Großes Sängerlexikon (Biographical Dictionary of Singers, literally: Large singers' lexicon) is asingle-field dictionary of singers inclassical music, edited byKarl-Josef Kutsch andLeo Riemens and first published in 1987. The first edition was in two volumes and contained the biographies of nearly 7000 singers from the 1590s through the 1980s.[1] It grew out ofUnvergängliche Stimmen. Kleines Sängerlexikon (Immortal voices. Small singers' lexicon), published in 1962, which covered only singers who had made recordings. A 1992 review inNeue Zeitschrift für Musik described theGroßes Sängerlexikon as "indispensable in the search for concise background information about those persons who are undoubtedly the most important to the performance of opera."[a][2]
The fourth edition, published in 2003, contains around 20,000 biographies of singers from the 16th century to the modern era.[3] The articles usually list names, voice part, dates and locations of birth and death, family, education, performing locations and development of repertory.[4] The third edition also appeared as aCD-ROM.[4] The fourth edition comes with an e-book.
^Original German "Das insgesamt zuverlässige Nachschlagewerk ist unverzichtbar bei der Suche nach konzisen Hintergrundinformationen über jene Persönlichkeiten, die zweifellos die wichtigsten sind beim Zustandekommen von Opernaufführungen."
