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The Argentine baritone, Alejando Meerapfel, started his musical studies at the age of 5 with Rodrigo Dalziel, in San Carlos de Bariloche. He was part of the Children’s Choir of this city, under the direction of Lucka K. De Jerman, with whom he set out on his singing career. In 1995 he began to study singing with Maestro Nino Falsetti and repertoire with Catalina Hadis. He obtained a degree in Voice and Musicianship from the Instituto Superior de Arte del Teatro Colón, where his teachers were Ana Sirulnik, Teresa Isasa , Reinaldo Censabella and Eduardo Rodríguez Arguibel. He has received valuable guidance from Maestros such as Lucka Jerman, Ricardo Yost, Carlos Vilo, Ruggiero Orofino and Thomas Quasthoff. He won the International Contests in Athens (1996) and Ancona (1998). He was awarded second place at the Pablo Casals Music Festival (1999). He was a semifinalist in the 2005 edition of the Francisco Viñas International Contest, in Barcelona. Alejandro was granted a scholarship by Fundación Música de Cámara and Fundación Teatro Colón, which allowed him to specialize in chamber music under the direction of Maestro Guillermo Opitz. In 1997 he obtained the María Rosa Bemberg scholarship.
Alejando Meerapfel’s repertoire included opera, chamber music and oratorio from Baroque up to the present. He was often invited both in Argentina and abroad as a soloist to sing opera and oratorio. He performed as a soloist at halls such as Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Konzerthaus in Vienna, Victoria Hall in Geneva, Auditori in Barcelona, Hebbel Theater in Berlin, Caen Theater, La Villette, in Paris, Khaai Theater in Brussels, etc.
Alejando Meerapfel was directed by Maestros Alberto Balzanelli, Gabriel Garrido, David Rosenmeyer, Nestor Zadoff, Julio Fainguersch, Mario Videla, Carlos Calleja, Jan Lathan Konig, Rodolfo Fischer, Juan Manuel Quintana, Bruno Dastoli, Cristian Hernández Larguia, Alexei Izmirliev, Stefan Lano, Javier Logioia Orbe, Carlos Lopez Puccio, Guillermo Opitz, Pedro I. Calderon, Facundo Agudin, Michel Corboz , Guillermo Scarabino, Susana Frangi, Roberto Luvini, Marco Titotto, Luis Fernando Malhiero, among others.
At the Colón and Avenida Theaters in Buenos Aires sang numerous operas and oratorios, including L’Orfeo by C. Monteverdi, Hansel & Gretel by Engelbert Humperdinck, La Bohème by Puccini, Dialogues of the Carmelites by Francis Poulenc, Ariadne auf Naxos by R. Strauss, Armida by Gluck, La Clemenza di Tito by W.A. Mozart, Aida and La Traviata by G. Verdi, Matthäus-Passion BWV 244 by J.S. Bach, to name a few.
For 2010 he was called by Teatro Colón for the take part in La Boheme (Marcello), W.A. Mozart's Don Giovanni (Leporello), Manon (Bretigny) and Matthäus-Passion (BWV 244) by J.S. Bach; he additionally sang Antonio Vivaldi’s Vespers in Belgium, Valentin (Faust, Charles Gounod) in Switzerland.
Alejando Meerapfel recorded Monteverdi’s Vespers with the French label K617 in Palermo, Sicily, and Le Phénix du Mexique in France, Dido and Aeneas (Purcell) in Switzerland and Judas Maccabeus (George Frideric Handel) in Belgium. He obtained an award as “Best New Performer in Classical Music” in the edition of the Clarín Espectáculos award, in December 2008.
Alejandro Meerapfel passed away on September 22, 2023 at the age of 54 in Ambronay, France after going into cardiac arrest while he was onstage performing. |
