Kurt Moll

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Kurt Moll (born April 11, 1938 in Buir near Kerpen ; † March 5, 2017 in Cologne ) was a German opera singer ( bass ).

Life

Kurt Moll learned guitar and cello in his youth and was a soloist in the school choir. Then he studied at the Cologne University of Music and privately with Emmy Müller in Krefeld . At the age of 20 he began his professional career at the Cologne Opera and was invited to Aachen shortly afterwards . This was followed by the Mainz State Theater and a contract as the first bass player in Wuppertal .

He made his debut at the Bayreuth Festival in 1967 in the role of the 2nd Knight of the Grail in Parsifal . In the following years until 1976 he sang other roles there, such as König Marke in Tristan and Isolde or Veit Pogner in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg . He had his international breakthrough in 1970 at the Salzburg Festival as Sarastro ( The Magic Flute ) .

Moll made his debut at the Bavarian State Opera in 1971 as a substitute in the role of Veit Pogner in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and from then on appeared in numerous roles at this house for 35 years, especially in Wagner and Mozart. In 1972 he made his debut at La Scala in Milan as Osmin ( The Abduction from the Seraglio ) , and in 1974 made his US debut in San Francisco as Gurnemanz (Parsifal) . He first appeared at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in the 1979 season, singing Rocco ( Fidelio ) and Sparafucile ( Rigoletto ) , among others . His career also took him to Hamburg and Vienna . "Moll's dark-colored, softly voiced bass, the intelligibility of the text of his singing, the art of legato singing and the clever sound dramaturgy of voice and presentation were in demand."

Grave in the Melaten cemetery

In the 1990s he took over a singing professorship at the Cologne University of Music.

On July 31, 2006, Kurt Moll said goodbye to the opera stage at the Munich Opera Festival in the role of the night watchman in Richard Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg . He had previously announced that he would have to retire from the opera stage for health reasons.

Kurt Moll was married to Ursula Moll (née Pade) and had three children (Christine Moll, Thomas Moll and Susanne Lippke née Moll). Moll was buried in the Melaten central cemetery in Cologne in hall 3 (N).

Honors

Moll was a Bavarian, Hamburg and Austrian chamber singer and holder of the Bavarian Order of Merit . In 2002 he received the Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art .

repertoire

At the center of Kurt Moll's repertoire were the great bass parts of Mozart , Wagner and Strauss , but he also sang bass parts by Carl Maria von Weber such as the Eremiten in Der Freischütz or the Inquisitor in Sergei Sergejewitsch Prokofiev's opera Der feurige Engel, op.37 .

Kurt Moll has also sung roles such as Osmin, Sarastro, Falstaff and Gurnemanz in record productions under Sir Georg Solti , James Levine , Herbert von Karajan , Wolfgang Sawallisch and Karl Böhm .

Kurt Moll was also a lieder singer. In 1983 he recorded the song cycle Winterreise by Franz Schubert with Cord Garben as accompanist on the piano. With the same piano accompanist, he also recorded 2 CDs with ballads by Carl Loewe in 1996 as part of a complete recording of all Loewe songs.

theatre

Student (selection)

Filmography

  • Kurt Moll - one man, one bass. Portrait, Germany 2000, 60 min., Script and direction: Eckhart Schmidt, production: Raphaela Film GmbH with Preview Release GmbH in coproduction with Bayerischer Rundfunk

literature

Web links

References and comments

  1. ^ Opera singer Kurt Moll has died . orf.at , accessed on March 6, 2017.
  2. ↑ https://www.ndr.de/kultur/musik/Nachruf-auf-Opernsaenger-Kurt-Moll,nachruf148.html
  3. ↑ Wolfgang Schreiber: Majesty of the depth. Sarastro, König Marke and at the end the triumphant night watchman - the great opera bass and character actor Kurt Moll has died. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung of March 8, 2017, p. 10.
  4. ↑ See also the opera magazine of the Bavarian State Opera Takt , special edition 2006, p. 18.
  5. ↑ Kurt Moll - One man, one bass. (Film portrait).
personal data
SURNAME Minor, Kurt
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German opera singer (bass)
DATE OF BIRTH April 11, 1938
PLACE OF BIRTH Buir near Kerpen
DATE OF DEATH 5th March 2017
Place of death Cologne