Alfons Fügel

Alfons Fügel (born August 10, 1912 in Bonlanden ( Filderstadt ), † October 10, 1960 in Esslingen ) was a German singer ( tenor ) who was one of the leading representatives of his field, especially as an opera singer between 1938 and 1943 the end of World War II but could no longer follow on from the successes of his short career.

He died at the age of only 48 as a result of a heart attack that he suffered at a concert.

Life

Alfons Fügel was the son of the record maker Georg Fügel and grew up in the simple circumstances of a family of nine. He himself learned his father's craft. Singing played an important role in the family. The boy was allowed to accompany his father to the singing lessons of the Arbeitergesangverein Liederkranz , the quality of his voice and his talent were recognized at an early age, and when he was 15 he appeared as a soloist for the first time. Alfons Fügels Stuttgart piano teacher Dr. Kriesmann made contact with the chamber singer Fritz Windgassen (father of Wolfgang Windgassen ), who recommended Alfons Fügel to study singing with the singing teacher Gustav Bomblatt.

After a successful aptitude test at the Stuttgart State Theater in 1936 , Alfons Fügel received a scholarship at the opera school with Fritz Windgassen. Just one year later, he received an engagement at the Municipal Theater Ulm , where he in October 1937 in the opera The Merry Wives of Windsor by Otto Nicolai in the role of Fenton made his debut. This was followed by an engagement at the Graz Opera House , where he opened the season in Richard Wagner's opera The Flying Dutchman in September 1939 . In addition to the work of the singer who was gradually becoming famous at the opera, invitations to concerts in Stuttgart, Munich and Berlin were received.

One of the most famous recordings by Alfons Fügel. It was created in the middle of World War II on January 18, 1942 in Berlin, which was threatened by bombs, for the Polydor record label of the Deutsche Grammophongesellschaft .

Fügel's great career began in 1940 when Clemens Krauss brought him to the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. Fügel expanded his repertoire to include German and Italian songwriting, and the dramatic parts of German, French and Italian opera were developed in addition to the lyrical roles he had already mastered. The broadcast of Giacomo Puccini's opera La Bohème on Christmas 1940 on Großdeutscher Rundfunk meant for Alfons Fügel, who sang the role of Rodolfo (Rudolf), the consolidation of his position as one of the leading tenors of his time. The judgment of the press was unanimous, Fügel was compared with the great Italian tenors such as Enrico Caruso .

Due to the war , Fügel failed to pursue an international career at the major opera stages abroad, and artistic activities at home also came to a standstill after Joseph Goebbels announced the “total war” on February 18, 1943 and the theaters were closed. There remained appearances as part of the troop support of the German Wehrmacht and participation in the soldiers' wish concerts.

After the end of the war in 1945, Fügel was no longer able to build on his earlier successes, partly due to vocal and health problems. He still performed in concerts and on the radio, but despite his successes, the singer's great career was over. After his return to Bonlanden in 1950, Alfons Fügel opened a café with his family in what is now Alfons-Fügel-Strasse.

During a concert in Esslingen on October 8, 1960, when Fügel sang the Wolga song from the operetta Der Zarewitsch by Franz Lehár , he suffered a heart attack and died two days later at the age of 48 in an Esslingen hospital.

Alfons Fügel found his final resting place in the cemetery of his hometown Bonlanden. A street and a hall in Bonlanden were named after him. On the occasion of the singer's 100th birthday, the Alfons Fügel memorial column created by the sculptor Gsell Uli and financed by donations was inaugurated in 2012.

literature

KJ Kutsch , Leo Riemens : Large singer lexicon . Unchanged edition. KG Saur, Bern 1993, first volume A – L, p. 1012, ISBN 3-907820-70-3 .
Christine Müller: Alfons Fügel . In: MGG ( Music in the past and present ) . 2nd, revised edition. Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel et al. 2003, ISBN 3-7618-1117-9 (Bärenreiter), ISBN 3-476-41016-1 (Metzler), person part vol. 7, Fra – Gre, column 244/245. (The date of death is incorrect).
Fridhardt Pascher: Looking for historical recordings with Alfons Fügel . In: Booklet for the CD Alfons Fügel: Operas. Historical recordings . Uracant No. 972, Bad Urach 1979.
Francis F. Clough / GJ Cuming: The World's Encyclopaedia of recorded music (WERM). Greenwood Press, Westport 1970 (reprint).

Audio documents

Complete discography in: Fridhardt Pascher: Alfons Fügel (= Günter Walter (Ed.): Voices that went around the world. A magazine for friends of historical sound recordings ). Walter-Verlag, Münster, issue No. 65, September 1999.

Most of the surviving recordings with Alfons Fügel that were found and published by Fridhardt Pascher and the Bonlanden community are available on youtube . It is about transfers of old shellac and long-playing records, as well as radio recordings on CD.

Web links

Works by and about Alfons Fügel in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

↑ www.filderstadt.de . Here also biographical information on Alfons Fügel.
↑ The date of death given in the MGG is incorrect. Fügel suffered a heart attack at his last concert in Esslingen on October 8, 1960, but only died 2 days later, i.e. on October 10, 1960. (Information from Dr. Nikolaus Back, head of the city archive of the city of Filderstadt with reference to the Filder- Newspaper (local edition of the Stuttgarter Nachrichten and the Stuttgarter Zeitung), which reported Fügel's death in the October 12, 1960 edition.)
↑ The house where Alfons Fügels was born in Bonlanden (Filderstadt) is the Gasthaus zur Krone, Kronenstrasse 16.
↑ The recording is now available on CD: Giacomo Puccini: Die Bohème (La Bohème). Complete recording in German (= historical audio documents ). AfHO / Line Music and Cantus Classics, 2000, CA CD 5.00124, AAD, LMS Mono. Recording: December 1940 in Munich.
↑ Location: Bonlanden: Georgstrasse at the corner of Kronenstrasse. Dimensions: height: 2.69 m, plate: 0.62 x 0.62 m.
↑ Precise information also under http://www.charm.rhul.ac.uk/discography/search/search_simple.html .
See also: http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do (unpublished recordings from Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg by Richard Wagner ).
↑ The CDs, which are now out of print, were published by Uracant, Bad Urach. The radio recordings come from the sound archives of German broadcasters and the German broadcast archive .

personal data
SURNAME	Fügel, Alfons
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German opera singer (tenor)
DATE OF BIRTH	August 10, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH	Bonlanden
DATE OF DEATH	October 10, 1960
Place of death	Esslingen

[1] www.filderstadt.de . Here also biographical information on Alfons Fügel.

[2] The date of death given in the MGG is incorrect. Fügel suffered a heart attack at his last concert in Esslingen on October 8, 1960, but only died 2 days later, i.e. on October 10, 1960. (Information from Dr. Nikolaus Back, head of the city archive of the city of Filderstadt with reference to the Filder- Newspaper (local edition of the Stuttgarter Nachrichten and the Stuttgarter Zeitung), which reported Fügel's death in the October 12, 1960 edition.)

[3] The house where Alfons Fügels was born in Bonlanden (Filderstadt) is the Gasthaus zur Krone, Kronenstrasse 16.

[4] The recording is now available on CD: Giacomo Puccini: Die Bohème (La Bohème). Complete recording in German (= historical audio documents ). AfHO / Line Music and Cantus Classics, 2000, CA CD 5.00124, AAD, LMS Mono. Recording: December 1940 in Munich.

[5] Location: Bonlanden: Georgstrasse at the corner of Kronenstrasse. Dimensions: height: 2.69 m, plate: 0.62 x 0.62 m.

[6] Precise information also under http://www.charm.rhul.ac.uk/discography/search/search_simple.html .
See also: http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do (unpublished recordings from Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg by Richard Wagner ).

[7] The CDs, which are now out of print, were published by Uracant, Bad Urach. The radio recordings come from the sound archives of German broadcasters and the German broadcast archive .