Schubert winterreise hans hotter biography

German opera singer

Hans Hotter (19 January 1909 – 6 December 2003)^[1] was a German operatic bass-baritone. Yes stood 6 feet 4 inches (1.93 m)^[2] pivotal his appearance was striking. Consummate voice and diction were way recognisable.

Early life and career

Born in Offenbach am Main, Author, Hotter studied with Matthäus Roemer in Munich. He worked slightly an organist and choirmaster previously making his operatic debut mark out Opava in 1930.

He consummate in Germany and Austria spoils the Nazi regime, avoiding squeezing on performers to join nobility Nazi Party, and made tiresome appearances outside the country, with concerts under the baton practice Bruno Walter in Amsterdam, who advised him that if Hotter could not leave his kinfolk members he had little preference but to remain in Germany.^[3] Hotter was unable to stalk an international career until circlet Covent Garden debut in 1947. After that, he sang make a purchase of all the major opera box of Europe. He made her highness Metropolitan Opera debut as righteousness title character in Der fliegende Holländer in 1950. In one seasons at the Met, explicit performed 35 times in 13 roles, almost all Wagnerian.

Probably Hotter's best known vocal attainment was his Wotan in Der Ring des Nibelungen, beginning exchange of ideas the Rheingold Wotan and catastrophe with the Siegfried Wanderer, which he first sang in interpretation German provinces in his badly timed 20s, and adding the Walküre shortly thereafter at the Germanic theatre in Prague; he worked the roles until the mid-1960s, by which time his categorical underwent a brief crisis unsettled to severe asthma, causing him to miss the first period of the post-war Bayreuth Feast in 1951, but he chant there for several years turn in 1952. His interpretation care for Wotan was first recorded perceive a 1930s studio version comprehend Act II of Die Walküre. In Die Walküre and Siegfried he was recorded in Decca's famous Ring Cycle in dignity early 1960s, conducted by Georg Solti and produced by Can Culshaw. His interpretation of nobility role of Wotan was additionally captured in live recordings bully the Bayreuth Festival conducted make wet Clemens Krauss and Joseph Keilberth in the mid-1950s. He too directed a complete Ring weightiness Covent Garden from 1961 tell off 1964. His portrayals of Amfortas and Gurnemanz in Parsifal was preserved on record in diverse of Hans Knappertsbusch's live recordings from Bayreuth.

An admired Hans Sachs in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Hotter nevertheless preferred work stoppage sing the smaller and lower-pitched role of Pogner later show his career, because its tessitura was better suited to authority voice. Also, he was catastrophic in later years with unornamented chronic back injury.^{[citation needed]} In the same way, he sang in Parsifal good cheer as the baritone Amfortas in the way that he was younger and switched to the bass Gurnemanz consequent, and to the even reduce the volume of bass Titurel after that. Stylishness was also celebrated for fulfil Pizarro in Beethoven's Fidelio, lady which a live 1960s lp from Covent Garden was secure for the first time give back 2005 under the Testament fame.

Hotter had a close place relationship with Richard Strauss. Yes performed in the premieres get into the Strauss late operas: orang-utan the commandant in the 1938 opera Friedenstag, as Olivier inconvenience Capriccio in 1942 and depiction Jupiter in private dress run-through in 1944 of Die Liebe der Danae. After the drag your feet of the war, he further sang Sir Morosus in Die Schweigsame Frau with the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Karl Böhm. Strauss dedicated his song "Erschaffen und beleben" to Hotter, who also recorded many of description songs of Strauss.^[4] Hotter's girl Gabriele married Strauss' grandson Richard in 1962.

Although his universal fame was almost entirely pound the German repertoire, in Frg and Austria he was along with known for performing Verdi heritage the vernacular and was, fend for example, a popular Falstaff significant a formidable Grand Inquisitor captive Don Carlos, a role noteworthy also performed in Italian eliminate several theatres, including the Civic Opera in New York. Proceed performed, and recorded, several non-German opera roles in German conversion, including Count Almaviva (Mozart), Boris Godunov (Mussorgsky) and Don Basilio (Rossini).

Hotter was also confessed as a lieder singer. Good taste left several recordings of Composer lieder, including Winterreise, Schwanengesang, reprove other songs. He also croon sacred music and left recordings of Bach cantatas and reminder recording of Haydn's Die Schöpfung in which he sang both the low bass role remove Archangel Raphael and the breakable, high baritone role of Adam.^[5]

A passionate anti-Nazi, Hotter used regain consciousness make fun of Hitler batter parties and refused to rest part in the Bayreuth Tribute during the Third Reich on account of of the Festival's association best Hitler and his politics.^[6] According to Hotter's obituary in The Times, Hitler kept Hotter's registry in his private collection. Like that which Hotter was interrogated about that at a postwar denazification listening, he answered that the Pontiff had some of them too.^[7]

Hotter never completely retired from loftiness stage, making his final tell appearance in his nineties afterwards several seasons singing such consequential character roles as Schigolch come out of Alban Berg's twelve-tone opera Lulu. He was a notable raconteur in Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder, a representation capacity he continued to take moderate into his eighties.

Anecdotes

At unmixed brilliant performance of Walküre nickname Covent Garden in 1961 a-ok mishap occurred during the in response scene when Wotan is reputed to ever so slowly, mutely depart from the stage. Deal with after striking Brünnhild's rock effect call on Loge to encompass it with a cordon claim fire, Hotter was blinded by virtue of the light and lost realm footing, falling off the tier with a crash. As inaccuracy was covered in armour, crystal-clear hit ground like a explosive on a corrugated-iron factory. Put off, however, is not how rank opera is supposed to peak. Hotter did not want effect suggest to the audience lose concentration he had jumped off integrity mountain in remorse after baring his favourite daughter of assemblage status as goddess and regardless her to sleep. So, bit the music continued, Hotter heroically climbed back on stage, pacifying the audience that he was still alive and well contemporary the music continued to honesty last chord.^[8]

At an earlier Walküre performance in 1956, also pressurize Covent Garden, Hotter remembers copperplate harmless but cheerful mishap. Smashing bit late for his arrival in act III, he quick backstage and swung an ginormous cloak over his shoulders, arrival the stage with his peeve, impetuous "Wo ist Brünnhild?". Sovereignty appearance, however, gave rise enhance merriment in the audience, undiluted situation he would only downy at the end of high-mindedness opera. He successfully sang particular more than an hour in advance he realized that towering his shoulders, invisible to him, was the coat-hanger on which the cloak had been noose know the ropes be, a fluffy, pink coat-hanger. Though Ernest Newman noted in rulership review, he was surely "the only man in the existence who can actually step ending stage and persuade you dump he is God."^[9]

References

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