Erik Schmedes
Encyclopedia
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
– March 23, 1931, in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
) was an opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
tic tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
, particularly known for his roles in operas by Richard Wagner. He was the brother-in-law of Vaslav Nijinsky
Vaslav Nijinsky
Vaslav Nijinsky was a Russian ballet dancer and choreographer of Polish descent, cited as the greatest male dancer of the 20th century. He grew to be celebrated for his virtuosity and for the depth and intensity of his characterizations...
.
Schmedes was born into a family of musicians, the most prominent of which was his brother Hakon, a noted violinist and composer. After studying in Paris, Berlin and Vienna, he made his debut as a baritone
Baritone
Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
in Wiesbaden
Wiesbaden
Wiesbaden is a city in southwest Germany and the capital of the federal state of Hesse. It has about 275,400 inhabitants, plus approximately 10,000 United States citizens...
1891 as The King's Herald in Lohengrin
Lohengrin (opera)
Lohengrin is a romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach and its sequel, Lohengrin, written by a different author, itself...
. He continued to sing as a baritone until 1897. However, after further study with August Iffert in Vienna, his heldentenor voice emerged. He made his debut as a tenor in 1898, singing the title role in Siegfried
Siegfried (opera)
Siegfried is the third of the four operas that constitute Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner. It received its premiere at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 16 August 1876, as part of the first complete performance of The Ring...
at the Vienna State Opera
Vienna State Opera
The Vienna State Opera is an opera house – and opera company – with a history dating back to the mid-19th century. It is located in the centre of Vienna, Austria. It was originally called the Vienna Court Opera . In 1920, with the replacement of the Habsburg Monarchy by the First Austrian...
. His career remained largely based at that opera house, where he was a Kammersänger
Kammersänger
Kammersänger , abbreviation: "Ks.", literally means "Chamber singer." It is a German honorific title for distinguished singers...
and one of the most prominent tenors during the years of Gustav Mahler's
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
direction of the company.
Schmedes sang frequently at Bayreuth
Bayreuth Festspielhaus
The or Bayreuth Festival Theatre is an opera house north of Bayreuth, Germany, dedicated solely to the performance of operas by the 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner...
from 1899 through 1906. He also appeared at the New York Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
in the 1908/1909 season, singing in Die Walküre
Die Walküre
Die Walküre , WWV 86B, is the second of the four operas that form the cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner...
and Götterdämmerung
Götterdämmerung
is the last in Richard Wagner's cycle of four operas titled Der Ring des Nibelungen...
, the title roles in both Parsifal
Parsifal
Parsifal is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner. It is loosely based on Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, the 13th century epic poem of the Arthurian knight Parzival and his quest for the Holy Grail, and on Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, the Story of the Grail.Wagner first conceived the work...
and Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde is an opera, or music drama, in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the romance by Gottfried von Straßburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting...
, and Pedro in Eugen d'Albert's
Eugen d'Albert
Eugen Francis Charles d'Albert was a Scottish-born German pianist and composer.Educated in Britain, d'Albert showed early musical talent and, at the age of seventeen, he won a scholarship to study in Austria...
Tiefland
Tiefland
Tiefland may refer to:* Tiefland a 1903 opera by Eugen d'Albert* Tiefland , a 1954 film by Leni Riefenstahl...
for the opera's North American premiere. Although he primarily sang roles from the Wagnerian repertoire, Schmedes was also an admired interpreter of Florestan in Beethoven's Fidelio
Fidelio
Fidelio is a German opera in two acts by Ludwig van Beethoven. It is Beethoven's only opera. The German libretto is by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly which had been used for the 1798 opera Léonore, ou L’amour conjugal by Pierre Gaveaux, and for the 1804 opera Leonora...
and the title role of Pfitzner's
Hans Pfitzner
Hans Erich Pfitzner was a German composer and self-described anti-modernist. His best known work is the post-Romantic opera Palestrina, loosely based on the life of the great sixteenth-century composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina.-Biography:Pfitzner was born in Moscow, Russia, where his...
Palestrina
Palestrina (opera)
Palestrina is an opera by the German composer Hans Pfitzner, first performed in 1917. The composer referred to it as a Musikalische Legende , and wrote the libretto himself, based on a legend about the Renaissance musician Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, who saves the art of contrapuntal music ...
. During his career, he sang 1130 performances of forty-two roles and recorded for several companies, including Gramophone
Gramophone Company
The Gramophone Company, based in the United Kingdom, was one of the early recording companies, and was the parent organization for the famous "His Master's Voice" label...
and Pathé
Pathé Records
Pathé Records was a France-based international record label and producer of phonographs, active from the 1890s through the 1930s.- Early years :...
, from 1902 to 1909.
Schmedes' principal rival for the Wagnerian tenor roles during his time in Vienna was Leo Slezak
Leo Slezak
Leo Slezak was a world-famous Moravian tenor. He was associated in particular with German opera as well as the title role in Verdi's Otello.- Beginnings :...
. Schmedes' young daughter, Dagmar, who later became a soprano herself, is said to have told Slezak: "Uncle Leo, you are just a tenor, my father is an artist!" Slezak is said to have replied: "If your daddy had a high C, he too would choose to be just a tenor!" Considered by some to be a better actor than singer, Schmedes appeared in two films, the most notable of which was Paul Czinner’s
Paul Czinner
Paul Czinner was a writer, film director, and producer.Czinner was born in Budapest, Austria-Hungary. After studying literature and philosophy at the University of Vienna, he worked as a journalist. From 1919 onward, he dedicated himself to work for the filming industry as writer, director and...
1919 silent film Inferno.
Schmedes' last performance was in 1924 in the title role of Wilhelm Kienzl's
Wilhelm Kienzl
Wilhelm Kienzl was an Austrian composer.-Biography:Kienzl was born in the small, picturesque Upper Austrian town of Waizenkirchen. His family moved to the Styrian capital of Graz in 1860, where he studied the violin under Ignaz Uhl, piano under Johann Buwa, and composition from 1872 under the...
Der Evangelimann. When he retired from the stage he became a voice teacher in Vienna. Amongst his pupils were Maria Müller
Maria Müller
Maria Müller was a Czech-Austrian operatic soprano.Müller was born in Terezín, Bohemia. She studied in Vienna with Erik Schmedes, and debuted in Linz in 1919 as Elsa in Lohengrin...
and Anny Konetzni.