Karl Erb
Encyclopedia
Karl Erb was a German tenor
vocalist who made his career first in opera
and then in oratorio
and lied
er recital. He excelled in all these genres, and before 1920 gave classic performances of key roles in modern works, and created lead roles in those of Hans Pfitzner
. He was the first husband of Maria Ivogün
, and was considered by many the ideal Evangelist
in the St Matthew Passion of Johann Sebastian Bach
.
. As a child he was enrolled in the local Liebfrauenkirche charity choir and music class. His mother taught him to love poetry and he excelled at school. His voice did not break abruptly, but deepened and intensified to a beautiful and spiritual timbre. He was sought out for private musical events and performed in amateur theatre at the Ravensburg
Konzerthaus. He later worked at Wolfegg
and at Rot
as cashier for the State Gas and Waterworks. In 1902 the Konigliche Hoftheater in Stuttgart
burnt down, and the company worked temporarily in Ravensburg. Erb, assisting the choir in Cavalleria rusticana
, was noticed by Baron Gustav von Putlitz and offered a chance to sing solo. He declined, but further offers were made.
accent) and a ballet master. He studied the roles of Max (Der Freischütz
), Lionel (Martha
), Walter (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
) and Mathias in Der Evangelimann
by Wilhelm Kienzl
. Through the singer Elsa Wiborg, he was given the chance to sing privately for the King and Queen; then, on 14 June 1907, he made his debut in Evangelimann at the new Hoftheater. Erb was also gave recitals and made oratorio appearances during his probation at Stuttgart.
He then appeared as Lohengrin (in which the shimmering brightness of his voice was especially effective), as Buddha (in Adolf Vogel's Maja ), as Little Massarena in Le domino noir
, Achilles(Iphigeneia in Aulis
), Walter (Meistersinger) and as Faust
in the title role of Gounod
's opera. By the end of the trial year he had sung at the Hoftheater at 30 evenings or masterclasses: an unparalleled success. Soon afterwards,at von Putlitz's urging, Erb took singing lessons from Felix Decken, a tenorbuffo, who tried to break and rebuild his technique. Erb, deeply undermined, sacked him and nearly broke with von Putlitz, but instead they agreed that he pass the winter season 1908 as leading lyric tenor for the brand new Theatre at Lübeck
.
, Wilhelm Furtwängler
and others. He travelled to Hamburg
to see Caruso and Edith Walker in Tosca
Greatly inspired, he added Lionel (Martha), Manrico (Il trovatore
), Gomez (Das Nachtlager in Granada
(Kreutzer
)), Froh (Das Rheingold
), Florestan (Fidelio
), Alessandro Stradella
in Friedrich von Flotow
's opera, the Duke of Mantua (Rigoletto
), Turiddu (Cavalleria rusticana
), Fenton (Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor
(Carl Otto Nicolai
)), Hoffmann in Jacques Offenbach
's opera, and Alfred in Die Fledermaus
to his repertoire. All these parts were sung in German.
In April 1909 at the end of his first season in Lübeck he returned to Stuttgart and showed how he had benefited from the experience. He returned to Lübeck for a second season in Autumn 1909, adding Tannhäuser
, Les Huguenots
, Die Zauberflöte
, Die Entführung aus dem Serail
, the Götterdämmerung
Siegfried, Naraboth in Salome
, The Barber of Seville
and Fredy Wehrburg in The Dollar Princess
to his repertoire. He made his May 1910 farewell in Martha. He then sang in Kiel
and Hamburg, returning to Stuttgart for the winter season of 1910.
Through Frau Boy-Ed, Erb was invited to Graf von Bernstorff
's house at Lake Starnberg
, where he also met Felix Mottl
, Stenka Fassbender and Graf Sporck (poet-author for Cyrill Kistler
's music-drama Kunihild). He sang Schubert
for Mottl, who was deeply impressed, and started planning to get him to Munich
. Graf Spork, a friend of the Wahnfried
house, was also interested, and Erb and Frau Boy-Ed attended a Bayreuth Parsifal
with him. But amid the rivalry, a place at Munich was already secure (through Mottl) when, at a concert under Siegfried Wagner's baton, Erb realized he could not work for the latter.
as Director of the Strasbourg
Opera from 1910, sought to stage his Der Arme Heinrich
at Stuttgart, but needed a suitable tenor to convey the spiritual depths of the work. Von Putlitz decided that Erb was the only singer suitable. Pfitzner himself came to Stuttgart to ask him, and he made a great success. The Munich Hoftheater, urged by Mottl, offered to engage him when the Stuttgart contract ended. Erb wanted to go, but there were three years remaining at Stuttgart: he declined a Munich offer of a guest Tannhaüser as too heavy for his voice.
However Pfitzner, seeking to raise a Munich Hoftheater boycott on performance of his works, rewrote the Arme Heinrich role for Erb, and staged it with him at the Prinzregententheater
at Munich, privately, whereupon von Speidel for the Hoftheater asked Erb his price and was told 24,000 Marks per year. Munich offered a guest role in Lohengrin, which he took, and later a Florestan and a Hoffmann. In 1912 and 1913 he sang six performances a month at Stuttgart and fitted in guest appearances at Tübingen
, Ulm
, Lübeck, Berlin, and Wiesbaden
. In September 1912 the new Stuttgart Hoftheater was completed and Erb sang Walter in Meistersinger.
A month later, 25 October, at Stuttgart, Richard Strauss
conducted the première of his Ariadne auf Naxos
. The first and third performances were with the élite soloists Maria Jeritza
, Margarethe Siems
, Herman Jadlowker
: the second was the Stuttgart team, Erb as Bacchus
. In May 1913 at the Imperial performance at Wiesbaden he sang Hüon in Oberon
. The Kaiser
said to him, 'You must be a good Lohengrin. Tell Baron von Putlitz I thank him for having sent such a good performer of Huon.' Erb's farewell to Stuttgart after his six years there was as Lohengrin.
(from Vienna) had succeeded Mottl, Erb appeared as Loge in Das Rheingold
. He completely rethought the part, dispensing with Briesemeister's flaming and dancing impersonation. Walter realised he was a thinking artist, and the Press had 'not seen such a Loge since Bayreuth'. He sang this role (his 42nd) for 12 years at the Munich Festivals. In a September 1913 double-bill Caruso sang Canio
at Munich but left Turiddu
to Erb. He now sang Erik, Tannhäuser
, Loge
, Pinkerton
and Cavaradossi
. His dramatic skills were admired as Achilles in Gluck's Iphigeneia in Aulis, and he sang Graf Adolar in Weber's Euryanthe
. In 1914, when Parsifal
was first freely given in Germany, he was the first Munich Parsifal, bringing spiritual and religious insight.
He was already singing Strauss's Bacchus
and Naraboth
, and Pfitzner's Arme Heinrich. Bruno Walter brought Hugo Wolf
's Der Corregidor
to Munich Festival for him, at some expense, and Erb became completely, almost exclusively associated with it. The theatre valued his growing dramatic power and insight, and he relished such works as Franz Schreker
's Der ferne Klang
and (later) Die Gezeichneten
.
During the War the work of the theatre was reduced, and restricted to German and Italian music. In summer 1916, he travelled with the Stuttgart Theatre ensemble to France and Belgium to sing and play to the German troops. He encountered Ravensburger soldiers at Lille. In Brussels
, after a concert, an officer gave him his gold finger-ring as the token of homage to his art, from him, an unknown soldier returning to the front who should perhaps be dead tomorrow. Erb wore it until the outbreak of the second war.
St Matthew Passion
In 1914 Bruno Walter persuaded Erb that he should sing the Evangelist in Bach's St Matthew Passion. His first performance was at the Munich Odeon, March 28, 1915, with Paul Bender as Jesus. In that period he was learning the Pfitzner, Wolf and Schreker roles, and (by his own account) increasingly sought to develop the emotional, spiritual and intellectual depth of his interpretations. He sank his whole artistic personality into the Evangelist, reading what Albert Schweitzer
and Heuser
had written.
In 1915 Paul Ehlers thought him the finest Evangelist since Heinrich Vogl
. A 1916 Cologne
performance won extravagant praise, and wonder at his versatility, from Hermann Abendroth, and from the press. The poet Romain Rolland
heard 10 March 1916 performance at Basel
Minster under Herman Suter (with Maria Philippi) and extolled it, and soon Amsterdam
also recognised a new genius.
Pfitzner's Palestrina
Munich's greatest wartime artistic project was the premiere of Hans Pfitzner's Palestrina
in 1917. Erb created the title role, with Maria Ivogün as Ighine. Fritz Feinhals and Felix Brodersen also sang and Walter conducted. The Swiss took the whole show with the Munich ensemble, in midst of war, to Basel
, Berne
and Zürich
. Thomas Mann
, who had seen Erb's St Matthew Passion, described how he completely grasped the spiritual meaning of Palestrina, and Pfitzner felt he had found his ideal interpreter. (Ivogün had come to Munich in Walter's troupe in 1913, and in 1916 she and Erb realised they were in love, during a performance of Erich Wolfgang Korngold
's Der Ring des Polykrates
.)
Erb always wanted to sing Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
roles, but it was during rehearsals for a Schreker work that he suddenly had to stand in as Belmonte in Die Entfuhrung. Erb was a very great Mozartian singer, and thereafter he played many roles, including Octavio
, Belfiore
, Tamino
and Ferrando
, as well as Belmonte. In 1918, shortly before the end of the war, the King of Bavaria
bestowed on Erb (the last) title Königlich Bayerische Kammersänger
. During the Rhine occupation early in 1919 Erb was touring the Rhine towns and in Holland with St Matthew Passion. He was held up, returning, at Ingolstadt, and the Munich revolution had settled by the time of his return there.
, Almaviva and Rosina
, Chateauneuf and Marie
, Hoffegut and Nachtigall
, Martha and Lionel, Fenton and Frau Fluth
, Max and Aennchen
, Wilhelm Meister and Mignon
, Ritter Hugo and Undine
, Fenton and Alice
, Duke and Gilda
, Palestrina and Ighino
, Bacchus and Zerbinetti
, Rudolf and Mimi
, Hoffmann and Olympia, and above all in the Mozart roles, Belmonte and Konstanze
, Tamino and the Queen of the Night
, Ferrando and Despina
and Ottavio and Zerlina
. In the concert hall they sang Italian duets, duets of Handel
, Schumann
and Schubert
, and of modern composers as yet less well-known.
Between 1920 and 1924 Ivogün toured twice in the United States on her own, and developed a large following there. The couple toured there widely together between December 1924 and late February 1925, when, after Willem Mengelberg
had failed to persuade Erb to sing the St Matthew Passion in New York
, amid press sensations offering to 'buy' the performance, Erb left Maria to complete her tour and went home. He had to deliver Matthew Passions twice each in Munich, Elberfeld
, Dortmund
, Hagen
, Cologne
and Haarlem
, all between 22 March and 13 April. America did not suit Erb as it suited Ivogün, and although their partnership continued for several years, they began to go their separate ways.
had died - and for the first time Adolf Hitler
spoke again openly in Munich. His April engagements complete, and with Maria back, Erb returned to Munich ready to resume his work. But Bruno Walter had left Munich for the Berlin-Charlottenburg
Städtische Oper in 1922: his successor Hans Knappertsbusch
had little time for the Swabian tenor, whose contract expired in summer 1925. It was not renewed. After 12 years at Munich he was permitted a farewell (15 June) in Das Nachtlager in Granada (hardly a showcase) and Erb, who loved Munich, left in bitterness. A year later his baritone colleague Brodersen died, and was replaced by Heinrich Rehkemper
: the bass Paul Bender, at Munich since 1903, remained.
Ivogün would not remain under Knappertsbusch, and went to the Berlin-Charlottenburg Oper. In 1926 Erb, Ivogün and their accompanist Michael Raucheisen
were giving recitals in Bremen
, and shortly before a Duetten-abend Erb tripped on the hotel steps and broke his right leg. Two painful months later in Berlin he resumed singing with Lieder-abends and a Matthew Passion. In 1927 he appeared in London, Covent Garden
, as Belmonte
, with Paul Bender as Osmin, and after this he sang in Berlin, in The Hague
, in Halle
, Düsseldorf
and Mannheim
, as Belmonte, Tamino, Loge, Bacchus, Ernesto and Florestan and in Der Corregidor. In summer 1929 he sang the Matthew Passion at La Scala
, Milan
, to a very enthusiastic audience.
That July while swimming in the Starnbergersee Erb was dashed against a rock by the sea and found later on the beach by Frau Ivogün. By luck his life was saved, but the convalescence was long and painful and he never fully recovered. In January 1930 he reappeared before the public with Ivogün, and still in much pain travelled to Holland to sing Florestan. In June 1930 he made his last operatic appearance, a performance worthy of his powers, at the Berlin-Charlottenburg Oper under Furtwängler, as Florestan. In April 1931 Erb and Ivogün were divorced, torn apart by deep and conflicting feelings. Two years later he learnt that she had married Michael Raucheisen, his former accompanist, with whom he had hoped to work again: it was a doubly crushing blow.
, and in the course of thirty years sang it some 360 times, in most major German town and cities, and in Zürich
, Berne
, Basel, Lucerne
, Solothurn
, Lausanne
, Milan and Brussels
, under Bruno Walter, William Mengelberg, Hermann Suter, Fritz Busch
, Hermann Abendroth, Alfred Sittard, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Karl Straube
and Eugen Papst. With the passage of decades his interpretation grew and was increasingly called authoritative. He sang it throughout the second war, and after, in Germany: a 1940 reviewer described his Cologne cathedral performance as an 'unfassbaren, übermenschlichen, unirdisch wirklichen Vollendung' (an inconceivable, more-than-human, supernally real perfection).
When Erb left the stage his career was just entering its last great development, which was as one of the most serious and accomplished lieder singers of his age. Between 1935 and 1940 he made an impressive series of records (HMV) of Schubert, Schumann, Brahms and Wolf songs, accompanied by Sebastian Peschko
, Bruno Seidler-Winkler or Gerald Moore
. The many strands of his singing experience, the thoughtfulness of his Pfitzner, Wolf and Schreker, the musical discipline of his Bach and his Mozart, Beethoven, Gluck, Weber and lyric Wagner roles, had laid the foundations for this last work, in which he excelled. His vocal technique, breath control and distinctive tone survived almost unchanged into his mid-seventies. Hans Hotter
, who held Erb in high esteem, said that 'it was Paul Bender and Karl Erb who sparked my great love for the art song
.'
In 1947, aged 70, he gave a concert for his mother's 90th birthday in his home church at Ravensburg. He died in Ravensburg in 1958.
refers to the first performance of Adrian Leverkühn's work Apocalypse as being under Otto Klemperer
in 1926 at Frankfurt
. The narrator role 'is here written for a tenor..., one of castrato-like high register, whose chilly crow, objective, reporter-like, stands in terrifying contrast to the content of his catastrophic announcements.... This extremely difficult part was taken and sung by a tenor with the voice of a eunuch, named Erbe ('von einem Tenoristen eunuchalen Typs names Erbe gesungen')... the singer had with the greatest intelligence grasped the idea.' (Ch XXXIV, conclusion). The famous Mann irony applies here to the slight change of the name Erb, which has here become the German word for "heritage" - Erbe.
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...
vocalist who made his career first in 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...
and then in oratorio
Oratorio
An oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...
and lied
Lied
is a German word literally meaning "song", usually used to describe romantic songs setting German poems of reasonably high literary aspirations, especially during the nineteenth century, beginning with Carl Loewe, Heinrich Marschner, and Franz Schubert and culminating with Hugo Wolf...
er recital. He excelled in all these genres, and before 1920 gave classic performances of key roles in modern works, and created lead roles in those of Hans Pfitzner
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...
. He was the first husband of Maria Ivogün
Maria Ivogün
Maria Ivogün was a distinguished soprano singer of Hungarian origin. She was especially an outstanding interpreter of the works of Mozart: her recording of the aria of the Queen of the Night became legendary.- Biography and artistic career :Maria Ivogün was born Ilse Kempner...
, and was considered by many the ideal Evangelist
Evangelist (Bach)
The Evangelist in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach is the tenor part in his oratorios and Passions who narrates the exact words of the Bible, translated by Martin Luther, in recitative, namely in the works St John Passion, St Matthew Passion, and the Christmas Oratorio, also in the St Mark...
in the St Matthew Passion of Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
.
Origins and early training
Erb was born in RavensburgRavensburg
Ravensburg is a town in Upper Swabia in Southern Germany, capital of the district of Ravensburg, Baden-Württemberg.Ravensburg was first mentioned in 1088. In the Middle Ages, it was an Imperial Free City and an important trading centre...
. As a child he was enrolled in the local Liebfrauenkirche charity choir and music class. His mother taught him to love poetry and he excelled at school. His voice did not break abruptly, but deepened and intensified to a beautiful and spiritual timbre. He was sought out for private musical events and performed in amateur theatre at the Ravensburg
Ravensburg
Ravensburg is a town in Upper Swabia in Southern Germany, capital of the district of Ravensburg, Baden-Württemberg.Ravensburg was first mentioned in 1088. In the Middle Ages, it was an Imperial Free City and an important trading centre...
Konzerthaus. He later worked at Wolfegg
Wolfegg
Wolfegg is a town in the district of Ravensburg in Baden-Württemberg in Germany.-Overview:It is the site of Wolfegg Castle, the home of the Princes of Waldburg-Wolfegg, longtime owners of the only known copy of the Waldseemüller map. The map remained at the castle until 2001 when the...
and at Rot
Rot an der Rot
Rot an der Rot is a town in the district of Biberach in Baden-Württemberg in Germany. The town developed out of Rot an der Rot Abbey....
as cashier for the State Gas and Waterworks. In 1902 the Konigliche Hoftheater in Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
burnt down, and the company worked temporarily in Ravensburg. Erb, assisting the choir in Cavalleria rusticana
Cavalleria rusticana
Cavalleria rusticana is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from a play written by Giovanni Verga based on his short story. Considered one of the classic verismo operas, it premiered on May 17, 1890 at the Teatro...
, was noticed by Baron Gustav von Putlitz and offered a chance to sing solo. He declined, but further offers were made.
Stuttgart
In 1906, aged 29, he started an unpaid probationary year at Stuttgart (beginning January 1907, which lead to a five year paid contract. He had the help of a young répétiteur, a singing teacher, a drama tutor (Hans Islaub, who got rid of his SwabianSwabian German
Swabian is one of the Alemannic dialects of High German. It is spoken in Swabia, a region which covers much of Germany's southwestern state Baden-Württemberg, including its capital Stuttgart, the rural area known as the Swabian Alb, and Bavaria...
accent) and a ballet master. He studied the roles of Max (Der Freischütz
Der Freischütz
Der Freischütz is an opera in three acts by Carl Maria von Weber with a libretto by Friedrich Kind. It premiered on 18 June 1821 at the Schauspielhaus Berlin...
), Lionel (Martha
Martha (opera)
Martha, oder Der Markt zu Richmond is a 'romantic comic' opera in four acts by Friedrich von Flotow, set to a German libretto by Friedrich Wilhelm Riese and based on a story by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges....
), Walter (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is an opera in three acts, written and composed by Richard Wagner. It is among the longest operas still commonly performed today, usually taking around four and a half hours. It was first performed at the Königliches Hof- und National-Theater in Munich, on June 21,...
) and Mathias in Der Evangelimann
Der Evangelimann
Der Evangelimann is an opera in two acts by the Austrian composer Wilhelm Kienzl. The libretto, by the composer, is based on Leopold Florian Meissner's short story .-Composition history:...
by Wilhelm Kienzl
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...
. Through the singer Elsa Wiborg, he was given the chance to sing privately for the King and Queen; then, on 14 June 1907, he made his debut in Evangelimann at the new Hoftheater. Erb was also gave recitals and made oratorio appearances during his probation at Stuttgart.
He then appeared as Lohengrin (in which the shimmering brightness of his voice was especially effective), as Buddha (in Adolf Vogel's Maja ), as Little Massarena in Le domino noir
Le domino noir
Le domino noir is an opéra comique by the French composer Daniel Auber, first performed on 2 December 1837 by the Opéra-Comique at the Salle de la Bourse in Paris. The libretto to the three-act piece is by Auber's usual collaborator, Eugène Scribe. It was one of Auber's most successful works,...
, Achilles(Iphigeneia in Aulis
Iphigénie en Aulide
Iphigénie en Aulide is an opera in three acts by Christoph Willibald Gluck, the first work he wrote for the Paris stage. The libretto was written by Leblanc du Roullet and was based on Jean Racine's tragedy Iphigénie...
), Walter (Meistersinger) and as Faust
Faust (opera)
Faust is a drame lyrique in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré from Carré's play Faust et Marguerite, in turn loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Part 1...
in the title role of Gounod
Charles Gounod
Charles-François Gounod was a French composer, known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.-Biography:...
's opera. By the end of the trial year he had sung at the Hoftheater at 30 evenings or masterclasses: an unparalleled success. Soon afterwards,at von Putlitz's urging, Erb took singing lessons from Felix Decken, a tenorbuffo, who tried to break and rebuild his technique. Erb, deeply undermined, sacked him and nearly broke with von Putlitz, but instead they agreed that he pass the winter season 1908 as leading lyric tenor for the brand new Theatre at Lübeck
Lübeck
The Hanseatic City of Lübeck is the second-largest city in Schleswig-Holstein, in northern Germany, and one of the major ports of Germany. It was for several centuries the "capital" of the Hanseatic League and, because of its Brick Gothic architectural heritage, is listed by UNESCO as a World...
.
Lübeck
Erb opened triumphantly (October 1908) in Lohengrin. He maintained a sober existence, but gravitated to the social circle of Ida Boy-Ed, where he mixed with Hermann AbendrothHermann Abendroth
Hermann Paul Maximilian Abendroth was a German conductor.-Early life:Abendroth was born on 19 January 1883, at Frankfurt, Germany, belonging to a family which had already produced other artistic figures of divers disciplines...
, Wilhelm Furtwängler
Wilhelm Furtwängler
Wilhelm Furtwängler was a German conductor and composer. He is widely considered to have been one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the 20th century. By the 1930s he had built a reputation as one of the leading conductors in Europe, and he was the leading conductor who remained...
and others. He travelled to Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
to see Caruso and Edith Walker in Tosca
Tosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
Greatly inspired, he added Lionel (Martha), Manrico (Il trovatore
Il trovatore
Il trovatore is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play El Trovador by Antonio García Gutiérrez. Cammarano died in mid-1852 before completing the libretto...
), Gomez (Das Nachtlager in Granada
Das Nachtlager in Granada
Das Nachtlager in Granada is a romantic opera in two acts by Conradin Kreutzer. The libretto is written by Karl Johann Braun von Braunthal based on Johann Friedrich Kind’s drama Das Nachtlager von Granada....
(Kreutzer
Conradin Kreutzer
Conradin Kreutzer or Kreuzer was a German composer and conductor. His works include the opera for which he is remembered, Das Nachtlager in Granada, and Der Verschwender, both produced in 1834.Kreutzer owes his fame almost exclusively to Das Nachtlager in Granada , which kept the stage for...
)), Froh (Das Rheingold
Das Rheingold
is the first of the four operas that constitute Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen . It was originally written as an introduction to the tripartite Ring, but the cycle is now generally regarded as consisting of four individual operas.Das Rheingold received its premiere at the National Theatre...
), Florestan (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...
), Alessandro Stradella
Alessandro Stradella
Alessandro Stradella was an Italian composer of the middle baroque. He enjoyed a dazzling career as a freelance composer, writing on commission, collaborating with distinguished poets, producing over three hundred works in a variety of genres.-Life:Not much is known about his early life, but he...
in Friedrich von Flotow
Friedrich von Flotow
Friedrich Adolf Ferdinand, Freiherr von Flotow was a German composer. He is chiefly remembered for his opera Martha, which was popular in the 19th century....
's opera, the Duke of Mantua (Rigoletto
Rigoletto
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851...
), Turiddu (Cavalleria rusticana
Cavalleria rusticana
Cavalleria rusticana is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from a play written by Giovanni Verga based on his short story. Considered one of the classic verismo operas, it premiered on May 17, 1890 at the Teatro...
), Fenton (Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor
The Merry Wives of Windsor (opera)
The Merry Wives of Windsor is an opera in three acts by Otto Nicolai to a German libretto by Hermann Salomon Mosenthal, based on the play The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare....
(Carl Otto Nicolai
Carl Otto Nicolai
Carl Otto Ehrenfried Nicolai was a German composer, conductor, and founder of the Vienna Philharmonic. Nicolai is best known for his operatic version of Shakespeare's comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor...
)), Hoffmann in Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
's opera, and Alfred in Die Fledermaus
Die Fledermaus
Die Fledermaus is an operetta composed by Johann Strauss II to a German libretto by Karl Haffner and Richard Genée.- Literary sources :...
to his repertoire. All these parts were sung in German.
In April 1909 at the end of his first season in Lübeck he returned to Stuttgart and showed how he had benefited from the experience. He returned to Lübeck for a second season in Autumn 1909, adding Tannhäuser
Tannhäuser (opera)
Tannhäuser is an opera in three acts, music and text by Richard Wagner, based on the two German legends of Tannhäuser and the song contest at Wartburg...
, Les Huguenots
Les Huguenots
Les Huguenots is a French opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer, one of the most popular and spectacular examples of the style of grand opera. The opera is in five acts and premiered in Paris in 1836. The libretto was written by Eugène Scribe and Émile Deschamps....
, Die Zauberflöte
The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
, Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Die Entführung aus dem Serail is an opera Singspiel in three acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The German libretto is by Christoph Friedrich Bretzner with adaptations by Gottlieb Stephanie...
, the Götterdämmerung
Götterdämmerung
is the last in Richard Wagner's cycle of four operas titled Der Ring des Nibelungen...
Siegfried, Naraboth in Salome
Salome (opera)
Salome is an opera in one act by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by the composer, based on Hedwig Lachmann’s German translation of the French play Salomé by Oscar Wilde. Strauss dedicated the opera to his friend Sir Edgar Speyer....
, The Barber of Seville
The Barber of Seville
The Barber of Seville, or The Futile Precaution is an opera buffa in two acts by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's comedy Le Barbier de Séville , which was originally an opéra comique, or a mixture of spoken play with music...
and Fredy Wehrburg in The Dollar Princess
The Dollar Princess
The Dollar Princess is a musical in three acts by A.M. Willner and Fritz Grünbaum , adapted into English by Basil Hood , with music by Leo Fall and lyrics by Adrian Ross. It opened in London at Daly's Theatre on 25 September 1909, running for 428 performances...
to his repertoire. He made his May 1910 farewell in Martha. He then sang in Kiel
Kiel
Kiel is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 238,049 .Kiel is approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the north of Germany, the southeast of the Jutland peninsula, and the southwestern shore of the...
and Hamburg, returning to Stuttgart for the winter season of 1910.
Through Frau Boy-Ed, Erb was invited to Graf von Bernstorff
Erich Graf von Bernstorff
Erich Graf von Bernstorff-Gyldensteen was a German Count and sports shooter who competed in the 1912 Summer Olympics.He won the bronze medal in the clay pigeons team event....
's house at Lake Starnberg
Lake Starnberg
Lake Starnberg , 25 kilometers southwest of Munich in southern Bavaria, is Germany's fifth largest freshwater lake and, due to its large average depth, the second richest in water...
, where he also met Felix Mottl
Felix Mottl
Felix Josef von Mottl was an Austrian conductor and composer. He was regarded as one of the most brilliant conductors of his day. He composed three operas, of which Agnes Bernauer was the most successful, as well as a string quartet and numerous songs and other music...
, Stenka Fassbender and Graf Sporck (poet-author for Cyrill Kistler
Cyrill Kistler
Cyrill Kistler was a German composer, music theoretician, Music educator and Music publisher.-Life:...
's music-drama Kunihild). He sang Schubert
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
for Mottl, who was deeply impressed, and started planning to get him to Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
. Graf Spork, a friend of the Wahnfried
Wahnfried
Wahnfried may refer to:*Wahnfried, Richard Wagner's villa in Bayreuth*Richard Wahnfried , the long-time alias for German composer and musician Klaus Schulze...
house, was also interested, and Erb and Frau Boy-Ed attended a Bayreuth 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...
with him. But amid the rivalry, a place at Munich was already secure (through Mottl) when, at a concert under Siegfried Wagner's baton, Erb realized he could not work for the latter.
Stuttgart and Munich
Hans PfitznerHans 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...
as Director of the Strasbourg
Strasbourg
Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...
Opera from 1910, sought to stage his Der Arme Heinrich
Der arme Heinrich
Der Arme Heinrich is a Middle High German narrative poem by Hartmann von Aue. It was probably written in the 1190s and was the second to last of Hartmann's four epic works...
at Stuttgart, but needed a suitable tenor to convey the spiritual depths of the work. Von Putlitz decided that Erb was the only singer suitable. Pfitzner himself came to Stuttgart to ask him, and he made a great success. The Munich Hoftheater, urged by Mottl, offered to engage him when the Stuttgart contract ended. Erb wanted to go, but there were three years remaining at Stuttgart: he declined a Munich offer of a guest Tannhaüser as too heavy for his voice.
However Pfitzner, seeking to raise a Munich Hoftheater boycott on performance of his works, rewrote the Arme Heinrich role for Erb, and staged it with him at the Prinzregententheater
Prinzregententheater
The Prinzregententheater, or Prince Regent's Theatre, is a theatre and opera house located at 12 Prinzregentenplatz in the Bavarian city of Munich, Germany.- Building and History :...
at Munich, privately, whereupon von Speidel for the Hoftheater asked Erb his price and was told 24,000 Marks per year. Munich offered a guest role in Lohengrin, which he took, and later a Florestan and a Hoffmann. In 1912 and 1913 he sang six performances a month at Stuttgart and fitted in guest appearances at Tübingen
Tübingen
Tübingen is a traditional university town in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, on a ridge between the Neckar and Ammer rivers.-Geography:...
, Ulm
Ulm
Ulm is a city in the federal German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the River Danube. The city, whose population is estimated at 120,000 , forms an urban district of its own and is the administrative seat of the Alb-Donau district. Ulm, founded around 850, is rich in history and...
, Lübeck, Berlin, and 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...
. In September 1912 the new Stuttgart Hoftheater was completed and Erb sang Walter in Meistersinger.
A month later, 25 October, at Stuttgart, Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
conducted the première of his Ariadne auf Naxos
Ariadne auf Naxos
Ariadne auf Naxos is an opera by Richard Strauss with a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Bringing together slapstick comedy and consuming beautiful music, the opera's theme is the competition between high and low art for the public's attention.- First version :The opera was originally...
. The first and third performances were with the élite soloists Maria Jeritza
Maria Jeritza
Maria Jeritza , born Marie Jedličková, was a celebrated Moravian soprano singer, long associated with the Vienna State Opera and the Metropolitan Opera...
, Margarethe Siems
Margarethe Siems
Margarethe Siems was a German operatic soprano and voice teacher. A Kammersängerin of the Dresden State Opera, between 1909 and 1912 Siems created leading roles in three operas by Richard Strauss: Chrysothemis in Elektra, the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier, and Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf...
, Herman Jadlowker
Herman Jadlowker
Herman Jadlowker was a leading Latvian-born tenor of Russian nationality who enjoyed an important international career during the first quarter of the 20th century....
: the second was the Stuttgart team, Erb as Bacchus
Dionysus
Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...
. In May 1913 at the Imperial performance at Wiesbaden he sang Hüon in Oberon
Oberon
Oberon is a legendary king of the fairies.Oberon may also refer to:-People:* Merle Oberon , British actress* Oberon Zell-Ravenheart , Neopagan activist-Media and entertainment:* Oberon...
. The Kaiser
William II, German Emperor
Wilhelm II was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia, ruling the German Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia from 15 June 1888 to 9 November 1918. He was a grandson of the British Queen Victoria and related to many monarchs and princes of Europe...
said to him, 'You must be a good Lohengrin. Tell Baron von Putlitz I thank him for having sent such a good performer of Huon.' Erb's farewell to Stuttgart after his six years there was as Lohengrin.
Munich
Soon after arrival at Munich in 1913, where Bruno WalterBruno Walter
Bruno Walter was a German-born conductor. He is considered one of the best known conductors of the 20th century. Walter was born in Berlin, but is known to have lived in several countries between 1933 and 1939, before finally settling in the United States in 1939...
(from Vienna) had succeeded Mottl, Erb appeared as Loge in Das Rheingold
Das Rheingold
is the first of the four operas that constitute Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen . It was originally written as an introduction to the tripartite Ring, but the cycle is now generally regarded as consisting of four individual operas.Das Rheingold received its premiere at the National Theatre...
. He completely rethought the part, dispensing with Briesemeister's flaming and dancing impersonation. Walter realised he was a thinking artist, and the Press had 'not seen such a Loge since Bayreuth'. He sang this role (his 42nd) for 12 years at the Munich Festivals. In a September 1913 double-bill Caruso sang Canio
Pagliacci
Pagliacci , sometimes incorrectly rendered with a definite article as I Pagliacci, is an opera consisting of a prologue and two acts written and composed by Ruggero Leoncavallo. It recounts the tragedy of a jealous husband in a commedia dell'arte troupe...
at Munich but left Turiddu
Cavalleria rusticana
Cavalleria rusticana is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from a play written by Giovanni Verga based on his short story. Considered one of the classic verismo operas, it premiered on May 17, 1890 at the Teatro...
to Erb. He now sang Erik, Tannhäuser
Tannhäuser (opera)
Tannhäuser is an opera in three acts, music and text by Richard Wagner, based on the two German legends of Tannhäuser and the song contest at Wartburg...
, Loge
Das Rheingold
is the first of the four operas that constitute Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen . It was originally written as an introduction to the tripartite Ring, but the cycle is now generally regarded as consisting of four individual operas.Das Rheingold received its premiere at the National Theatre...
, Pinkerton
Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Puccini based his opera in part on the short story "Madame Butterfly" by John Luther Long, which was dramatized by David Belasco...
and Cavaradossi
La Tosca
La Tosca is a five-act drama by the 19th-century French playwright Victorien Sardou. It was first performed on 24 November 1887 at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin in Paris, with Sarah Bernhardt in the title role...
. His dramatic skills were admired as Achilles in Gluck's Iphigeneia in Aulis, and he sang Graf Adolar in Weber's Euryanthe
Euryanthe
Euryanthe is a German "grand, heroic, romantic" opera by Carl Maria von Weber, first performed at the Theater am Kärntnertor, Vienna on 25 October 1823...
. In 1914, when 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...
was first freely given in Germany, he was the first Munich Parsifal, bringing spiritual and religious insight.
He was already singing Strauss's Bacchus
Ariadne auf Naxos
Ariadne auf Naxos is an opera by Richard Strauss with a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Bringing together slapstick comedy and consuming beautiful music, the opera's theme is the competition between high and low art for the public's attention.- First version :The opera was originally...
and Naraboth
Salome
Salome , the Daughter of Herodias , is known from the New Testament...
, and Pfitzner's Arme Heinrich. Bruno Walter brought Hugo Wolf
Hugo Wolf
Hugo Wolf was an Austrian composer of Slovene origin, particularly noted for his art songs, or lieder. He brought to this form a concentrated expressive intensity which was unique in late Romantic music, somewhat related to that of the Second Viennese School in concision but utterly unrelated in...
's Der Corregidor
Der Corregidor
Der Corregidor is a comic opera by Hugo Wolf. The libretto was written by Rosa Mayreder-Obermayer, based on the short novel by Pedro Antonio de Alarcón.-Composition history:...
to Munich Festival for him, at some expense, and Erb became completely, almost exclusively associated with it. The theatre valued his growing dramatic power and insight, and he relished such works as Franz Schreker
Franz Schreker
Franz Schreker was an Austrian composer, conductor, teacher and administrator. Primarily a composer of operas, his style is characterized by aesthetic plurality , timbral experimentation, strategies of extended tonality and...
's Der ferne Klang
Der ferne Klang
Der ferne Klang is an opera by Franz Schreker, libretto by the composer.-Composition history:Drafted in 1901, Schreker completed the three-act libretto in 1903. However, composing the music would take about ten years. Criticism from his composition teacher Robert Fuchs caused Schreker to abandon...
and (later) Die Gezeichneten
Die Gezeichneten
Die Gezeichneten is an opera in three acts by Franz Schreker, libretto by the composer.-Composition history:...
.
During the War the work of the theatre was reduced, and restricted to German and Italian music. In summer 1916, he travelled with the Stuttgart Theatre ensemble to France and Belgium to sing and play to the German troops. He encountered Ravensburger soldiers at Lille. In Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
, after a concert, an officer gave him his gold finger-ring as the token of homage to his art, from him, an unknown soldier returning to the front who should perhaps be dead tomorrow. Erb wore it until the outbreak of the second war.
St Matthew Passion
In 1914 Bruno Walter persuaded Erb that he should sing the Evangelist in Bach's St Matthew Passion. His first performance was at the Munich Odeon, March 28, 1915, with Paul Bender as Jesus. In that period he was learning the Pfitzner, Wolf and Schreker roles, and (by his own account) increasingly sought to develop the emotional, spiritual and intellectual depth of his interpretations. He sank his whole artistic personality into the Evangelist, reading what Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer OM was a German theologian, organist, philosopher, physician, and medical missionary. He was born in Kaysersberg in the province of Alsace-Lorraine, at that time part of the German Empire...
and Heuser
Herman Heuser
Herman Joseph Heuser was a Catholic priest, author, and educator.He obtained the degree of Doctor of Divinity.The Philadelphia Archdiocesan Historical Research Center holds records relating to the correspondence between him and prominent figures in the Catholic Church, including Cardinal James...
had written.
In 1915 Paul Ehlers thought him the finest Evangelist since Heinrich Vogl
Heinrich Vogl
Heinrich Vogl was a German operatic heldentenor.He played the role of Loge in Richard Wagner's Das Rheingold at Munich Court Opera on September 22, 1869, with his wife, Therese Vogl, playing the role of Wellgunde. He also played the role of Siegmund in Wagner's Die Walküre, also at Munich, on June...
. A 1916 Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
performance won extravagant praise, and wonder at his versatility, from Hermann Abendroth, and from the press. The poet Romain Rolland
Romain Rolland
Romain Rolland was a French dramatist, novelist, essayist, art historian and mystic who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915.-Biography:...
heard 10 March 1916 performance at Basel
Basel
Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...
Minster under Herman Suter (with Maria Philippi) and extolled it, and soon Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
also recognised a new genius.
Pfitzner's Palestrina
Munich's greatest wartime artistic project was the premiere of Hans Pfitzner's 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 ...
in 1917. Erb created the title role, with Maria Ivogün as Ighine. Fritz Feinhals and Felix Brodersen also sang and Walter conducted. The Swiss took the whole show with the Munich ensemble, in midst of war, to Basel
Basel
Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...
, Berne
Berne
The city of Bern or Berne is the Bundesstadt of Switzerland, and, with a population of , the fourth most populous city in Switzerland. The Bern agglomeration, which includes 43 municipalities, has a population of 349,000. The metropolitan area had a population of 660,000 in 2000...
and Zürich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
. Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
, who had seen Erb's St Matthew Passion, described how he completely grasped the spiritual meaning of Palestrina, and Pfitzner felt he had found his ideal interpreter. (Ivogün had come to Munich in Walter's troupe in 1913, and in 1916 she and Erb realised they were in love, during a performance of Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Erich Wolfgang Korngold was an Austro-Hungarian film and romantic music composer. While his compositional style was considered well out of vogue at the time he died, his music has more recently undergone a reevaluation and a gradual reawakening of interest...
's Der Ring des Polykrates
Der Ring des Polykrates (opera)
Der Ring des Polykrates , Op. 7 is a one-act opera by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The libretto, written by Leo Feld and reworked by the composer's father Julius Korngold, is based on a drama by Heinrich Teweles....
.)
Erb always wanted to sing Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
roles, but it was during rehearsals for a Schreker work that he suddenly had to stand in as Belmonte in Die Entfuhrung. Erb was a very great Mozartian singer, and thereafter he played many roles, including Octavio
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
, Belfiore
La finta giardiniera
La finta giardiniera , K. 196, is an Italian opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart wrote it in Munich in January 1775 when he was 18 years old and it received its first performance on January 13 at the Salvatortheater in Munich...
, Tamino
The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
and Ferrando
Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti K. 588, is an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed in 1790. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte....
, as well as Belmonte. In 1918, shortly before the end of the war, the King of Bavaria
King of Bavaria
King of Bavaria was a title held by the hereditary Wittelsbach rulers of Bavaria in the state known as the Kingdom of Bavaria from 1805 until 1918, when the kingdom was abolished...
bestowed on Erb (the last) title Königlich Bayerische Kammersänger
Kammersänger
Kammersänger , abbreviation: "Ks.", literally means "Chamber singer." It is a German honorific title for distinguished singers...
. During the Rhine occupation early in 1919 Erb was touring the Rhine towns and in Holland with St Matthew Passion. He was held up, returning, at Ingolstadt, and the Munich revolution had settled by the time of his return there.
The Erb-Ivogün partnership
In July 1921 Erb and Maria Ivogün were married. That week Erb sang five Parsifals and a Belmonte at Zurich Festival. Over the next years their musical partnership in theatre, concert, and 'Lieder-abend', grew increasingly famous. Their voices and personalities seemed ideally matched. They appeared together as Ernesto and NorinaDon Pasquale
Don Pasquale is an opera buffa, or comic opera, in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. The librettist Giovanni Ruffini wrote the Italian language libretto after Angelo Anelli's libretto for Stefano Pavesi's Ser Marcantonio ....
, Almaviva and Rosina
The Barber of Seville
The Barber of Seville, or The Futile Precaution is an opera buffa in two acts by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's comedy Le Barbier de Séville , which was originally an opéra comique, or a mixture of spoken play with music...
, Chateauneuf and Marie
Zar und Zimmermann
Zar und Zimmermann is an opera in three acts, music by Albert Lortzing, libretto by the composer after Georg Christian Römer's Der Bürgermeister on Saarlem, oder Die zwei Peter, itself based on a French work entitled Le Bourgesmestre de Sardam, ou Les deux Pierres by Anne-Honoré-Joseph Duveyrier...
, Hoffegut and Nachtigall
Die Vögel (opera)
Die Vögel , Op. 30 is an opera in a prologue and two acts by Walter Braunfels. The libretto, written by the composer, is a free adaptation of Aristophanes' comedy The Birds which was performed at the Dionysos Theatre in Athens in 414 BC....
, Martha and Lionel, Fenton and Frau Fluth
The Merry Wives of Windsor (opera)
The Merry Wives of Windsor is an opera in three acts by Otto Nicolai to a German libretto by Hermann Salomon Mosenthal, based on the play The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare....
, Max and Aennchen
Der Freischütz
Der Freischütz is an opera in three acts by Carl Maria von Weber with a libretto by Friedrich Kind. It premiered on 18 June 1821 at the Schauspielhaus Berlin...
, Wilhelm Meister and Mignon
Mignon
Mignon is an opéra comique in three acts by Ambroise Thomas. The original French libretto was by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on Goethe's novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre. The Italian version was translated by Giuseppe Zaffira. The opera is mentioned in James Joyce's The Dead,...
, Ritter Hugo and Undine
Undine (Lortzing)
Undine is an opera in four acts by Albert Lortzing. The German libretto was by the composer after Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué's story of the same name....
, Fenton and Alice
Falstaff (opera)
Falstaff is an operatic commedia lirica in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi, adapted by Arrigo Boito from Shakespeare's plays The Merry Wives of Windsor and scenes from Henry IV. It was Verdi's last opera, written in the composer's ninth decade, and only the second of his 26 operas to be a comedy...
, Duke and Gilda
Rigoletto
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851...
, Palestrina and Ighino
Palestrina
Palestrina is an ancient city and comune with a population of about 18,000, in Lazio, c. 35 km east of Rome...
, Bacchus and Zerbinetti
Ariadne auf Naxos
Ariadne auf Naxos is an opera by Richard Strauss with a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Bringing together slapstick comedy and consuming beautiful music, the opera's theme is the competition between high and low art for the public's attention.- First version :The opera was originally...
, Rudolf and Mimi
La bohème
La bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...
, Hoffmann and Olympia, and above all in the Mozart roles, Belmonte and Konstanze
Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Die Entführung aus dem Serail is an opera Singspiel in three acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The German libretto is by Christoph Friedrich Bretzner with adaptations by Gottlieb Stephanie...
, Tamino and the Queen of the Night
The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
, Ferrando and Despina
Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti K. 588, is an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed in 1790. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte....
and Ottavio and Zerlina
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
. In the concert hall they sang Italian duets, duets of Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
, Schumann
Clara Schumann
Clara Schumann was a German musician and composer, considered one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era...
and Schubert
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
, and of modern composers as yet less well-known.
Between 1920 and 1924 Ivogün toured twice in the United States on her own, and developed a large following there. The couple toured there widely together between December 1924 and late February 1925, when, after Willem Mengelberg
Willem Mengelberg
Joseph Willem Mengelberg was a Dutch conductor, famous for his performances of Mahler and Strauss with the Concertgebouw Orchestra.- Biography :...
had failed to persuade Erb to sing the St Matthew Passion in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, amid press sensations offering to 'buy' the performance, Erb left Maria to complete her tour and went home. He had to deliver Matthew Passions twice each in Munich, Elberfeld
Elberfeld
Elberfeld is a municipal subdivision of the German city of Wuppertal; it was an independent town until 1929.-History:The first official mentioning of the geographic area on the banks of today's Wupper River as "elverfelde" was in a document of 1161...
, Dortmund
Dortmund
Dortmund is a city in Germany. It is located in the Bundesland of North Rhine-Westphalia, in the Ruhr area. Its population of 585,045 makes it the 7th largest city in Germany and the 34th largest in the European Union....
, Hagen
Hagen
Hagen is the 39th-largest city in Germany, located in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is located on the eastern edge of the Ruhr area, 15 km south of Dortmund, where the rivers Lenne, Volme and Ennepe meet the river Ruhr...
, Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
and Haarlem
Haarlem
Haarlem is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland, the northern half of Holland, which at one time was the most powerful of the seven provinces of the Dutch Republic...
, all between 22 March and 13 April. America did not suit Erb as it suited Ivogün, and although their partnership continued for several years, they began to go their separate ways.
Tribulations
During the voyage home in March 1925, news came to the ship that Friedrich EbertFriedrich Ebert
Friedrich Ebert was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany .When Ebert was elected as the leader of the SPD after the death of August Bebel, the party members of the SPD were deeply divided because of the party's support for World War I. Ebert supported the Burgfrieden and...
had died - and for the first time Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
spoke again openly in Munich. His April engagements complete, and with Maria back, Erb returned to Munich ready to resume his work. But Bruno Walter had left Munich for the Berlin-Charlottenburg
Charlottenburg
Charlottenburg is a locality of Berlin within the borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, named after Queen consort Sophia Charlotte...
Städtische Oper in 1922: his successor Hans Knappertsbusch
Hans Knappertsbusch
Hans Knappertsbusch was a German conductor, best known for his performances of the music of Richard Wagner, Anton Bruckner and Richard Strauss....
had little time for the Swabian tenor, whose contract expired in summer 1925. It was not renewed. After 12 years at Munich he was permitted a farewell (15 June) in Das Nachtlager in Granada (hardly a showcase) and Erb, who loved Munich, left in bitterness. A year later his baritone colleague Brodersen died, and was replaced by Heinrich Rehkemper
Heinrich Rehkemper
Heinrich Rehkemper was a German baritone singer whose repertoire was in opera and Lieder, and whose career was principally in Germany between the First and Second World War...
: the bass Paul Bender, at Munich since 1903, remained.
Ivogün would not remain under Knappertsbusch, and went to the Berlin-Charlottenburg Oper. In 1926 Erb, Ivogün and their accompanist Michael Raucheisen
Michael Raucheisen
Translated from German WikipediaMichael Raucheisen was a German pianist and song accompanist....
were giving recitals in Bremen
Bremen
The City Municipality of Bremen is a Hanseatic city in northwestern Germany. A commercial and industrial city with a major port on the river Weser, Bremen is part of the Bremen-Oldenburg metropolitan area . Bremen is the second most populous city in North Germany and tenth in Germany.Bremen is...
, and shortly before a Duetten-abend Erb tripped on the hotel steps and broke his right leg. Two painful months later in Berlin he resumed singing with Lieder-abends and a Matthew Passion. In 1927 he appeared in London, Covent Garden
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
, as Belmonte
Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Die Entführung aus dem Serail is an opera Singspiel in three acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The German libretto is by Christoph Friedrich Bretzner with adaptations by Gottlieb Stephanie...
, with Paul Bender as Osmin, and after this he sang in Berlin, in The Hague
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
, in Halle
Halle, Saxony-Anhalt
Halle is the largest city in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It is also called Halle an der Saale in order to distinguish it from the town of Halle in North Rhine-Westphalia...
, Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...
and Mannheim
Mannheim
Mannheim is a city in southwestern Germany. With about 315,000 inhabitants, Mannheim is the second-largest city in the Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg, following the capital city of Stuttgart....
, as Belmonte, Tamino, Loge, Bacchus, Ernesto and Florestan and in Der Corregidor. In summer 1929 he sang the Matthew Passion at La Scala
La Scala
La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...
, Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
, to a very enthusiastic audience.
That July while swimming in the Starnbergersee Erb was dashed against a rock by the sea and found later on the beach by Frau Ivogün. By luck his life was saved, but the convalescence was long and painful and he never fully recovered. In January 1930 he reappeared before the public with Ivogün, and still in much pain travelled to Holland to sing Florestan. In June 1930 he made his last operatic appearance, a performance worthy of his powers, at the Berlin-Charlottenburg Oper under Furtwängler, as Florestan. In April 1931 Erb and Ivogün were divorced, torn apart by deep and conflicting feelings. Two years later he learnt that she had married Michael Raucheisen, his former accompanist, with whom he had hoped to work again: it was a doubly crushing blow.
Later career
Erb continued to sing the Matthew Passion Evangelist yearly at Amsterdam for Willem MengelbergWillem Mengelberg
Joseph Willem Mengelberg was a Dutch conductor, famous for his performances of Mahler and Strauss with the Concertgebouw Orchestra.- Biography :...
, and in the course of thirty years sang it some 360 times, in most major German town and cities, and in Zürich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
, Berne
Berne
The city of Bern or Berne is the Bundesstadt of Switzerland, and, with a population of , the fourth most populous city in Switzerland. The Bern agglomeration, which includes 43 municipalities, has a population of 349,000. The metropolitan area had a population of 660,000 in 2000...
, Basel, Lucerne
Lucerne
Lucerne is a city in north-central Switzerland, in the German-speaking portion of that country. Lucerne is the capital of the Canton of Lucerne and the capital of the district of the same name. With a population of about 76,200 people, Lucerne is the most populous city in Central Switzerland, and...
, Solothurn
Solothurn
The city of Solothurn is the capital of the Canton of Solothurn in Switzerland. The city also comprises the only municipality of the district of the same name.-Pre-roman settlement:...
, Lausanne
Lausanne
Lausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and is the capital of the canton of Vaud. The seat of the district of Lausanne, the city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva . It faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura mountains to its north-west...
, Milan and Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
, under Bruno Walter, William Mengelberg, Hermann Suter, Fritz Busch
Fritz Busch
Fritz Busch was a German conductor.Busch was born in Siegen, Province of Westphalia. He held posts conducting opera at Aachen, Stuttgart and Dresden. In 1933 he was dismissed from his post at Dresden because of his opposition to the new Nazi government of Germany...
, Hermann Abendroth, Alfred Sittard, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Karl Straube
Karl Straube
Montgomery Rufus Karl/Carl Siegfried Straube was a German church musician , organist, and choral conductor, famous above all for championing the abundant organ music of Max Reger. He studied organ under Heinrich Reimann in Berlin from 1894 to 1897 and became a widely respected concert organist...
and Eugen Papst. With the passage of decades his interpretation grew and was increasingly called authoritative. He sang it throughout the second war, and after, in Germany: a 1940 reviewer described his Cologne cathedral performance as an 'unfassbaren, übermenschlichen, unirdisch wirklichen Vollendung' (an inconceivable, more-than-human, supernally real perfection).
When Erb left the stage his career was just entering its last great development, which was as one of the most serious and accomplished lieder singers of his age. Between 1935 and 1940 he made an impressive series of records (HMV) of Schubert, Schumann, Brahms and Wolf songs, accompanied by Sebastian Peschko
Sebastian Peschko
Sebastian Peschko was a German classical pianist specialised in the art form of lieder and as such was partner to some of the foremost lyrical singers of the 20th century....
, Bruno Seidler-Winkler or Gerald Moore
Gerald Moore
Gerald Moore CBE was an English pianist best known for his career as one of the most in-demand accompanists of his day, accompanying many of the world's most famous musicians...
. The many strands of his singing experience, the thoughtfulness of his Pfitzner, Wolf and Schreker, the musical discipline of his Bach and his Mozart, Beethoven, Gluck, Weber and lyric Wagner roles, had laid the foundations for this last work, in which he excelled. His vocal technique, breath control and distinctive tone survived almost unchanged into his mid-seventies. Hans Hotter
Hans Hotter
Hans Hotter was a German operatic bass-baritone, admired internationally after World War II for the power, beauty, and intelligence of his singing, especially in Wagner operas. He was extremely tall and his appearance was striking because of his high, narrow face, wide mouth, and big, aquiline nose...
, who held Erb in high esteem, said that 'it was Paul Bender and Karl Erb who sparked my great love for the art song
Lied
is a German word literally meaning "song", usually used to describe romantic songs setting German poems of reasonably high literary aspirations, especially during the nineteenth century, beginning with Carl Loewe, Heinrich Marschner, and Franz Schubert and culminating with Hugo Wolf...
.'
In 1947, aged 70, he gave a concert for his mother's 90th birthday in his home church at Ravensburg. He died in Ravensburg in 1958.
Literary reference
In his 'Doktor Faustus', Thomas MannThomas Mann
Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
refers to the first performance of Adrian Leverkühn's work Apocalypse as being under Otto Klemperer
Otto Klemperer
Otto Klemperer was a German conductor and composer. He is widely regarded as one of the leading conductors of the 20th century.-Biography:Otto Klemperer was born in Breslau, Silesia Province, then in Germany...
in 1926 at Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
. The narrator role 'is here written for a tenor..., one of castrato-like high register, whose chilly crow, objective, reporter-like, stands in terrifying contrast to the content of his catastrophic announcements.... This extremely difficult part was taken and sung by a tenor with the voice of a eunuch, named Erbe ('von einem Tenoristen eunuchalen Typs names Erbe gesungen')... the singer had with the greatest intelligence grasped the idea.' (Ch XXXIV, conclusion). The famous Mann irony applies here to the slight change of the name Erb, which has here become the German word for "heritage" - Erbe.
Sources
- H. Hotter, Hans Hotter: Memoirs (Edited and translated by Donald Arthur, with forward by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau) (UPNE 2006). ISBN 1555536611.
- M. Müller-Gögler, Karl Erb - Das Leben eines Sängers (Verlag Franz Huber, Offenburg 1948).
- L. Riemens, 'Karl Erb, tenor' paragraph in Schumann and Brahms Lieder on Record 1901-1952 (HMV Treasury RLS 1547003), booklet compiled and ed. by Hugh Graham, 48pp. (EMI, London 1983).
- H. Rosenthal & J. Warrack, Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera (London, 1974 vsn).