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The German bass-baritone and opera adminstrator, George Heckel, was born in Saarbrücken, and grew up in Aachen. Already during his school years he was accepted as a young student to study singing with Claudio Nicolai at the Musikhochschule Köln. Then he studied musicology and Germanistik at the University of Cologne. In parallel, he received in the course of participation in the Cologne Opera productions encouragements from Willy Decker, Jean-Pierre Ponnelle and Harry Kupfer. Finally, he began to study singing at the Musikhochschule Freiburg, joined the class of Aldo Baldin at the Musikhochschule Karlsruhe and after the sudden death of his teacher in 1994, Heckel completed his training at the Musikhochschule Köln. He deepened his training through private lessons with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and master-classes with, among others, Sena Jurinac, Charles Spencer, Vera Rozsa, Kurt Moll, Renata Scotto and Cristof Loy. He was twice scholarship holder of the Richard-Wagner-Verbandes Bayreuth.
Already during his studies George Heckel sang as a guest at the opera houses of Basel, Freiburg and Leipzig. Following his studies, he was engaged at the Kammeroper Schloss Rheinsberg, Landestheater Coburg and the Opernstudio of the Cologne Opera. Guest contracts led him to Cosenza and Palermo, where he appeared as Schulze in Schubert's Die Zwillingsbrüder (Italian critic prize), and as Don Alfonso in the Mozart's Cosi fan tutte in Baden-Baden. He appeared as a guest also in Erfurt, Freiburg, Basel and Leipzig. There he worked inter alia along with Donald Runnicles, Graeme Jenkins, Peter Maag, Ruth Berghaus, Andreas Homoki and Uwe Wand . In the 2001 season he was engaged at the Landestheater Coburg, where he could be seen in Tannhäuser, Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor and Der Liebestrank. In the 2004-2005 season he appeared in Tosca, Männer, Lulu and as Baron Weis in Der Vogelhändler, in his first Fidelio and in Das Land des Lächelns.
George Heckel studied insights into the work of artistic production, at the Cologne Opera, Kammeroper Schloss Rheinsberg, Theater Nordhausen and Staatstheater Kassel. In parallel to his stage work, he completed a career-long studies in cultural management at the University of Hagen. Heckel was a member of the jury in the final round of the International Singing Competition Competizione dell'Opera in Dresden and is a board member of the "International Summer of Architecture Darmstadt/RheinMain".
In 2006 Georg Heckel finished his career as an active singer and moved to opera administration. In 2006 he became a dispatcher at the Staatstheater Darmstadt. In 2007 he became chief planner; in 2008 he moved to the position of Director of Artistic Administration. Since the beginning of
2010-2011 season he also holds the position of the Opera Director. |
