Franz Crass

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Franz Crass (born March 9, 1928 in Wipperfürth , Rhine Province ; † June 23, 2012 in Rüsselsheim , Hesse ) was a German opera singer ( bass ).

Life

Crass 'parents' house is in Krommenohl , formerly the municipality of Klüppelberg, today the municipality of Marienheide . He spent several years of his childhood there. In the 1930s his family moved to Liegnitz in Silesia . At the age of eleven he got his first engagement there as the 2nd boy in the opera Die Zauberflöte . A few weeks before the end of World War II , he was taken prisoner by the Americans and could no longer be used in the Volkssturm . In 1945 he returned to Krommenohl.

Crass studied singing, first in Cologne with Margarethe Flecken. He was a student of Gerda Heuer in Wiesbaden and of Clemens Glettenberg's College of Music in Cologne . He made his debut at the Stadttheater Krefeld in 1954 as König in the opera Aida . 1956–1962 he sang at the Hanover Opera House , 1962–1964 at the Cologne Opera House . From 1964 he only gave guest appearances.

Between 1963 and 1974 he sang regularly at the Vienna State Opera ; there he appeared as Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte , Komtur in Don Giovanni , Eremit in Der Freischütz and Rocco in Fidelio ; He also took on numerous Wagner roles there (Landgraf in Tannhäuser , König Marke in Tristan and Isolde , Fasolt in Das Rheingold , Gurnemanz in Parsifal ). He sang repeatedly at La Scala in Milan : 1960 as Commander and Don Fernando in Fidelio ; 1963 as Fasolt; 1965 as Telramund in Lohengrin ; 1972 as Orest in Elektra .

He gave further guest appearances at the Covent Garden Opera in London (1966 with the ensemble of the Hamburg State Opera as Barak in Die Frau ohne Schatten ), at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires (1964 as König Heinrich in Lohengrin ; 1966 as Rocco; 1968 and 1971 as König Marke and as Veit Pogner in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg ; 1969 as Amfortas in Parsifal ), at the Grand Théâtre de Genève (1965 in the title role of the opera Der Fliegende Holländer ; 1973 as Landgraf; 1979 as Don Fernando), at the Staatsoper Berlin ( 1965 as Sarastro, König Heinrich and Rocco), at the Nancy Opera (1972 as König Marke), at the Lyric Opera in Chicago (1975 as Rocco) and from 1954 to 1973 at the Bayreuth Festival .

As a song interpreter, Crass performed together with the pianist Sebastian Peschko .

In 1981, hearing damage forced him to end his career. In 1981 he said goodbye to the stage at the Frankfurt Opera , as a hermit in the Der Freischütz opera . Since the late 1970s, Crass had been showing signs of increasing deafness . Then he devoted himself to singing lessons. Bassist Lars Woldt is one of his students .

In addition to the classic bass parts, Franz Crass also took on a few selected hero-baritone roles .

Crass was awarded the Bavarian Order of Merit .

Crass spent his twilight years in Hochheim am Main in Hesse . Crass has been bedridden since an accident in May 2011; since autumn 2011 he lived in a nursing home in Hochheim.

Work in Bayreuth

Crass was a member of the Bayreuth Festival choir from 1954–1956 . As a soloist he first appeared in Bayreuth in 1959, as King Heinrich in Lohengrin . From 1959 to 1973 he was a permanent member of the Bayreuth Festival. In Bayreuth, Crass sang mainly the Wagner roles in the serious bass class; However, as a step in, he also took on the hero baritone role of the Flying Dutchman . He sang the following roles in Bayreuth: König Heinrich (1959, 1962, 1971, 1972), Holländer (1960, 1961), Biterolf in Tannhäuser (1961, 1962), Fasolt (1963), Gurnemanz (every year 1967–1973) and King Brand (1970).

Discography (selection)

swell

  • Portrait of Franz Crass: fono forum issue 03/1962, page 27

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Obituary (ndl.)
  2. ↑ a b Opera singer Franz Crass died ( Memento from July 4, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Report of the dpa from June 25, 2012
  3. ↑ List of parts by Franz Crass in: Chronik der Wiener Staatsoper 1945-2005 , p. 354. Löcker Verlag, Vienna 2006. ISBN 3-85409-449-3
  4. ↑ 1876 ​​BAYREUTH 1991 (original publication of the Bayreuth Festival; with documentation of the line-up of the Bayreuth Festival 1951–1990)
personal data
SURNAME Crass, Franz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German opera singer (bass)
DATE OF BIRTH March 9, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Wipperfürth , Rhine Province
DATE OF DEATH June 23, 2012
Place of death Rüsselsheim , Hesse