Karl Grengg

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Karl Grengg around 1900

Karl Grengg (born March 16, 1851 in Graz , † October 7, 1914 there ) was an Austrian opera singer with a bass voice .

life and work

Karl Grengg was born in Graz in 1851, where his father was the office director. He attended high school and then turned to studying medicine. Even then, when he sometimes sang in the church choir on high holidays, he caused a sensation with his sonorous bass - baritone, and when he later resigned as a member of the Academic Choral Society as a soloist at the lieder boards and concerts of the society, many sides advised him to take the stage to turn to. He received his first musical training from Professor Hoppe. First he worked in the Graz City Theater, then in Zurich, where he only stayed for a year. After a while he received an offer from the director Recke in Nuremberg, who gave performances in the city theaters in Nuremberg, Fürth and Würzburg with his able-bodied company. The first engagement that made Grengg's name known in the theater world was at the Prague German State Theater, where the artist was the first artist to work for three years. In 1882 he moved to the city theater in Leipzig, which at that time had an excellent opera company. After guest appearances at the kuk Hofoperntheater in Vienna he was hired by director Karl Jahn in 1889 as the successor of Emil Scaria . With his imposing appearance, the mighty chest, Grengg was perfect as a bass player for the hero subject, namely as an interpreter of Wagner operas. His Gurnemanz in Parsifal was admired by an international audience in Bayreuth .

In Viennese society and at the places where he worked, Grengg was extremely popular because of his humorous, reserved nature. On August 23, 1902, he suffered a stroke during a performance from which he did not recover. After three months of incapacity for work, his contract was terminated by the court theater authorities, whereupon the engagement expired after a further three months. The annual support he received from the state was just a tenth of his active income. After receiving the pension decree, Grengg and his wife moved to Graz, where he died at the age of 62 after a long illness. He last lived at Glacisstrasse 5.

Varia

Before Cosima Wagner Grengg offered to take on the part of Gurnemanz in Parsifal, she investigated whether the artist might not be an Israelite. Your informant in Vienna reported on the bassist in a detailed anti-Semitic report:

"G. is undoubtedly not a Semite . I am assured by the best-informed side that he is a real, coarse-grained, Styrian Teuton. On the other hand, it is ' on dit ' that the woman is either a full-blooded Jew, or at least very heavily infected with this blood. It is said to have a great influence on him and, on some occasions, to impose such a decidedly Semitic character on his behavior that it often led to the view that he himself was a Jew. One should rather say: he is so pure German that he can be doggedly influenced by Jews. "

Grengg's wife Laura, b. Rubin (1849 in Gewitsch , Moravia) was of Jewish origin, and Grengg also temporarily converted to Judaism, but, like his wife, announced his resignation from the Mosaic faith in the municipal district office in Graz in 1904.

Laura Grengg moved back to Vienna after the death of her husband and died there on October 20, 1919 at the age of 70; she was buried in the cemetery in Ober St. Veit. Georg, the couple's only son, had already followed his father to the grave in 1916.

literature

Web links

Commons : Karl Grengg  - collection of images, videos and audio files
  • Obituary Karl Grengg. In:  foreigners sheet of the imperial and royal capital Vienna / foreigner sheet and tag news of the imperial and royal capital Vienna / foreigner sheet / foreigner sheet with Vedette / foreigner sheet with military supplement Die Vedette , October 8th 1914, p. 15 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / fdb

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Richard Wagner and Vienna: Anti-Semitic radicalization and the emergence of Wagnerianism ISBN 978-3-99012-308-9 equb
  2. ↑ Anna L. Staudacher "... reports the departure from the Mosaic faith": 18,000 withdrawals from Judaism. 1868–1914, names - sources - dates - p. 208
  3. ↑ Neue Freie Presse - 19191022 - page 8
personal data
SURNAME Grengg, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian opera singer with a bass voice
DATE OF BIRTH March 16, 1851
PLACE OF BIRTH Graz
DATE OF DEATH October 7, 1914
Place of death Graz