Frederick Keel News
British singer-songwriter
Commemorations 2024 (Death: Frederick Keel)
- baritone
- United Kingdom, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
- singer, singer-songwriter, composer, musicologist, music teacher
Last update
2024-04-25
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2024-02-06 08:59:00
Clarity of musical purpose & remarkable intimacy: Regents Opera in Wagner's Siegfried
[…] emotional range from driven rage and confusion, through bewildered anguish and triumph to final radiant, ardent yearning. Perhaps he began to seem a little tired, a little hooty, towards the middle of Act 3, as he faced off against Wotan, but his energy and power returned, fully renewed, once he emerged through the clouds to the heights of the final scene to encounter Brünnhilde.Stepping into the godly shoes of the late and very much missed Keel Watson (who excelled in this role in the previous two instalments of Regents Opera's Ring, and to who's memory this performance was dedicated) veteran Wagnerian Ralf Lukas was a commanding and powerful presence as Wanderer (the disguised god Wotan). Both vocally and physically he wonderfully encapsulated Wotan's gradual transformation from the confident, domineering sovereign of Act 1, to the defeated, despondent outcast he is reduced to by the middle of the third act. Watson […]
2024-01-01 11:16:00
A time to look back
The late Keel Watson as Wotan in Wagner's Die Walküre with Regents Opera in 2023 (Photo: Steve GregsonNew Year is always a time to look back and remember. 2023 saw us publishing 627 articles, from our review of the Dunedin Consort's 2022 New Year's Eve concert at Wigmore Hall to our note about Adam Whitmore and Phoenix Consort's crowdfunding for their debut disc of music by Alex Campkin. A total of 70 opera reviews, over 80 concert reviews, and over 40 interviews. You can explore further in our recently updated archives of live reviews, record reviews, and interviews.Overseas events that we covered included Le piano symphonique festival in Lucerne, Britten's Peter Grimes in Paris, Handel's Saul at the Komische Oper Berlin, Christoph Loy's production of Zandonai's Francesca da Rimini at Deutsche Oper Berlin, Carmen at Oper im Steinbruch in Austria, the launch of the Dresden Music Festival's historically informed Ring cycle with […]
2023-11-27 12:11:00
Pegasus Opera pays tribute to Keel Watson
Keel Watson as Falstaff with Regents Opera in 2015 Pegasus Opera will be paying tribute to Keel Watson as part of the Pegasus Caribbean Christmas Concert on 21 December 2023 at St John the Divine Church, SW9 6JA. The company is inviting any singers who knew him and are available to come and join them in a rousing chorus of Oh Lawd I'm on my way from Gerswhin's Porgy and Bess. (contact [email protected] for details).Keel Watson was a friend of Pegasus Opera from the beginning. He was instrumental in the company's inaugural concerts and operas, including performing a stellar Falstaff in 1997. He also served as a mentor in every year of Pegasus' Mentorship Programme, including this year.Masimba Ushe, bass, and Keel Watson's most recent mentee said of him, "I first met Keel on a train late one evening. He was on his way home after a performance. We were sitting […]
2023-11-15 16:05:26
Versatile opera singer who could move effortlessly between Wagner and Alice’s Adventures in WonderlandA commanding presence on the operatic scene, the bass-baritone Keel Watson, who has died suddenly aged 59, could modulate effortlessly between an imperious Wotan, the ruler of the gods in Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung (Regents Opera), and an amusingly indolent Caterpillar, dressed in shimmering green robes, in Will Todd’s family opera Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Opera Holland Park). In both, his excellent diction, sonorous tone and exceptionally engaging stage presence served him in good stead.The genial Hans Sachs was another Wagner role that suited him well, but he was also as convincing as a terrifyingly irascible King Philip in Verdi’s Don Carlo as he was a likable Papageno in The Magic Flute. He came to prominence in a series of appearances in the late 1990s, most notably in Mark-Anthony Turnage’s chamber opera The Country of the Blind, […]
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