Aksel Schiotz – Operatic Tenor

Born: 1906
Died: 1975
Danish tenor.

A singer for the connoisseur was the Danish tenor Aksel Schiotz  1906 to 1975.

He studied languages at Copenhagen University and then singing with various teachers including John Forsl of the Swedish baritone.
After eight years of study, he made his professional debut in concerts in 1938 and in 1939 at the Royal Opera Copenhagen as Mozart’s Ferrando, singing Faust there the following year.
He refused to sing publicly during the German occupation, but gave recitals in secret for the resistance workers.
In 1945, he toured Sweden and Norway and broadcast for the BBC. He shared the role of male chorus with Peter Pears in the premiere of Britain’s Rape of Lucretia at Gleinboden in 1946.

In 1948, he toured North America, and the following year he appeared at the Edinburgh Festival. In 1950, a brain tumor brought his career to an abrupt halt. With great fortitude, he learned to speak and sing once more, and for a while resumed his career, but as a baritone.
He was Professor of Voice at the Universities of Minnesota, 1955-58. Toronto 1958-61 and Colorado 1961-1968.
In 1968 he became a professor at the Royal Danish School of Educational Studies and was knighted in 1947.

John Steen describes him as one of the most musical and tasteful of singers to record in the last years of the 78.
His interests extended to Buxtapude, Dowland and Nielsen, well as Bach, Mozart and the Liederwriters, his recording of Dieter Lieber being typically pleasing and unostentatious. But it is to Mozart that we turn to hear him now.

From the Seraglio. The first act area, “this is where I shall find you”, sung by Belmonte outside the house of Pasha Selim where he believes his beloved Prince Tansa is a captive.

And a serenade from act three, sung by Pedrillo, to his love, Prince Tansa’s English maid.