BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
January the 30th, 1954, a baby with the name Jochen was born. He was the Kowalskis' youngest son, the little one,
arriving after his brother Gerhard (now a journalist in Berlin) and
Reinhard (who eventually overtook his parents' business). The future opera star
spent his childhood and youth in Wachow, a small
village near Brandenburg (Germany), where his parents managed a butcher's shop.
They were great music fans, above all, operettas moved them often to tears.
The mother presented her voice, which Kowalski describes as warm-hearted and
very clear, in the village's church. According to Kowalski this made
evident whom he owes his voice and his musical talents.
In the film portrait 'Verwirrung und Entzücken - Der
Stimmzauber des Jochen Kowalski' (Confusion and Charm - Jochen Kowalski's
Enchantement of His Voice) by 3sat and the German TV channel
ZDF (1996, author Jutta Louise
Oechler) Kowalski is telling amusing anecdotes of his time in the Mark
Brandenburg. - They are giving the impression of a guarded childhood in an
idyllic borough. In one of them the parents' butcher's shop plays a decisive role:
| |
After having received a gramophone from his parents, Kowalski got
in contact with the opera for the first time. He started exercising in the
slaughter-house of the butcher's shop, because he considered the acoustics as
being just sufficient for his art of singing. - He has been singing everything that was coming
to his ears unconsiderate of voice type or grade of difficulty, by
preference, when the parents were not at home, and he could feel himself
undisturbed. It was much later that he noticed that the acoustics of the
slaughter-house had exceeded all the expectations and that all the neighbours
had been included in the musical effusions of the teenager. The neighbours commented
the persevering exercising with a smile: ah, Jochen's singing again!
|
|
Following this story, the neighbours of the butcher's shop
in Wachow were probably the ones who had first the pleasure of listening to the
voice of today's famous alto singer. Whether they
foresaw the career of their 'noisy' neighbours' son, though can be doubted. But to Kowalski
it was always clear that one day he wanted to become a great singer. In a
romantic way, he nowadays tells us how he had repeated this wish again and again
watching the falling stars when sitting in front of the village's pond.
In the age of eighteen Jochen Kowalski left his idyllic but
narrow village. He could only look back at a modest career in the school's choir
but his goal was clear. After a performance of Lohengrin
at the Deutsche Staatsoper Unter den Linden zu Berlin at the latest,
Kowalski's resolution was certain: I want to go to the opera. He started at quite
a low level in the truest sense of the word, namely in the requisite cellar at the
Opera House Unter den Linden. As a secret observer of the daily opera work, he learned from the very beginning what opera is all about.
Henceforth, he began to dream up a great scene entering the stage as a heroic tenor in a silver
armour on a white swan, in front of a blue horizon. The plan with
the tenor didn't work out - to start with the
conservatoire 'Hanns Eisler' in Berlin refused him. When at last he got the admission his
studies were rather tormenting (1977-1983). They became extended for a year and still Kowalski couldn't prove to be a good tenor.
What became clear only in a private lessons with Marianne Fischer-Kupfer - Kowalski was an alto.
| |
From an album of airs Kowalski chose the Largo Ombra mai
fu (Haendel, Xerxes) in order to perform it to Mrs Fischer-Kupfer.
After initial protests of the teacher - the air was meant to be for
a baritone in this setting - Kowalski courageously striked up with the Largo and took away
the breath of Mrs Fischer-Kupferwith his 'Haendelian' voice. After having sung the last note Mrs Fischer-Kupfer banged the piano,
embraced the young singer and sealed his further destiny: Your Wagner is now Haendel. - she said.
|
|
And so Kowalski did not continue with what he had started as an
apprentice in Wagners Meistersänger von Nürnberg
(1981) at the Komische Oper Berlin. Nevertheless, tenors as
Fritz Wunderlich and Richard Tauber are still his idols
up until today.
1982 - the existence of the Berlin alto-singer must have come to the ears of the
people in Halle/Saale. Somehow, Kowalski got an invitation for an audition for
the Haendel Festival. It followed a 'crash-course' in baroque singing and the
performance in Muzio Scaevola (Haendel, Mattei, Bononcini) some months
later.
Later on the Kupfer's sealed Kowalski's destiny just another time. Now
it was the successful stage director Harry Kupfer who recruited Kowalski from
Halle to the Komische Oper (1983). What a good luck for the self-confident young
alto, for whom it was already clear that Old Music should not become the
one and only thing for him. Kupfer very much met this understanding and did not fix
Kowalski to baroque music from the very beginning on. After having passed the
exams with the role of Didimus in Haendel's
Theodora (Halle), Kowalski gave his debut with the mezzo-soprano part of
the Fjodor in Boris Godunow (Mussorgski) at the Komische
Oper Berlin. In 1984 the title-role of Haendel's Guistino followed. The
affecting opera of the peasant's hero became a huge success, and more than hundred performances (some of them with Axel
Köhler as Guistino) have been given.
At this moment at the latest it became clear that the falling stars had met their
call and fulfilled the secret wish of a teenager who had
been sitting at a camp fire in Wachow years ago. However, as often in life the wishing person was
outwitted. In this case it was the uncommon voice - Kowalski is not
singing with a falseto voice but his high voice type is natural. With this he has
not entirely come to terms up till now, he says. And this is
not fishing for compliments as he emphasizes again and again. He
became a singer and an 'exoticum' and as such he was courted in the
narrow-minded petty bourgoisie of the former German Democratic Republic.
(Obligate) TV-performances followed in all 'big' shows of GDR
television. But this had something very good as well. Kowalski managed to fix contracts with Western opera houses which allowed him
other than most of East German people to travel. Axel Köhler, Kowalski's singer
colleague at the Komische Oper, decided for a
counter tenor career not least for that reason. In 1985, Kowalski went for an
engagement to the Hamburgische Staatsoper. It was his first trip into a strange
and unknown world.
| |
Kowalski was extremely impressed by the shop-window puppets on
his way to a Hamburg hotel. They were of unknown elegance and modernity. During
the following days lots of new impressions rushed at him and he did not
feel being able to working and concentrating at all. When
attending a performance in the State Opera House for the first time he could only be
surprised about the other visitors appearance. 'They all looked like as if they would be from the
Stern or the Bunte.' Kowalski was so ashamed
about his GDR-outfit that he kept himself locked in the lavatory up until the
end of the intervall. Then he left the Opera-House unseen.
Back at home in Berlin he lay on his sofa like paralyzed for days and
stared at the ceiling. Nevertheless, Kowalski would have never stayed in the West. And he
knew that from the very first day on.
|
|
Irony of destiny that the West came to him and in a way he even contributed to this a bit.
When in 1989 it urged a
part of the GDR-population for protests into the churches, Kowalski was
close by, too. 'That you have only once in life to be part of it in such a time.' - He says. (Filmporträt
ZDF/3sat)
| |
The festive act on the occasion of the 40th Anniversary of the GDR
took place in the Palace of the Republic in Berlin in October 1989. The
resistance had already formed up in front of the Palace's doors. Kowalski was also
conscripted for the show. Not being willing to perform for the disliked heads of the state the artists choose
one guest in the audience for whom the performance seemed to be worth while. The choice was not
difficult and fell on Michail Gorbatchev who attended the event together with his wife Raisa. The
horrible news after the first 'number': Gorbatchev had left. Kowalski was so
deeply shocked that he - only a shadow of himself - went on singing his
Haendel aria. Setting in too early and he ruined the air what
made him coming to 'undeserved' honours as this was seen as an act of protest afterwards.
The truth, however was: at this moment Jochen Kowalski was so little a singer and so much a
deeply touched East German that it all was the same to him.
|
|
35 years as an 'Ossi' (how the people of the former
GDR are called) and 18 years spent in a small village made Jochen Kowalski to that what he
is. 'One cannot shake his origin off, and I don't want do so anyhow.'
(Filmporträt ZDF/3sat) The son of a butcher brought up in the small village Wachow
stands to that with an admirable consistence. This is his life which he had
shared with 17 million people: 'I belong to them.' (Filmporträt
ZDF/3sat)
Kowalski mastered the transformation of East Germany well. For numerous
of successful GDR-artists it was the end of their career. Kowalski's career has not been damaged
- on the contrary. In 1994 Jochen Kowalsski was appointed a Berlin
Chamber-Singer. Plenty of CDs
(Soloists and Samplers) have been released by now and even videotapes and TV-broadcasts of several operas have been produced.
He won fans from all over the world. Guest performances make
him touring throughout Europe and to the Far East to Taiwan and above all to Japan
where they lovingly call him Mr Kowa-chan. In result of the
TV-broadcasting of Die Fledermaus by Strauß at the Vienna
Opera in 1994 Kowalski became very popular in Japan and it is there where he
probably has the largest and faithfullest fan-community. But Kowalski never became pretentious,
stayed 'normal' and in Berlin, where the Komische Oper is offering him a
home.
Here he can regularly be seen in his favourite role: Orfeo in Gluck's
Orfeo ed Euridice. It is Kowalskis dream role. The production by Harry
Kupfer (1987) became a world success and has been awarded several times. Kowalski
sings the Orfeo with all his devotion - even in the 100th
performance.
The wide spectrum of his skill became something like Kowalski's brandmark.
He cannot put into one shelf with the type of a stiff and specialised singer.
Kowalski is always looking for challenges and goes new ways. At the
risk of going astray he draws his lines. His repertory reaches from Haendel upon Schubert to the
profane hits of the twentieths and thirties and is not even limited to
music. Excursions to the role of a Show Master are proving this.
Together with Michael Barlett, Kowalski produced the documentation 'Engel wider Willen' (Reluctant Angels)
which tells about the phenomenon of castrato singers. In 1997 he and Senta
Berger were the Show Masters at the Gala for the 'Echo-Classic-Award' broadcasted on TV
(ZDF - Second German TV-Channel). Kowalski is always good for experiments. However, he is
drawing lines, nevertheless. He even refused roles like
Farinelli in Farinelli oder die Macht des Gesangs
(Farinelli or the Power of Singing) by Siegried Matthus. His argument: Nobody
can do justice to Farinelli's singing today. Female roles are out of the
debate for the alto, as well.
Kowalski was the first Alto-Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus (J.
Strauß). He gave the decadent Russian at the New York
Metropolitan
Opera in 1994 and 1995.
| |
In 1994 Kowalski was heard at the Met for the first time. The New
Yorkers, actually known as trendsetters and innovators, were surprised about the
(old) novelty of such a voice. So Kowalski had to cope with a peal of laughter before the else common ovations fell to his
share. Today the 'Kowalski-Orlofsky' is cult in New
York and one can almost get the impression, overseas an
avalanche has been set free resulting in a number of young counter tenors
like Derek Lee Ragin, Brian Asawa, David Daniels and so on.
|
|
The Oberon in Britten's A Midsummer Nights
Dream (season 1996/97) at the Met was a further milestone in Kowalski's
career. This is particularly because one can get the impression that this role has
become the crucial test for young counter tenors at the Met by now.
Kowalski did not even give the avantgarde a snub. Rolf Liebermann
wanted him as the seductive Kreon in his tragedy Freispruch
für Medea (Absolution for Medea; Hamburgische Staatsoper, 1995) and he
was filled with enthusiasm about Kowalski's performance. A satire was to follow
- the title-part written for Kowalski.
Kowalski loves
Fritz Wunderlich, the great German tenor of the sixties, and
and tries to reach his idol in several ways. The Lied-cycle Die Schöne
Müllerin (Schubert), which has been performed by Kowalski for the first time in
1994, is one of the increasing Liederabend-programmes.
Wunderlich is Kowalski's idol. 'I listen to his Schöne Müllerin with the pianist
Hubert Giesen sometimes twice a week. It is so noble, so wholeheartedly
without all tittle-tattle. He directly hits my
heart, my head, the soul of the listener.' (Boris Kehrmann
"Ich bin verrückt nach Melodien, Jochen Kowalski - ein
Porträt" in Opernwelt, April 1997, p. 27) - A clue to what is
Kowalski's objective is unexpectedly found there - singing the people
into the heart - that is Kowalski's aim.
The world-star confessed to Roger Willemsen, the German Talk Master of the
talkshow 'Willemsens Woche', in 1996 that he would not feel like listening to his own
recordings. The only role he could stand is the Orfeo. It is to be hoped that
this has nothing to do with the high range of his voice but with the perfectionism that he has inherited from his parents.
In addition to that they also gave him an inner strength, a calmness and
repose that he would not want to miss Kowalski tells us in the TV-portrait.
Kowalski's credo is: ''One must not take everything seriously, above all not
oneself', he says with a smile on his face. And in proof of this, he takes a
promotion-display of the Komische Oper that is (...) showing him. 'I can pull
my leg by myself.'' (Barbara Jänichen, "Ein Sänger, der sich
selbst auf den Arm nimmt" in Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung, 17. August
1997)
The cinema is Kowalski's second great passion. Above all, old Ufa-movies
(German movie-company founded before the 2. World War) are his hobby-horse and
he praises to the skies the everlasting Marika Rökk. In 'B fragt ...' (B
is asking ... - a talkshow of the German TV-Channel
WDR) Kowalski does not only
surprise the woman-Talk Master, but also the Ufa-actress Carola Höhn with
his detailed knowledge on every mentioned movie (transmission 21st March,
1997).
| |
As it is difficult to get hold of videos of old
Ufa-Classics in Germany, Kowalski bought himself a DVD Player while touring through Japan together with a collection of
German movie-classics . The hook: Japanese captions.
|
|
On the top point of his career Kowalski wishes at some point to be able to
play in a (good) musical in New York. - Who knows, it might happen ...
Finally let's whish that performances at the Komische Oper, in Berlin, in foreign countries,
recordings, newspaper interviews, talkshows, perhaps filmcasts or
casts on TV, the musical, fun events, autograph hours, meetings with fans,
smiling for photographs, and so on
never may
 .
|
