Leo Riemens

Leonardus Antony Marinus Riemens (3 December 1910 – 3 April 1985) was a Dutch musicologist and cultural journalist. He wrote a book about Maria Callas, and together with Karl-Josef Kutsch began a reference book about opera singers in 1962, which grew to Großes Sängerlexikon, the standard reference in the field.

Leo Riemens
Born
Leonardus Antony Marinus Riemens

(1910-12-03)3 December 1910
Zevenbergen, Netherlands
Died3 April 1985(1985-04-03) (aged 74)
Maastricht, Netherlands
Occupation
  • Musicologist
  • Journalist
  • Writer
Works
Großes Sängerlexikon

Background and career

Born in Zevenbergen, Riemens grew up in a family of physicians in Amsterdam.[1] He studied musicology in Amsterdam and worked from 1931 as a feature editor for the newspaper Het Vaderland. From 1954 to 1976 he was an opera and television critic for the newspaper De Telegraaf. Riemens published numerous articles in the professional journals Opera, Luister, Gramophone and Opera News. He wrote an opera guide and a biography about Maria Callas. At Radio Hilversum he designed the series Uren der Zangkunst. Riemens owned one of the largest record collections of his time. For the record series Lebendige Vergangenheit published by Jürgen Schmidt he wrote cover texts for almost unknown singers.[1][2]

Riemens published a small vocal encyclopedia in German with Karl-Josef Kutsch in 1962 under the title Unvergängliche Stimmen: kleines Sängerlexicon [Immortal Voices: Concise Dictionary of Singers],[3] which was expanded in 1966[4] and translated into English, expanded, and annotated by Harry Earl Jones and published as A Concise Biographical Dictionary of Singers in 1969.[5] Expanded versions in German followed in 1975 (with a supplement in 1979) and in 1982 as Unvergängliche Stimmen: Sängerlexikon.[6] After his death, this reference work was expanded into the Großes Sängerlexikon, first published in two volumes in 1987. The fourth edition of the Biographical Dictionary of Singers, in seven volumes, appeared in 2003, reissued in 2012 as an anniversary edition (Jubiläumsausgabe) with 18,760 entries.[7] It is regarded as the standard reference in the field.[2]

Riemens died in Maastricht and is buried with Rietje Hendriks at the Tongerseweg cemetery. The gravestone bears the inscription Pace, pace, mio dio.[8]

Publications

  • Peter van der Spek (ed.): Groot operaboek.[9] Abcoude : Uniepers, 1993
  • with Karl-Josef Kutsch: Großes Sängerlexikon. Since 1962 several editions and revised editions
  • Maria Callas.[10][11] Utrecht: Bruna, 1960
  • De opera. Bilthoven: Nelissen, 1958[12]
  • Uren der zangkunst. Opera's beroemde zangers en zangeressen. Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1954
  • Thomas Russell Ybarra: Caruso : een gouden stem verovert de wereld.[13] Translation from the English by Leo Riemens. Bilthoven: Nelissen, 1955
gollark: ... no?
gollark: Actually, over here at least, degrees lead to higher total earnings.
gollark: gollark Today at 12:53Logic puzzle:You are trapped in a labyrinth. There are some doors. One of them leads out. One of them leads into a lethal cryoapiary.There are two gollarks in front of the doors. One gollark speaks the truth, one gollark always lies. You suddenly notice other gollarks appearing. The other gollark tells the truth or lies at random. The other² gollark is truthful iff your question does not refer to itself or other gollarks. The other³ gollark calls in orbital laser strikes against those it perceives as asking tricky questions. The other⁴ gollark is truthful iff it predicts (with 99.6% historical accuracy) that you will consider it (one of) the falsehood-telling gollark(s). A subset of the gollarks will say "bee" and "apioform" instead of "true" or "false", but you do not know which or which words "bee" and "apioform" correspond to. The other⁴ gollark just tells you the first bit of the SHA256 hash of your question in UTF-8. Another gollark appears to be randomly materializing doors. The other⁵ gollark will cooperate with you iff you cooperate with CooperateBot/angel. Yet another gollark will tell the truth iff you know what iff means. The final gollark appears to be fiddling with the orbital mind control laser making you know this.What do you do?
gollark: I will copypaste the text maybe.
gollark: <@319753218592866315> What do?

References

  1. Kutsch, K. J.; Riemens, Leo, eds. (2003). "Die Autoren". Großes Sängerlexikon (in German). 1 (4 ed.). K. G. Saur. p. XXII. ISBN 978-3-59-844088-5.
  2. Gottfried Cervenka: Apropos Oper. Leo Riemens (1910–1985), ORF eins, 14 December 2010
  3. Unvergängliche Stimmen: kleines Sängerlexicon, 1962 (429 pages): OCLC 907595507.
  4. Unvergängliche Stimmen: kleines Sängerlexicon, 2nd edition, 1966 (555 pages): OCLC 1040125428.
  5. A Concise Biographical Dictionary of Singers, 1969 (487 pages): OCLC 561119664, 614300588.
  6. Unvergängliche Stimmen: Sängerlexikon, 1975 edition (731 pages): ISBN 9783772011450, OCLC 466638635; 1979 supplement (263 pages): ISBN 9783772014376; 1982 edition (782 pages): ISBN 9783772015557, OCLC 239745786.
  7. "Großes Sängerlexikon". De Gruyter. Retrieved 14 February 2019.
  8. Algemene Begraafplaats Tongerseweg, at Breur Henket
  9. Groot operaboek on Amazon
  10. Maria Callas deslegte.be
  11. Maria Callas on GoodRead
  12. De opera, 1958. OCLC 71409291.
  13. Caruso : een gouden stem verovert de wereld on Amazon
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