Gunnar Graarud (singer)

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Gunnar Graarud
Atelier Feldscharek, Vienna 1932

Gunnar Graarud ( June 1, 1886 in Holmestrand - December 6, 1960 in Stuttgart ) was a Norwegian opera singer with a tenor voice and later a singing teacher . He sang at the Bayreuth and Salzburg Festival and was a member of the ensemble of the Vienna State Opera .

life and work

Graarud was the son of the doctor and Storting MP Gunnar Magnus Kjølstad Graarud (1857-1932) and Karen Hedevig Nicolava Gran (1857-1925). His older sister Sigrid died as a child, his younger brother Finn at the age of 24. At the request of his parents, despite his early interest in music and theater, he decided to study technology and went to Karlsruhe in 1903, where he enrolled at the Technical University . He graduated in 1913 and then, with financial support from his father, was able to devote himself to training his voice. Among other things, he studied with Fred Husler and Kurt von Zawilowski in Berlin, but his most important teacher was the voice teacher Anna Elisabeth von Gorkom nee. Riesterer (born March 9, 1875), daughter of a master builder.

In 1917 he gave a concert for the first time, he sang for German soldiers on the Western Front. He made his stage debut in 1918 at the Pfalztheater in Kaiserslautern. On October 30, 1919, he married his teacher, eleven years his senior. He spent the winter of 1919/20 in Norway, where he gave a concert in Oslo, among other places. After that, from 1920 he was engaged for two seasons each at the Nationaltheater Mannheim and the Berlin Volksoper . In 1924 he took over the title role in the Handel opera Xerxes at the Handel Festival in Göttingen . In 1925 he went to the German Opera House in Berlin, in 1926 to the Hamburg City Theater . At all these stations he was able to develop a broad repertoire with a focus on hero tenors, which reached from the baroque to the present day. He had 45 opera roles and 44 concert pieces in his repertoire.

The high point of his singing career was in 1927: he made his debut at the Bayreuth Festival , took part in the world premiere of Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Das Wunder der Heliane and appeared for the first time at the Vienna State Opera - in the title role of Parsifal .

Bayreuth Festival

After Bayreuth he was signed as Tristan - in only the second new production of Tristan and Isolde at the Wagner Festival. His partner as Isolde was Emmy Krüger , Wagner's son Siegfried Wagner staged it and Karl Elmendorff conducted it . Graarud sang Tristan again the following year in Bayreuth and for the first time at the Grand Opéra in Paris. There he successfully introduced himself as Siegmund in Die Walküre . The Bayreuth production of Tristan and Isolde was also recorded, Graarud thus became the first Tristan in record history.

In 1930 he returned to Bayreuth and took over the title role in Parsifal and Siegmund and Siegfried in the Ring des Nibelungen . In 1931 he was again guest of the Wagner Festival as Parsifal and Siegmund.

Vienna State Opera

On June 11, 1928, Graarud sang Menelas in the Vienna premiere of the Egyptian Helena by Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Richard Strauss . His partner was the legendary Maria Jeritza , it was conducted by the composer. He became a member of the ensemble of the Vienna State Opera , where he sang Parsifal 26 times, Herodes 15 times, Aegisth and Menelas 12 times, and drum major in Bergs Wozzeck 11 times, as well as a number of other roles.

In 1931 he gave “brilliant Wagner concerts in Paris and Brussels”. In 1932 he sang Tristan at the Opéra de Monaco and in Oslo, there with Nanny Larsén-Todsen , then with Kirsten Flagstad as Isolde. At the Salzburg Festival in 1934 he was Aegisth in the Elektra of Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Richard Strauss , in 1936 the title role in Corregidor by Rosa Mayreder and Hugo Wolf . In January 1937 he appeared as Herod at the Royal Opera Covent Garden in London, Herodias was Sabine Kalter , who was expelled from Germany, and it was conducted by Hans Knappertsbusch , who was interested in the Nazi regime . He has also performed in the Royal Opera Houses of Stockholm and Copenhagen and in the Amsterdam Opera .

Graarud was appointed Austrian chamber singer and worked as a singing teacher after completing his stage career. One of his best-known students was the bass Otto Edelmann .

Political position

Graarud was a supporter of National Socialism and spread its ideas on lecture tours in Germany and Norway. Immediately after the annexation of Austria by Hitler's Germany in March 1938, all Jewish teachers at the State Academy for Music and Performing Arts were dismissed and the institution was converted into a Reich University of Music . Graarud was appointed professor of singing there in March 1938, in place of a dismissed Jew.

According to Norsk biografisk leksikon , Graarud was a group leader in the NSDAP's foreign organization. In an interview with the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten in 1942, he announced that he had made himself available to the Waffen SS . In 1944, on an official mission, he presented his compatriot Olaf Gulbransson with the National Culture Prize . He is said to have belonged to the Volkssturm in the last days of the war . After the fall of the Nazi regime, he lost his professorship in Vienna. He did not succeed after 1945, although he intended to perform in Norway.

He died in Stuttgart, but was buried in his birthplace.

Roles (selection)

World premieres and premieres

repertoire

Beethoven :

Mountain :

Busoni :

d'Albert :

Luck :

Handel ::

Janáček :

Kienzl :

Grain gold :

Krenek :

Pfitzner :

Puccini :

Saint-Saëns :

Richard Strauss :

Wagner :

Wolf :

Audio documents

The singer's recordings have appeared on Polydor, Odeon, Parlophon and Columbia. In archival recordings of the Vienna Opera he sang - on Koch Records - Herodes in Salome , Froh in Rheingold and Parsifal in excerpts from these operas.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Norsk biografisk leksikon : Gunnar Graarud, Sanger , accessed on October 30, 2016 (norw.)
  2. ↑ The State Opera's online archive records all performances from 1955 onwards. The previous years are currently being recorded step by step, which is why Gunnar Graarud's list of performances is still incomplete. (As of October 2016)
  3. ↑ Karl-Josef Kutsch , Leo Riemens : Large singer lexicon . 4th edition. Volume 7. Saur, Munich 2003, ISBN 978-3-598-44088-5 , p. 1798.
  4. ↑ Barbara Preis: Female teachers and students at the Reich University of Music in Vienna 1938-1945 Studies - Professional Development - Emigration , Dissertation at the University of Vienna, Vienna 2009, p. 41
  5. ↑ Discogs : Tristan und Isolde , accessed October 30, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Graarud, Gunnar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Norwegian opera singer (tenor)
DATE OF BIRTH June 1, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Holmestrand
DATE OF DEATH December 6, 1960
Place of death Stuttgart