Introduction
This website was made, and for the time being will still be maintained, by André Korporaal.
I live in the Netherlands, but I have lived in Germany for almost 30 years.
Born in Amsterdam I became a citizen of Berlin in 1984 to explore the prospect of finding work as a singer there. In Amsterdam I had studied singing at the College of Music “Muzieklyceum” where my teacher had been Max van Egmond. Starting out with the ambition to become a counter-tenor, I realized after some time that becoming a tenor was the safer bet.
So I studied there a couple of years and became frustrated with the fact that I had to learn playing the piano as well. Without a proper musical foundation acquired during childhood this turned out to be a hopeless undertaking…, so I left.
I then began working as a supernumerary, or “extra”, at the Netherlands Opera and being there made it easier to audition for the extra-chorus where I had no trouble acquiring my first singing job. Getting a place in the proper chorus turned out to be more difficult.
Lots of competition, few possibilities, nor enough companies in the small state of Holland!
As luck
would have it I had a good female friend, a dancer, who
had moved to Berlin to be with freshly wed husband, an
american GI, who was stationed there. Inspired by the
moment I moved to Berlin.
I’ll cut some corners here!
In Berlin I spent some time at the Hochschule der Künste, taking part in the musical “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber.
The conductor of this production was also the chorus-master at the “Theater des Westens”. He needed a tenor for a production of “Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny” and asked me to audition for him. I had no problem getting this job and with it came knowledgeable friendly colleagues. A fellow tenor gave useful audition suggestions as to what arias you needed to sing and which should be avoided and he told me that if I would like to work in Germany, I should audition for the ZBF, the State Employment Agency for actors, singers, musicians and dancers. As there were approx. 50 or so ensembles in Germany it would be easy for me to find a job immediately, he thought.
After my audition for the ZBF I could pick 3 theaters to audition for and ultimately, after packing up in Amsterdam, I “landed” in Regensburg!
Two years later I was engaged by the “Oper Frankfurt”; times became personally turbulent…; I went back to Amsterdam for a while; did other things; I was frustrated and, at the age of 50, made my come-back in the chorus of the “Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden”.
Well…, that is the fragmented story of my life. More detailed fragments on the other pages.
I hope there will be enough time to write it all down, before I get lost in that black hole at the end of the corridor over there >>>>>>