Nicolae Bretan

Nicolae Bretan (Hungarian: Bretán Miklós; 25 March 1887 – 1 December 1968)[1] was a Romanian opera composer, baritone, conductor, and music critic.

Bust of Bretan in Cluj-Napoca Central Park

Biography

Bretan was born in Năsăud. He studied at the Conservatory of Cluj (1906–1908), the Vienna Music Academy (1908) where he studied with Gustav Geiringer and Julius Meixner. In 1912 he enrolled at the National Hungarian Royal Academy of Music in Budapest.[2] In 1916, he received a degree in law at the University of Cluj.[3]

In addition to composing, Bretan held various positions as baritone singer, actor, stage director, and director-general.[1][2][4][5] He made his professional debut as a singer in 1913 in Bratislava,[6] continuing on to roles in Oradea and at the Hungarian Theatre of Cluj, where he served as first baritone from 1922 to 1940.[7] Over his career he performed works by Verdi, Gounod, Bizet, Puccini, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Delibes, and Rossini.[7]

As a director, Bretan staged works by fellow Romanian composers—Brediceanu, Drăgoi, Monţia, Negrea—as well as by members of the European canon further afield: Mozart, Gluck, Wagner, Verdi, Puccini, others.[7] He was named director-general of the Romanian Theater and Opera of Cluj in 1944.[1][7][8][9]

Bretan also worked as a translator of libretti, translating his own Luceafărul into Hungarian and Golem into Romanian and German.[10] In 1928 he translated Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice into Romanian.[7][11]

In 1915 Bretan married pianist Nora Osvát.[12] Together they had two children: Andrei (baritone) and Judit (actor and educator).[13][14] In 1944, Osvát's family, who were Jewish, were transported to the Auschwitz concentration camp and murdered.[15]

Refusing to become a member of the Romanian Communist Party in 1948, he was not favoured by the Romanian communist regime, who treated the composer as a "non-person". Biographer Hartmut Gagelmann attributes Bretan's lack of wider recognition to censorship by the Communist Party of Romania,[16] though this claim has been disputed by contemporary scholars.[17]

Bretan died in Cluj, aged 81,[1] and was buried in the city's Central Cemetery.[18]

Compositions
Further information: List of compositions by Nicolae Bretan

Bretan composed six operatic works.[10] His best-known work is the opera Luceafărul (1921) based on a poem by the Romantic poet Mihai Eminescu. In addition, he composed numerous lieder,[2][19] a requiem, and several pieces of sacred music—as well as a handful of choral, chamber, and orchestral pieces.[7][10]

Works for the stage

Lieder

Between 1900 and 1962, Bretan wrote over 200 lieder based on texts by Endre Ady, Eminescu, Octavian Goga, Heinrich Heine, Nikolaus Lenau, and others. Bretan primarily chose poetic texts in Romanian, Hungarian, and German, occasionally penning his own translation of the source material into another of the three languages.[10][19]

Legacy

In 2010, two busts of the composer busts were inaugurated in Cluj-Napoca. One in front of the Romanian National Opera, Cluj-Napoca, and another in front of the Cluj-Napoca Hungarian Opera.[21]

In November 2011, at the Tudor Jarda Music High School in Bistrița, Bretan's bronze bust, made by the artist Ana Rus from Bucharest, was unveiled at the initiative of Judit Bretan Le Bovit, the composer's daughter.[22][23]

In October 2013, another bust, also the work of the sculptor Ana Rus, was unveiled at the central alley of "Simion Barnuțiu" Park in Cluj, being donated to the city by the composer's daughter.[3] Another bust is placed at the Iuliu Maniu Square in Alba Iulia, and is standing next to Lucian Blaga's bust.

Recordings
  • Golem and Arald on Electrecord 02659 (1987) and Nimbus NI 5424 (1995) (Golem: Agache, Dároczy, Sandru, Zancu; Arald: Zancu, Agache, Voineag, Sandru; Moldova Philharmonic orchestra and choir/conductor: Cristian Mandeal)
  • Luceafărul on Electrecord 03657/58 (1987) (Voineag, Zancu, Șandru, Donose; Moldova Philharmonic orchestra and choir/conductor: Cristian Mandeal)
  • Luceafărul (The Evening Star) on Nimbus NI 5463 (1996) (Voineag, Szabó, Croitoru, Casian; Transsylvanian Philharmonic Orchestra/conductor: Béla Hary)
  • Horia on Nimbus NI5513/14 (1997) (Crăsnaru, Cornelia Pop, Buciuceanu, Fânăţeanu; Bucharest National Opera Choir, Bucharest Opera Orchestra/conductor: Cornel Trailescu) (live recording, 1980)
  • Requiem (mezzo-soprano, baritone, organ) and selections from Spiritual Songs (baritone, piano, organ) on Nimbus NI 5584 (1999) (Konya, Bryn-Julson, Stalford, Sutherland, Weiss, Berkofsky)

References
  1. "Magyar Színházművészeti Lexikon: Bretán Miklós; Bretan, Nicolae". Magyar Elektronikus Könyvtár. Akadémiai Kiadó és az Országos Színháztörténeti Múzeum. 1984. Retrieved August 11, 2020.
  2. David Griffioen (2001). "Bretan, Nicolae". Grove Music Online. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.45042.
  3. "Dezvelirea bustului compozitorului clujean Nicolae Bretan", Făclia, 25 October 2013 (in Romanian)
  4. Enyedi, Delia (2015). "An Alternative History of the Transylvanian Silent Cinema" (PDF). Journal Ekphrasis. Babeș-Bolyai University. Retrieved July 27, 2020.
  5. "Bretán Miklós". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 2020-11-23.
  6. Blahová-Martišová, Elena (2019-03-21). "Mestské divadlo v Prešporku v rokoch 1902 – 1920 (8)" (in Slovak). Opera Slovakia. Retrieved 2020-11-20. Ôsma časť série článkov o umeleckej činnosti divadelných spoločností v Mestskom divadle v Prešporku v rokoch 1902 – 1920 je venovaná mapovaniu tretej sezóny Károlyho Polgára v rokoch 1913 – 1914. Do súboru boli angažovaní noví speváci Adél Kerényi, Boriska Pálfy, István Falussy a rumunský barytonista Nicolae Bretan.
  7. Cosma, Viorel (1989). "Nicolae Bretan: compozitor, regizor, solist vocal (bariton) şi dirijor". Uniunea Compozitorilor şi Muzicologilor (in Romanian). Retrieved July 28, 2020.
  8. Gagelmann. Nicolae Bretan: His Life—His Music. p. 64. Bretan did everything humanly possible to open the new institution, "Teatrului și Opera Română" before the end of that same year. On November 20, 1944, he was named general manager, and on December 28th the curtain went up again.
  9. Nánó, Csabo (22 March 2019). "Megkerült az elveszettnek hitt színházi évad Kolozsváron". Erdélyi Napló (in Hungarian). Retrieved 9 September 2020.
  10. Gagelmann, Hartmut (1990). Nicolae Bretan: His Life—His Music. Translated by Glass, Beaumont. Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press. p. 289-299. ISBN 1-57647-021-0. Appendix I: List of Works
  11. Gagelmann. Nicolae Bretan: His Life—His Music. p. 54. [Bretan's] performance on January 7, 1928, turned out to be his last for "the competition." Then he devoted himself to a special task, in that he translated Gluck's Orpheus and Eurydice into Romanian. The opera was then premiered in his staging on October 3rd.
  12. Gagelmann, Hartmut. Nicolae Bretan: His Life—His Music. p. 30. He met Nora Osvát, a gifted pianist with a highly cultured literary background. … On June 15, 1915, the Hungarian Jewess Nora Osvát became the wife of the Romanian Christian Nicolae Bretan.
  13. Gagelmann, Hartmut (2000). Nicolae Bretan: His Life—His Music. Hillsdale: Pendragon Press. pp. 64–66. ISBN 1-57647-021-0.
  14. "JUDIT LeBOVIT Obituary (2018) - Washington, DC - The Washington Post". www.legacy.com. Retrieved 2021-05-12.
  15. Hoffman, Sandy (July 31, 1997). "Interview: Martha Osvat". USC Shoah Foundation. University of Southern California. Retrieved July 29, 2020.
  16. Gagelmann, p. 1-2: "After his daughter married an American diplomat and emigrated to the United States, and after Bretan had refused to join the Communist Party, he was expelled from the Compusers' Union. That mean above all that his works would no longer be performed. … The Communists had sentenced him to a life without music, to a life that precluded any further success."
  17. Iațeșen, Loredana (2019). "The Bretan Case: a Paradox between Value and Promotion". Artes. Journal of Musicology. Sciendo. 19 (1): 104. doi:10.2478/ajm-2019-0005. S2CID 188037805. Retrieved 2020-11-19. The sensitive interethnic Hungarian-German-Jewish ties and the musician's resistance to integrating into the conspiracy of mediocrity of a dictatorship are the premises of a controversial discourse with pathetic nuances. For what purpose? The uninformed reader, visibly touched by the disturbing story, might conclude that Bretan was one of those important creators, who died unknown, unjustly blamed in postwar Romania, although he composed remarkable music. However, the careful lecturer shall certainly remark the lack of concrete documents that justify the idea that the personality of the artist was annihilated by the maneuvers of communist ideology. The natural questions are: What were the drastic decisions that the authorities adopted against him? What important scores were not interpreted?
  18. "Cimitirul Central intră în circuitul cimitirelor "semnificative" din Europa". monitorulcj.ro (in Romanian). 12 Oct 2015. Retrieved 14 Sep 2020. Nicolae Bretan (1887-1968) a fost un compozitor, bariton și regizor de operă român. Mormântului lui se află la o răscruce de alei în Cimitirul Central, fiind construit din marmură albă.
  19. Ezust, Emily (2020-08-20). "Composer: Nicolae Bretan (1887 - 1968)". The LiederNet Archive. Retrieved 2020-11-23.
  20. Wood, Charles E. (2008). "The One-Act Operas of Nicolae Bretan" (PDF). Texas Tech University. Retrieved July 16, 2020. The opera was completed in December 21, 1942. ... It would not debut until May 12, 1982 at the Romanian Opera in Laşi [sic].
  21. Ardeleanul cu busturi în două limbi: Nicolae Bretan/Bretán Miklós
  22. Bustul compozitorului Nicolae Bretan, la Liceul de Muzică
  23. Bust "Nicolae Bretan" la Liceul de Muzică

Sources
  • The Oxford Illustrated History of Opera, ed. Roger Parker (1994)
  • Booklet accompanying CD of Golem and Arald (Nimbus NI 5424 (1995))
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