Beno Blachut

Beno Blachut (14 June 1913 - 10 January 1985) was a lauded Czech operatic tenor. An icon in his own nation, Blachut drew international acclaim through his many commercial recordings of Czech music. He was an instrumental part of the post-World War II school of Czech opera singers that were responsible for popularizing Czech opera internationally. He was highly regarded for his interpretations of roles in operas by Leoš Janáček, Antonín Dvořák, and Bedřich Smetana.

Born in Ostrava-Vítkovice, Blachut grew up in a poor family of miners. Blachut was highly involved in his church's music program which provided him with his initial musical training as a child and teenager. In 1927, at the age of 14, he began working at an iron factory and from all appearances it seemed he was destined to live a life similar to that of his parents. In the year 1935 he started to study singing at the Prague conservatory.

At the conservatory, Blachut studied under Luis Kadeřábek for four years. He made his professional opera debut at the Olomouc Opera in the role of Jeník in Smetana's The Bartered Bride on 25 December 1938. He sang at the house for the next two years, portraying eighteen different roles (for example: Faust, Canio in Pagliacci, Laca in Jenůfa, Prince in Rusalka) under the direction of Karel Nedbal. In 1941 he left Olomouc to join the roster of principal tenors at the Czech National Opera in Prague, singing Jenik again for his first appearance at that house.

Up to this point, Blachut had mostly portrayed lyric tenor parts, but in Prague he began to sing works from the dramatic repertoire, especially in operas by Janáček, Dvořák, and Smetana. On 3 February 1942 he starred in the world premiere of František Škroup's Columbus (composed in 1855). Outside the Czech repertoire, he sang Alfredo in La traviata, Cavaradossi in Tosca, Don José in Carmen, Ferrando in Così fan tutte, Florestan in Fidelio, Hermann in The Queen of Spades, Lensky in Eugene Onegin, Pierre Bezukhov in War and Peace, Radames in Aida, Walther in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and the title roles in Faust and Otello among other roles.

...
Wikipedia