Hermann Wiedemann

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Hermann Wiedemann ( March 7, 1879 in Munich - June 21 or July 1, 1944 ) was a German opera singer with a baritone voice . He was particularly successful with Wagner and Strauss roles, was a member of the Vienna Opera ensemble from 1916 and made guest appearances at major theaters and festivals across Europe. In 1930 he was appointed chamber singer .

life and work

Hermann Wiedemann was born in the Neuhausen district of Munich . He was trained as a baritone and made his debut (according to Kutsch / Riemens ) in 1904 at the Stadttheater von Elberfeld , today a district of Wuppertal . There he was committed for two seasons. He successfully sang the lyrical and more dramatic subject and was particularly successful in roles by Wagner and Strauss.

From 1906 to 1909 he was engaged at the German City Theater in Brno, then for four seasons at the Hamburg City Theater  and from 1913 to 1916 at the Berlin Court Opera . In 1916 he followed a call to the kk Hof-Operntheater in Vienna, from 1918 Vienna State Opera . He remained loyal to this house for life. He appeared there in more than a thousand performances and was one of the pillars of the ensemble.

His prime roles in Vienna were Herr von Faninal (196 times), Sixtus Beckmesser (155 times), Alberich (78 times in Rheingold , 36 times in Siegfried ) and Klingsor (70 times). At the Ring he also sang Mozart, Beethoven and the Italian repertoire, ten times Escamilio in Carmen and in operas by Alban Berg , Julius Bittner , Marco Frank , Wilhelm Kienzl , Erich Wolfgang Korngold , Otto Nicolai , Hans Pfitzner , Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari and Alexander von Zemlinsky . The spectrum of his roles extended to the classical Viennese operetta , Johann Strauss and Franz Lehár .

In parallel to his permanent engagements, Wiedemann made guest appearances at houses all over Europe. His guest performance began in 1907 with a detour to the Dresden Court Opera and in 1909 with his first appearances at the Munich Court Opera . In 1913 he sang Herr von Faninal at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, and in 1938 there, Sixtus Beckmesser. In 1927 he performed at the Teatro Liceu in Barcelona and in 1936 at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels. In the 1930s he was also seen and heard at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires .

In 1922 he made his debut as Guglielmo at the Salzburg Festival , returned in 1925 as Dottore Malatesta in Don Pasquale and from 1929 to 1941 he worked almost every summer in Salzburg as Lord of Faninal. Arturo Toscanini cast him in 1936 and 1937 as Sixtus Beckmesser in his legendary new Salzburg Meistersinger production, of which there is also a complete recording. It is the only main role of the singer that is completely preserved on phonograms. James Forrest from Fanfare Magazine praised the well-preserved voice in 2016, Wiedemann was already 58 years old at the time of the performance, and that he not only declaimed the role, but actually sang it.

He also appeared at the Munich Opera Festival (as Donner und Alberich) and (as Alberich and Beckmesser) from 1934 to 1941 almost every year at the festival in the Forest Opera  of Sopot , an open-air theater near Danzig, which became known as the Bayreuth of the North .

According to Kutsch / Riemens, he also achieved “an important career” as a concert singer . In 1930 he was appointed chamber singer by his parent company, the Vienna State Opera . From 1942 he taught opera drama at the Vienna Music Academy . The place and date of death are unclear. Three places are named (Vienna, Berlin and Puchberg am Schneeberg ) and two dates. According to the Austrian Music Lexicon , the singer died in the Strengberg sanatorium in the small Lower Austrian community of Puchberg.

Hermann Wiedemann was married to Marie Dopler (born February 20, 1886 in Vienna), a highly dramatic soprano who did well in Brno, Hamburg and Magdeburg before the First World War. She also appeared at the Vienna Court Opera, but only three times. During the 1911–12 season she sang Elektra, Ortrud and Siegfried-Brünnhilde in the Haus am Ring. She died in 1942 and was buried on June 13, 1942 in her family's grave at Hietzinger Friedhof .

Role Directory

World premieres

Repertoire (selection)

Beethoven :

Mountain :

Bittner :

  • Hofrat Emil Freiherr von Weidinger in Das Veilchen

Bizet :

Donizetti :

Humperdinck :

Janáček :

Kienzl :

Grain gold :

Mascagni :

Meyerbeer :

Mozart :

Mussorgsky :

Nicolai :

 

Pfitzner :

Puccini :

Johann Strauss :

Richard Strauss :

Tchaikovsky :

Verdi :

Wagner :

Audio documents

Despite the long duration of his career, there are only a few audio documents. For a long time, acoustic HMV records from the years 1912 to 1914 (excerpts from Tannhäuser and the Singers' War at Wartburg and Der Schmuck der Madonna ) were the only documents. There is also a shellac with the aria "I should have no luck" from the Marriage of Figaro . There are at least three recordings of individual scenes from the Vienna State Opera, as Alberich (with Luise Helletsgruber , Enid Szánthó and Dora With as Rhine daughters), as Klingsor and Beckmesser. The following complete recording comes from Salzburg:

There is also a complete recording from Buenos Aires , in which he only sings a secondary role in Tristan and Isolde :

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Archives of the Vienna State Opera: Performances with Hermann Wiedemann , accessed on June 4, 2020
  2. ↑ Archive of the Salzburg Festival : Search for the schedule , accessed on June 2, 2020
  3. ↑ Immortal Performances: ARTURO TOSCANINI Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg Salzburg 1937/1936 , accessed on June 2, 2020
  4. ^ Weisbrod / Wolansky: Deutsches Theater-Lexikon. de Gruyter, 2015, p. 3319.
  5. ^ Archives of the Vienna State Opera: Performances with Marie Dopler , accessed on June 2, 2020
  6. ^ Friedhöfe Wien: Searching for a grave , keyword Marie Wiedemann, accessed on June 2, 2020
personal data
SURNAME Wiedemann, Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Opera singer with a baritone voice
DATE OF BIRTH March 7, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH June 21, 1944 or July 1, 1944