Konrad Dryden

Konrad Claude Dryden (born September 13, 1963) is an American author who has written extensively on Italian opera, particularly about the movement known as Verismo.

Lineage

Dryden is the son of a British father, Kenneth Dryden (an RAF pilot and descendant of poet laureate John Dryden), and a German mother, Ingeborg Rudhart, a descendant of Ignaz von Rudhart, Prime Minister of Greece under the reign of King Otto of Greece. His cousin, Karin Seehofer, is married to Bavaria's former Minister President and current Federal Minister of the Interior, Horst Seehofer.

Life

Born in Pasadena, California, Dryden moved to Northern California at an early age. In Marin County, he attended St. Rita School and Sir Francis Drake High School (his math teacher being Olympic medalist Archie Williams). Performances at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco sparked an innate love for the lyric theatre, leading him to train as an operatic baritone at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in 1980 with the French-Canadian tenor Léopold Simoneau. the first fully documented monograph devoted to the composer of Francesca da Rimini. Written specifically for this volume were forewords by Renata Scotto as well as the composer's daughter, Tarquinia Jolanda Zandonai. A second biography, Leoncavallo: Life and Works, with a foreword by Plácido Domingo and Piera Leoncavallo, appeared in 2007. An earlier edition, sponsored by Baroness Hildegarde von Münchhausen, who had purchased a large amount of the composer's estate, preceded this in 2007. Following the publication, Dryden took part in a series of interviews recorded for German radio (NDR) and the Bayerische Kammeroper. His most recent biography, Franco Alfano, Transcending Turandot (foreword by Magda Olivero), was released in 2010. For these monographs, Dryden himself insisted on translating into English all archival material from German, Italian, and French. Since the year 2000, Dryden has been a contributing editor of the German music magazine . During this time, he was noted for numerous interviews dealing with such personalities as Magda Olivero, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Sherrill Milnes, Martina Arroyo, Carlisle Floyd, Birgit Nilsson, Astrid Varnay, Wolfgang Wagner, Simonetta Puccini, Inge Borkh, Gina Cigna, Dame Eva Turner, Maria Carbone, Adelaide Saraceni, Virginia Zeani and Alexander, Crown Prince of Yugoslavia. Dryden also befriended bestselling author Barbara Cartland. Dryden received his Ph.D. in 2003 from the University of Marburg, Germany. From 2004 to 2018 Dryden was Professor of Humanities at the University of Maryland, University College, Europe.

Works

Riccardo Zandonai, A Biography, 1999. Leoncavallo: Life and Works, 2007. Franco Alfano, Transcending Turandot, 2010.