Wolfgang Windgassen
Encyclopedia
Wolfgang Windgassen was a tenor internationally known for his performances in Wagner
operas.
, France
, he was the son (and pupil) of a well known German Heldentenor, Fritz Windgassen
(who was also the teacher of Gottlob Frick
). His mother was the German coloratura soprano Vali von der Osten
, sister of the much more famous soprano Eva von der Osten
, who created the part of Octavian in Richard Strauss
' Der Rosenkavalier
. Both Windgassen's parents were longtime mainstays of the Staatsoper Stuttgart
.
Wolfgang made his début at Pforzheim
as Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly
. After army service he became a member of the Stuttgart opera company, and succeeded his father as principal tenor. Stuttgart opera remained his home base throughout his career, and for the last two years of his life he was its artistic director.
Windgassen sang at all the important opera houses all over the world. He was invited to perform at the reopening of the Bayreuth Festival
in 1951 and continued to appear there till 1970, singing all the great Wagner tenor roles: Erik, Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, Tristan, Walter, Loge, Siegmund, both Siegfrieds and Parsifal, his debut role in 1951.
His voice was not as heroic as pre-war Heldentenors such as Lauritz Melchior
or his immediate predecessor Max Lorenz
, but he used it with such skill and musicianship that he is generally regarded as the most accomplished Wagner tenor of the second half of the twentieth century.
He died from a heart attack
in Stuttgart
, Germany
at the age of 60.
Ring, conducted by Georg Solti
and produced by John Culshaw
. He was not Culshaw’s first choice for Siegfried, the more powerful and beautiful voice of Ernst Kozub
being preferred. But Kozub's musical limitations (largely due to his ailing health) led to his removal from the cast; Windgassen magnanimously stood in for him at the last minute. His live Bayreuth recording of Tristan und Isolde
with Birgit Nilsson
as Isolde, conducted by Karl Böhm
, is still highly regarded by many critics.
Windgassen was the Siegfried in several complete, live Rings from Bayreuth that have been issued commercially on CD, conducted by such now-legendary figures as Hans Knappertsbusch
, Clemens Krauss
, Joseph Keilberth
and Karl Böhm
. He was also the Loge and Siegmund in Wilhelm Furtwängler
's Ring broadcast by the Italian Radio (RAI) in 1953, and subsequently issued as a best selling CD box, as well as Florestan in the EMI studio recording of Fidelio
directed by Furtwängler. All these have contributed to the growing posthumous reputation of this remarkable tenor.
and Hans Hotter
), as Otello (singing in German) and briefly in concerts and rehearsals on various anthologies.
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
operas.
Life and career
Born in AnnemasseAnnemasse
Annemasse is a commune in the Haute-Savoie department in the Rhône-Alpes region in south-eastern France.It lies on the border with Switzerland. It is the second town in the Haute-Savoie department with a population estimated to 29'450 in 2010.-Geography:...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, he was the son (and pupil) of a well known German Heldentenor, Fritz Windgassen
Fritz Windgassen
Fritz Windgassen was a German Heldentenor and teacher.Windgassen was born in Lennep, near Remscheid. Following the wishes of his upstanding middle-class parents, he took up a respectable career in the German navy. Only after Prince Heinrich of Prussia praised his singing ability did he dare...
(who was also the teacher of Gottlob Frick
Gottlob Frick
Gottlob Frick was a German bass who sang in opera. He was known for his wide repertory including Wagner and Mozart roles, as well as those of Nicolai and Lortzing.-Career:...
). His mother was the German coloratura soprano Vali von der Osten
Vali von der Osten
Vali von der Osten was a German soprano. She was the daughter of actor Emil von der Osten and Rosa von der Osten-Hildebrandt ....
, sister of the much more famous soprano Eva von der Osten
Eva von der Osten
Eva Helga Bertha von der Osten was a German soprano. She was born in Helgoland, the daughter of actor Emil von der Osten and Rosa von der Osten-Hildebrandt ....
, who created the part of Octavian in 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...
' Der Rosenkavalier
Der Rosenkavalier
Der Rosenkavalier is a comic opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to an original German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It is loosely adapted from the novel Les amours du chevalier de Faublas by Louvet de Couvrai and Molière’s comedy Monsieur de Pourceaugnac...
. Both Windgassen's parents were longtime mainstays of the Staatsoper Stuttgart
Staatsoper Stuttgart
The Staatsoper Stuttgart is a German opera company based in Stuttgart, Germany.-History:The Stuttgart Staatsoper forms part of the Stuttgart State Theatre , which is a a three-branch-theatre complex and represents the largest theatre of its kind in Europe...
.
Wolfgang made his début at Pforzheim
Pforzheim
Pforzheim is a town of nearly 119,000 inhabitants in the state of Baden-Württemberg, southwest Germany at the gate to the Black Forest. It is world-famous for its jewelry and watch-making industry. Until 1565 it was the home to the Margraves of Baden. Because of that it gained the nickname...
as Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly
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...
. After army service he became a member of the Stuttgart opera company, and succeeded his father as principal tenor. Stuttgart opera remained his home base throughout his career, and for the last two years of his life he was its artistic director.
Windgassen sang at all the important opera houses all over the world. He was invited to perform at the reopening of the Bayreuth Festival
Bayreuth Festival
The Bayreuth Festival is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th century German composer Richard Wagner are presented...
in 1951 and continued to appear there till 1970, singing all the great Wagner tenor roles: Erik, Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, Tristan, Walter, Loge, Siegmund, both Siegfrieds and Parsifal, his debut role in 1951.
His voice was not as heroic as pre-war Heldentenors such as Lauritz Melchior
Lauritz Melchior
Lauritz Melchior was a Danish and later American opera singer. He was the pre-eminent Wagnerian tenor of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, and has since come to be considered the quintessence of his voice type.-Biography:...
or his immediate predecessor Max Lorenz
Max Lorenz
Max Lorenz was a German heroic tenor famous for Wagner roles.Lorenz was born in Düsseldorf, and studied with Ernst Grenzebach in Berlin in the 1920s. He made his debut at the Semperoper in Dresden in 1927, becoming a principal tenor...
, but he used it with such skill and musicianship that he is generally regarded as the most accomplished Wagner tenor of the second half of the twentieth century.
He died from a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
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 ....
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
at the age of 60.
Recordings
He is well represented on record, both in studio recordings and live tapings. Pre-eminent among the former is the famous DeccaDecca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
Ring, conducted by Georg Solti
Georg Solti
Sir Georg Solti, KBE, was a Hungarian-British orchestral and operatic conductor. He was a major classical recording artist, holding the record for having received the most Grammy Awards, having personally won 31 as a conductor, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In addition to his...
and produced by John Culshaw
John Culshaw
John Royds Culshaw OBE was a pioneering English classical record producer for Decca Records. He recorded a wide range of music, but is best known for masterminding the first studio recording of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, begun in 1958.Largely self-educated musically, Culshaw worked for...
. He was not Culshaw’s first choice for Siegfried, the more powerful and beautiful voice of Ernst Kozub
Ernst Kozub
Ernst Kozub was a German tenor and opera singer.Kozub was born in Duisburg, Germany. Though his early death prevented him from fully realising his promise, he stands out as one of the notable heldentenor voices of the 1960s...
being preferred. But Kozub's musical limitations (largely due to his ailing health) led to his removal from the cast; Windgassen magnanimously stood in for him at the last minute. His live Bayreuth recording of 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...
with Birgit Nilsson
Birgit Nilsson
right|thumb|Nilsson in 1948.Birgit Nilsson was a celebrated Swedish dramatic soprano who specialized in operatic and symphonic works...
as Isolde, conducted by Karl Böhm
Karl Böhm
Karl August Leopold Böhm was an Austrian conductor. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the 20th century.- Education :...
, is still highly regarded by many critics.
Windgassen was the Siegfried in several complete, live Rings from Bayreuth that have been issued commercially on CD, conducted by such now-legendary figures as 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....
, Clemens Krauss
Clemens Krauss
Clemens Heinrich Krauss was an Austrian conductor and opera impresario, particularly associated with the music of Richard Strauss.-Biography:...
, Joseph Keilberth
Joseph Keilberth
Joseph Keilberth was a German conductor who specialized in opera.He started his career in the State Theatre of his native city, Karlsruhe. In 1940 he became director of the German Philharmonic Orchestra of Prague. Near the end of World War II he became principal conductor of the Dresden...
and Karl Böhm
Karl Böhm
Karl August Leopold Böhm was an Austrian conductor. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the 20th century.- Education :...
. He was also the Loge and Siegmund in 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...
's Ring broadcast by the Italian Radio (RAI) in 1953, and subsequently issued as a best selling CD box, as well as Florestan in the EMI studio recording of 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...
directed by Furtwängler. All these have contributed to the growing posthumous reputation of this remarkable tenor.
Video
He can be seen on video in a performance as Tristan (with Birgit NilssonBirgit Nilsson
right|thumb|Nilsson in 1948.Birgit Nilsson was a celebrated Swedish dramatic soprano who specialized in operatic and symphonic works...
and 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...
), as Otello (singing in German) and briefly in concerts and rehearsals on various anthologies.