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Poles mourn leading tenor, 91

RIP

norman lebrecht

December 12, 2021

The legend that was Kazimierz Pustelak was confined mostly to Warsaw’s Grand Theater, where he sang 1,200 times in half a century.

From 1971, he was also Warsaw’s leading voice teacher.

Comments

E says:

December 12, 2021 at 8:43 pm

A beautiful voice…in both arias,
he ends a phrase with a delicacy
that is all his own. Thank you for
posting. RIP

Joel Kemelhor says:

December 13, 2021 at 8:45 pm

Pustelak was a superb tenor. He sang the shepherd / god in the 1960’s recording of Szymanowski’s opera KING ROGER. This first the reached the U.S. on the Polish “Muza” label — on discs that looked like they were made from dog biscuits.

About a decade later, “Aurora” issued this same KING ROGER performance on much sleeker vinyl, and that set was on my turntable just last week. It’s sad that Pustelak could not have the renown outside of his homeland later earned by the Polish tenors Ochman and Beczala.