Paul Bender (singer)

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Paul Bender (born July 28, 1875 in Driedorf , Westerwald , † November 25, 1947 in Munich ) was a German opera singer ( bass ).

Life

The son of the Protestant pastor Georg Bender began his vocal training while studying medicine in Berlin. His musical teachers were Luise Ress and Baptist Hoffmann . Paul Bender made his stage debut at the Opera House in Breslau as early as 1900. In 1903 he moved to the Munich Court Opera , where he stayed until the end of his career. So he was able to celebrate his 40th anniversary as a member of the ensemble there in September 1943. In total, he was on stage in more than 2000 performances.

During his time in Munich, Paul Bender sang practically all of the major bass parts and also appeared as a hero baritone in some performances. His repertoire comprised no less than 118 games in total. Numerous world premieres took place with his participation. For example those of Le donne curiose ( The Curious Women ) in 1903 and I quattro rusteghi ( The Four Ruffians ) in 1906, both by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari . At the premiere of Palestrina ( Hans Pfitzner ) in 1917 he shone as Pope Pius V in the Munich Prinzregententheater . Other world premieres were The Ghost Sonata by Julius Weismann (1930), The Heart by Hans Pfitzner (1931) and The Moon by Carl Orff (1939).

Paul Bender has been a repeated guest at the Richard Wagner Festival in Bayreuth since 1902 . Guest performances at the Théàtre de la Monnaie Brussels (1910), at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées Paris (1914), at the Vienna Court and State Opera (1916–17), at the Covent Garden Opera London (1910–1914) and at the City Theater Zurich (1915) consolidated his fame, so that from 1922 to 1927 he was also called to the Metropolitan Opera in New York. 1926 was Bender at the Salzburg Festival as guests, 1938 and 1939, he joined the performances of the Ring des Nibelungen by Richard Wagner in the La Scala on.

Paul Bender's great passion, who had already been appointed Royal Bavarian Chamber Singer in 1907 , was concert and lieder singing. As a ballad singer, he was celebrated as the successor to Eugen Gura . Neither in the opera nor at such appearances did Bender rely solely on his impressive voice. The acting element was always important to him. How far his mimic presence went can be seen from the fact that he also played a leading role in the important expressionist silent film Nerven by Robert Reinert in 1919 . (The film addressed the misery of the post-war period so impressively that the audience saw scenes of desperation and the work was banned.)

The singer stood on stage until shortly before his death. Especially in the 30s and 40s, he also worked as a professor at the Munich Academy of Music (today part of the University of Music and Theater ). Josef Greindl and Hans Hopf were among his students . Bender was married to the soprano Paula Brand, who gave up her career after marriage. His grave is in the Munich forest cemetery, Grablage 110-W-13.

Quote

In the nearly five decades of his stage activity he made most of the important parts of the bass his own, always knowing how to subordinate the vocal virtuoso element to the higher imperative of overall artistic design. He was particularly impressed by characters who embodied human nobility, dignity and greatness ... (Wilhelm Zentner in The Music in Past and Present (MGG), first edition, Volume 15)

Games (selection)

Discography

  • Living past - Paul Bender . CD, Preiser / Naxos, Vienna 1999
  • From Munich's operatic history , 4 CDs, Preiser / Naxos, Vienna 1999
  • They sang in the Prinzregententheater , 3 CDs, Preiser / Naxos, Vienna 2001
  • Symposium Opera Coll. 10 - Paul Bender , CD, Symposium / Scherzando, 2006

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Erich H. Müller (Ed.): German Musicians Lexicon, Wilhelm Limpert-Verlag, Dresden 1929
  2. ↑ Karl-Josef Kutsch , Leo Riemens : Large singer lexicon . Electronic edition of the third, extended edition, Directmedia, Berlin 2004
  3. ↑ Friedrich Blume (Ed.): The Music in Past and Present, electronic edition of the first edition (1949–1986), Directmedia, Berlin 2001
  4. ↑ Paul Bender , Internationales Biographisches Archiv 35/1959 of August 17, 1959, in the Munzinger Archive ( beginning of article freely available)
personal data
SURNAME Bender, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German opera singer (bass)
DATE OF BIRTH July 28, 1875
PLACE OF BIRTH Driedorf , Westerwald
DATE OF DEATH November 25, 1947
Place of death Munich