Walter Kirchhoff

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Walter Kirchhoff (left) with Bruno Kittel (center, seated) in October 1926

Walter Kirchhoff (born March 17, 1879 in Berlin , German Reich ; † March 29, 1951 in Wiesbaden ) was a German opera singer ( tenor ) and chamber singer .

Life

Training and beginnings

Walter Kirchhoff initially embarked on a military career and became a cavalry officer . On the advice of the director of the Berlin court opera , Count Georg von Hülsen-Haeseler , he had his voice trained and studied singing in Berlin with Eugen Robert Weiss and Lilli Lehmann , and later in Milan to perfect his voice . He probably made his stage debut in 1906 at the Metz Stadttheater as the eponymous hero Manrico in Verdi's opera The Troubadour .

Career in the German Empire

In 1906 he made his debut at the Berlin Court Opera as Faust in the opera by Charles Gounod . In 1910 he took part in the world premiere of the opera Poia by the American composer Arthur Nevin . In 1911 he was the king's son at the Berlin court opera in the German premiere of the new version of the opera Königskinder , and in 1914 Parsifal in the Berlin premiere.

From 1908 to 1912 he was engaged as a guest at the Dresden Court Opera . In 1916 he made a guest appearance at the Leipzig Opera House . At the Bayreuth Festival he sang Walther von Stolzing in the Meistersinger in 1911/12 and Parsifal in 1914.

Kirchhoff remained a member of the Berlin Court Opera until 1920 (since 1918: Berlin State Opera). There he mainly emerged as a Wagner interpreter. In 1923/24 and 1928/29 he was again a member of the ensemble of the Berlin State Opera. In 1932 he sang Loge in Das Rheingold at the Berlin State Opera . In the 1933/34 season he was engaged at the German Opera House in Berlin .

International guest performances

Kirchhoff gave guest appearances at the Riga Opera House (1910), the Vienna Court Opera (1913), the Covent Garden Opera in London (including 1913 as Walther von Stolzing and 1924 as Loge), in Madrid (1920, in the Ring cycle) and Rome (1921, as a concert singer).

In 1922 and 1923 he appeared at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires ; there he took part in the first complete performance of the Ring cycle in 1922 as Loge and Siegfried in Götterdämmerung . He also appeared there as Parsifal. In South America he also sang at the Rio de Janeiro Opera House . From 1926 to 1931 he was a permanent member of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City . Here he worked as a heroic tenor and appeared in Wagner roles. In 1927 he sang Don Alfonso at the MET in the premiere of the one-act play Violanta by Erich Wolfgang Korngold .

In 1927/28 he appeared again with great success at the Vienna State Opera, a. a. in June 1928 as Lohengrin , with Bella Paalen as Ortrud. In 1929 he made a guest appearance in Paris with a German ensemble under the musical direction of the conductor Franz von Hoesslin . In 1930 he was a guest at the Grand Opéra Paris as Tannhäuser . In 1931 he appeared at the Antwerp Opera House and in 1935 at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels .

Christmas 1914

At the beginning of the First World War , Kirchhoff volunteered for military service. He was on the staff of the High Command of the 5th Army as an orderly officer and adjutant to the Prussian Crown Prince Wilhelm of Prussia (1882-1951).

At Christmas 1914, Kirchhoff sang German Christmas carols for his comrades in the foremost trench of the 130th regiment on the battlefield . This episode went down in history as part of the so-called " Christmas Peace "; the anti-war film Merry Christmas is a cinematic reminder of these fraternities. On December 28, 1914, he performed together with the soprano Lilly Hafgren-Waag at the City Theater in Metz; they sang as Siegmund and Sieglinde in Act 1 of the Wagner opera Die Walküre .

Late years

Kirchhoff gave up his singing career in the mid-1930s. From 1934 he worked as a singing teacher at the Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory in Berlin. At the same time he directed the “ Lichtburg Theater ” in Berlin from 1934 to 1935 . He worked as a private singing teacher; later he also worked as a stage agent and theater agent. Kirchhoff was the son-in-law of the Hungarian opera singer Etelka Gerster .

Voice and repertoire

Kirchhoff had a "powerful, metallic shimmering" tenor voice (Kutsch / Riemens), with which he had great success, especially in the difficult Wagner field. Through his role interpretations, he played a key role in the international distribution of Wagner's musical dramas.

At the beginning of his career he sang numerous lyrical roles such as Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni , Achilles in Iphigenie in Aulis and Alfred in La Traviata . He later played roles in the youthful-dramatic tenor, the hero tenor, and in later years, the character tenor. His games included u. a. of Lohengrin , the Tristan , Don José in Carmen , Canio in Pagliacci , Narraboth in Salome , Aegisthus in Elektra and the singing teacher Alfred in Strauss operetta Die Fledermaus .

Kirchhoff's sound documents are preserved on various record labels ( Pathé , Parlophon, HMV , Ultima and Odeon ). The earliest recordings are from 1907/08. In 1929 excerpts from Ring performances were published.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Paul S. Ulrich: Biographical Index for Theater, Dance and Music / Biographical Index for Theater, Dance and Music . Berlin publishing house. Arno Spitz GmbH. 1997. Page 932. ISBN 978-3-87061-479-9
  2. ↑ Wilhelm Kosch's Deutsches Theaterlexikon also gives March 29th as the day of death. Deviating from this, Kutsch / Riemens name March 26th as the date of death.
  3. ↑ LOHENGRIN . Occupation from June 15, 1928. Schedule archive of the Vienna State Opera . Retrieved October 8, 2018.
  4. ↑ Christmas 1914: A Little Peace . In: Bonner Generalanzeiger of December 23, 2014. Retrieved October 8, 2018.
  5. ↑ Adrienne Thomas: Katrin becomes a soldier and other from Lorraine . Page 196. Röhrig University Press . St. Ingbert 2008. ISBN 978-3-86110-455-1
personal data
SURNAME Kirchhoff, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German opera singer (tenor) and chamber singer
DATE OF BIRTH March 17, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin , German Empire
DATE OF DEATH March 29, 1951
Place of death Wiesbaden