Ludwig Suthaus

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Ludwig Suthaus (born December 12, 1906 in Cologne , † September 7, 1971 in West Berlin ) was a German opera singer ( Heldentenor ).

Life

Suthaus' talent for singing was discovered during his apprenticeship as a stonemason . At the age of 17 he was given the opportunity to study alongside his apprenticeship at the Cologne University of Music , where his teacher Julius Lenz initially considered him a baritone , but was convinced by Suthaus and then trained him as a tenor .

In 1928 Suthaus made his debut in Aachen as Walther von Stolzing in Richard Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg . From 1932 to 1942 he was engaged at the Staatstheater Stuttgart , but because he did not join the NSDAP , he was found “politically intolerable” and dismissed. The Berlin State Opera , where he had been engaged since 1941, evidently had no such reservations, as did the management of the Bayreuth Festival , where he  made his debut in 1943 - again with the Meistersinger - and has since performed regularly in various roles.

The singer stayed in Berlin for the rest of his career, only moving in 1949 from the State Opera, now in the east of the city, to the Deutsche Oper Berlin in the western part. In addition, however, there was a lively guest performance all over the world, u. a. at the Vienna State Opera , the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, the Scala in Milan , the National Theater in Munich , the Hamburg State Opera , the Paris Opera and the San Francisco Opera .

Grave of Ludwig Suthaus

Ludwig Suthaus was one of the conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler's favorite Wagner interpreters in the last years of his life . Joint recordings are Tristan and Isolde (1952), Der Ring des Nibelungen with Suthaus as Siegfried (1953) and Die Walküre (1954, Furtwängler's last recording).

On the way back from a Wagner guest performance in Brussels, Suthaus had a serious car accident on the motorway near Rinteln at the end of October 1960 , the consequences of which ended his career.

Ludwig Suthaus died in September 1971 at the age of 64 in his adopted home Berlin. His grave is in the state-owned cemetery Heerstraße in Berlin-Westend (grave location: II-Ur 3-124).

Suthaus is the great uncle of the church musician and concert organist Hans-Joachim Schüttke.

meaning

Ludwig Suthaus' voice had neither the metallic sheen nor the vocal energy of Lauritz Melchior , but rather had a soft, melancholy, somewhat palatable sound. That is why he stood in the shadow not only of the Dane during his career, but also of other tenors with more powerful voices such as Günther Treptow , Max Lorenz , Bernd Aldenhoff or Ramón Vinay .

In retrospect, he surpasses these four in terms of vocal culture, intensity and phrasing ability. That is why he is still - alongside Melchior and Jon Vickers - one of the most haunting actors, especially of Tristan .

literature

  • Kesting, Jürgen: The great singers of the 20th century, Cormoran, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-517-07987-1

Audio samples

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Suthaus had an accident . In: Hamburger Abendblatt . Monday, October 31, 1960. p. 12. Retrieved October 18, 2019.
  2. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon of Berlin burial places . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 . P. 495.
  3. ^ Biography of the concert organist Hans-Joachim Schüttke on his own website, accessed on November 27, 2014.
personal data
SURNAME Suthaus, Ludwig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German opera singer (hero tenor)
DATE OF BIRTH December 12, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH 7th September 1971
Place of death West Berlin