and will sing the role of Pélleas in Pélleas et Melisande at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in May 2007.
An advert for Simon and Angelika's Operetta Concert in Munich, October 2007
SK will be adjudicating The Gold Medal of the Guildhall School of Music on Thursday 3rd May at the Barbican.
“The Gold Medal 2007, the Guildhall School of Music & Drama's premiere prize for exceptional soloists will be held at the Barbican Hall on Thursday 3 May at 7pm. Now in its 92nd year, the Gold Medal competition is for instrumentalists and singers who compete in alternate years for this illustrious prize.
This year sees four senior Guildhall singers compete in the final: Sophie Angebault (soprano), Katherine Broderick (soprano), Sara Gonzalez Saavedra (mezzo-soprano) and Benedict Nelson (baritone).
The distinguished panel of judges includes: soprano Dame Josephine Barstow who is acknowledged as a singing actress of first rank whose distinguished career has included acclaimed performances of Salome, Tosca, the Lady Macbeths of Verdi and Shostakovich as well as leading roles in the operas of Benjamin Britten; Hugh Canning, Music Critic for the Sunday Times; Damian Cranmer, Director of Music, Guildhall School; baritone Simon Keenlyside, one of the most sought after singers of his generation whose career highlights to date include his acclaimed Billy Budd and Prospero in the world premiere of Thomas Adès' 'The Tempest' at the Royal Opera House; Sir John Tusa, Managing Director of the Barbican since 1995.”
Classical Brit awards 2007
Simon Keenlyside has been nominated for singer of the year at the Classical Brit awards. Other contenders are Rolando Villazón and Anna Netrebko.
Extract from an interview with Philip Langridge for MusicOMH, March 2007
http://www.musicomh.com/classical_features/philip-langridge_0307.htm
…Langridge shows a good deal of generosity when talking about his fellow artists, those who inspired him such as the tenor Richard Lewis ("an enormous influence") as well as contemporary singers he works with. He cites Simon Keenleyside [sic] (currently working alongside him in The Tempest) as a "superb actor and singer, a wonderful artist" and Bryn Terfel (Wotan in Rheingold and Die Walküre) as a "fantastic" performer. Maybe his most heartfelt praise is for his wife, the mezzo Ann Murray: "She's the best; she can sing any time, day or night."
SK on ROH Spring Season booklet and posters
Click each photo for a larger image
Click below to hear Simon’s radio “jingles” for German station Klassikradio (with Holger Wemhoff).
http://www.klassikradio.de/programmuebersicht/
The translations are by Petra Habeth
Click here 
“Here is Simon Keenlyside and we all, pianists, violinists, conductors and singers, wish you a relaxing weekend with klassikradio."
Click here “Hello Holger, here is Hamlet, Don Giovanni or Wolfram. In truth, and you want true stories my name is Simon Keenlyside. I am a baritone and you will hear me on Klassikradio.”
Click here “I sung as a young man, a boy, in a famous choir in
Cambridge (St John’s College Choir), we sang everything and I remember that it was wonderful. Then I thought I do not know if my voice will be good enough but I can't think of anything else to do, I did not want anything else...” (“Good” Holger Wemhoff)
From a review in musicomh.com
http://www.musicomh.com/classical/tomlinson-winterreise_0207.htm
"John Tomlinson's eagerly awaited debut performance of Schubert's Winterreise was attended by the cream of British singers (such as Simon Keenlyside, Philip Langridge, Ann Murray and Joan Rodgers) and by many of Tomlinson's large number of fans."
Extracts from The English Chorister: a History, Alan Mould, published by Hambledon Continuum 2007 (cost £30). Chapter 16 Choristership pp 272-273
“In the 1970s, by which time there were no beatings and showers were warm, boarding from the age of eight at St John’s Cambridge left predominantly unhappy memories for baritone Simon Keenlyside* (*In Conversation with Iain Burnside, Radio 3, 2004).
In Simon Keenlyside’s case the legacy was a deep admiration for a choirmaster for whom nothing less than the very best would do and the undying thrill of singing in a choir animated by George Guest.”
“…Above all, in their multitudes there are distinguished musicians. Here are a few, by way of illustration… Jeremy Backhouse, Howard Goodall and Simon Keenlyside already mentioned”
From the BBC website
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/6275917.stm
Photos from the Royal Opera House exhibition celebrating 60 years at Covent Garden, on display in the Amphiteatre foyer: The last photo is SK as Prospero in Thomas Ades's Tempest.
From the Observer, Dec 10, 2006
“Can't decide how to fill your nearest and dearest's stockings this year? Our film, music and games critics prescribe the perfect DVDs, CDs and computer games for everyone from culture buffs to footie fans”. One of Anthony Holden's choices for his friend Jenny Lake. “Women melt over British baritone Simon Keenlyside, who stars in Harmonia Mundi's DVD of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo (£ 29.49) performed at La Monnaie in Brussels, under the baton of the incomparable Rene Jacobs.“
Heard on Classic FM Newsnight with John Brunning, 24 November 2006
JB “Jane Jones is doing a bit of moonlighting, but it’s all in a good cause, she’s hosting [?] a gala concert in aid of English National opera’s Benevolent Fund. It’s a star-studded event featuring artists like Sir Thomas Allen, Amanda Roocroft, Dame Felicity Lott and bass[?]-baritone Simon Keenlyside to name but four. Simon says he’s really looking forward to taking part and doing what he loves best.
SK “It’s not fashionable, among singers even, to talk about singing. I am crazy about singing and I love singing – it’s not the only thing in my life but I adore this old fashioned art. I don’t want to reach everybody, I don’t have any burning desire to bash people over the head and say ‘You must do this and you must hear this. You must feel this way’. But to me, I’m still now as I was as a student about how one note links to another, what colour is…”
JB “And that opera gala concert in aid of English National Opera’s Benevolent Fund is on Sunday evening at the home of English National Opera at St Martin’s Lane in London…”
Anna Picard reviews the best recordings of Winterreise. Bloomberg, 23 November 2006
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=email_en&refer=muse&sid=a3Lb.v1xMdCY
"...Of all the lieder singers I have heard, Baer makes the letters that normally interrupt sound really sing. To hear him place a double ``S'' just so is to be spellbound. Passionate yet never reckless, authoritative yet intimate, and conveying a sense of continuance beyond the last song, this would be my ultimate ``Winterreise.'' At least, until Simon Keenlyside records it."
SK writes...
From a programme at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, October 2006.
Support the return of the Royal Opera’s production of The Tempest by Thomas Adès (contact david.spinola@roh.org.uk).
“Some months before the start of rehearsals for Thomas Adès’s new opera The Tempest, he played me what he had to date composed for the baritone. I was nervous! A singer is skating on thin ice when he asks a composer to write music that will make him come off stage smelling of roses. It’s an uncomfortable request to make. Tom’s music for that first scene was insistent, text-driven, dramatic and utterly fascinating. I was bowled over. We singers want to serve the music as best we can, but that can only happen if the range is, broadly speaking, within our vocal compass.
I marvel at the writing of the character of Ariel. The music is a novel and absurdly virtuosic as the startling arias that Mozart wrote for the Queen of the Night in his Magic Flute, there is nothing in the vocal repertory that sounds anything like it. The opera is a great work. And what right have I to say that? I’m no arbiter of quality. But I suppose I can say that it doesn’t take greatness to know greatness, and that singers from previous generations knew well that they were dealing with great works of art.
Listening to Adès’s Tempest unfurl, piece by wonderful piece, before my ears was one of the most exciting musical adventures that I have been privileged to be a part of.”
Simon Keenlyside, September 2006
(See “The Tempest” page for more details of this production.)
Click here for
From the magazine "Spotlight" aimed at German-language speakers wanting to learn English, October 2006
Bryn Terfel, interviewed in BBC Music Magazine, October 2006
“I don’t consider myself a Don Giovanni; I’m happy leaving that to the Simon Keenlysides of the world.”
Seen in the Times "Make my day: Friday", 7 October 2006
Spotted in the Guardian, 22 September 2006
Seen among the House of Commons publications
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmedm/60308e01.htm
Wednesday 8 March 2006
‘Early Day Motion’ 1721
That this House congratulates English National Opera (ENO) for winning both categories at the 2006 Laurence Olivier Awards for Best New Opera Production of Madam Butterfly and for Simon Keenlyside's Outstanding Achievement in Opera performance in the title role of ENO's Billy Budd as well as in the Royal Opera House's 1984…
Melanie Eskenazi chose ENO Billy Budd as her Seen and Heard “Concert of the year 2005” http://www.musicweb.uk.net/SandH/2006/Jan-Jun06/coty_2005.html
“unquestionably my musical event of the year”
“…the ENO stages a hugely ambitious production of one of the greatest of all 20th century operas, by a great British composer, casts it from tremendous strength with a mostly British cast, and pulls off a notable triumph.”
From the Telegraph Arts Supplement (31December 2005) entitled "My New Year's revolutions". 
Excerpts from the Telegraph (24 December 2005). Rupert Christiansen writes his Review of Opera in 2005
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2005/12/24/btopera24.xml
On the ENO:
“Two great baritones gave terrific performances: Simon Keenlyside as Billy Budd and Gerald Finley as Eugene Onegin.”
On the Royal Opera House:
“… I thought my colleagues were hard on Lorin Maazel's 1984, which provided effective musical theatre in an imaginative staging by Robert Lepage, but I don't suppose it will ever be heard again.”
“The heights worthy of an international opera house were hit three times - in Rigoletto with Rolando Villazón and Dmitri Hvorostovsky, in Die Walküre with Waltraud Meier, Bryn Terfel and Placido Domingo, and in the thrilling concert performance of Donizetti's Dom Sébastien, authoritatively conducted by Mark Elder.”
Excerpts from an article, The modest maestro, about Charles Mackerras in The Guardian by Stephen Moss, August 20, 2005
http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,,1552655,00.html
”…a conductor devoted, as baritone Simon Keenlyside puts it, to making great music rather than a great career.”
"Are the big music directorships the mark of a great career?" asks baritone Simon Keenlyside, who has worked frequently with Mackerras over the past few years. "Or are they the mark of a great marketed career? Perhaps if he'd done those jobs, he wouldn't have had time for the Janacek scholarship. He's got a very broad base, and I like that."
"Charles may seem brusque", explains Simon Keenlyside, "but what he's waiting for is you to present him with things and to be able to deliver them. If you can't deliver them, then it'll be irritating to him and he will steamroller you. His ideas are fabulous and he's very generous with his music-making, but you have to be on top of things at all times".
Excerpt by SK from “The Experts’ Expert – Baritones”, The Gramophone, August 2005.
It's 'horses for courses' really. In German song repertoire I wouldn't choose any of my favourite soundsmiths, such as Tagliabue, De Luca, Amato, Merrill or Zanelli. Nor, in Italian opera, would I choose wonderful Lieder singers such as Rusch, Dieskau, Fassbander (Willi-dom), or Schlusnus. All in all, I think the greatest singers have to have embraced opera. They have risked more, failed more often, understand compromise and, as a result, have a better grasp of vocal colour and so of meaningful communication. The one, then, that has given me the most all-round enjoyment (even without German or French song in his world) is Tito Gobbi.
Excerpt by Christopher Maltman from “The Experts’ Expert – Baritones”, The Gramophone, August 2005.
I was lucky enough to hear Fischer-Dieskau live when I was 17, and shall always remember it. He represents all that I aspire to as an artist. He has voice, intelligence, unflinching musicality and a kind of crossborder versatility that allows him to bring these gifts to bear on all music, regardless of allegiance to stage, concert hall or recital platform. Fortunately we don't need to look backwards in time to find others who display these virtues. The likes of Sir Thomas Allen, Simon Keenlyside, Bryn Terfel and Thomas Hampson give me constant pleasure and food for thought.
Excerpt from an interview with baritone Matthew Rose by Michael Church, The Independent 24 May 2005 http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/music/features/article222985.ece
“… he [Rose] joined Covent Garden's Vilar scheme, and began to tread the boards with his heroes Simon Keenlyside and Bryn Terfel. What has that taught him? "Economy and efficiency. No superfluous movement, just enough to communicate what you're feeling at the time."
Seen in the Sunday Telegraph, late 2003. Simon was one of several people asked to choose their performance of the year.
“Like every great actor, Simon Russell Beale speaks as if he were making up the text on the spot. In Jumpers at the National Theatre, sometimes he impishly raced through Stoppard's complexities, no doubt for the sheer joy of the unsettling effect that has on us the audience, and other times it was only the weighting of a pause and his gimlet looks that punctuated his intentions. No flashy tricks, just a wonderful cast and Stoppard's language.”
Excerpts from Opera News, August 2003
Songs for Low Voice
Stephen Francis Vasta takes an up-close look at the virtues and vices of nine top lieder baritones
“What I've heard of the contributions of another Brit, Simon Keenlyside, to Hyperion's Schumann edition is most impressive. His clean, handsome sound stays more consistently focused than Terfel's and is more mobile as well (for example, in the Drei Gedichte von Emanuel Geibel). Keenlyside commands a wide dynamic range efficiently: his gently touched piano loses color as it ascends ("An die Türen"), but he can exploit in-between levels to express the emotional ambivalence of "Erstes Grün," and to shape vividly the peculiar narrative of "Die Löwenbraut." He is equally at home in the extroverted, ringy Vier Husarenlieder and the fervent, contained eloquence of "Stille Liebe." Only a tendency for his narrow focus to become a constricted snarl at the bottom -- especially noticeable in the repeated low Gs at "in ihrem," in the last of the Husarenlieder -- distracts from Keenlyside's otherwise polished, communicative work.”
“If we were to take, say, Fischer-Dieskau at midlife as a paradigmatic exponent of the lied -- not a bad standard in any event -- none of the current crop of lied baritones, by the recorded evidence, quite reaches that ideal, but each of them approaches it from his own peculiar strengths. Terfel's vocal sweep and impact, Keenlyside's point and intelligence, Quasthoff and Finley's freedom to vary and blend their timbral palettes -- all illuminate distinctive and diverse aspects of their material. Even those singers battling more obvious shortcomings have much to offer: Skovhus and Goerne make the best use out of their dark, burnished instruments; Holzmair, operating within potentially crippling technical limits, calibrates textual nuance to perhaps the finest degree. All in all, with this variety from which to choose, heady times lie ahead for the German art song.”
Angelika Kirchschlager on SK, and SK on Angelika Kirchschlager
Extract from Angelika’s Art, an interview with Angelika Kirchschlager for Opera News, May 2003
http://www.metoperafamily.org/operanews/_archive/503/Angelikasart.503.html
“…And she has perhaps the rarest of gifts in both singers and actors: she knows how to listen. This quality was revealed in a joint recital of German lieder she performed with baritone Simon Keenlyside at the Salzburg Festival in August 2002. In songs such as Wolf's "Bei einer Trauung," she showed a rare degree of responsiveness to her stage partner. "That's the most exciting thing about music," she says. "You just stand next to each other and feel it, you know? It's like when you jump out of a plane, and you are connected, and you only have one parachute. Whatever you do, when you start from the first note, you connect, and no matter what one does, the other will follow."
Keenlyside is a favorite colleague of Kirchschlager's. Their friendship dates back to a B-minor Mass in Rome under Riccardo Muti, which was followed by Le Nozze di Figaro at the Vienna Staatsoper. "Whilst we were doing that," recalls Keenlyside, "I went to hear her sing a liederabend, and I was knocked silly by it. Everything I admired -- lots of colors, a nice wide palette and simple delivery. No nonsense. I thought, 'If I'm going to sing recitals with her, I'm going to have to be on the ball. We've been friends for years, but just being friends isn't going to help me!' So I went to her and said, 'I'm nervous about our friendship.' She was so upset by that, the next day she summoned me to a restaurant and said, 'What did you mean when you said you think our friendship is not going to work?' So I told her I wanted to do something with her. And that was it."
In a New York Sunday Times article about Natalie Dessay where they mention her Ophelie to SK's Hamlet
“The English baritone Simon Keenlyside, who took the title role, says he regards Ms Dessay as "one of those artists that it is sort of unnecessary to deconstruct." "What unzips you" he added, "is something to do with the terrific voice but also with economy of movement. Anything she does onstage not only reads clearly but supports and amplifies what she's expressing with her voice."
Excerpt from an article by Jim O'Quinn "Best Director Nominations - Top singers of today and yesterday pick their favourite régisseurs" in Opera News, June 2000.
Simon Keenlyside:
"Some of the most interesting theatrical experiences I've had have been not with directors but with actors who've just come into the theater, or even assistants, people whose neck is on the line. It's those people who make things interesting, not the famous ones. There have been two French directors whom I've worked with quite recently and have found most influential - Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier. I did Thomas's Hamlet and Pelléas et Mélisande with them in Geneva and at Covent Garden. You have to have a set, of course, and a production, but these directors didn't fill their productions with frilly stuff. They were concerned with what's happening onstage and how we could fill it up, not in how many pretty pictures we could make. Both times working with them it's been a bit like holding a spider's web: there haven't been lots of things to hide behind, which I was once prone to do. I'd do anything rather than stand and focus on something. I'd hide behind juggling or fancy trickery. But not with these directors. They come at you like two terriers at your ankles."
SK on the Peter Moores Foundation
http://www.pmf.org.uk/pag_scholars.php
'You jump-started me at the very beginning of my career, helping me through college… not only me, there were at least a dozen other singers of my generation who … as a result of your generosity had the privilege to study with this or that maestro in Europe and the USA.'