Paul Schöffler

Paul Schöffler ( born September 15, 1897 in Dresden, † November 21, 1977 in Amersham ) was a German singer (bass - baritone).

Life and work

Schöffler studied at the Dresden Conservatory voice, piano and violin and music theory. After further training in Berlin and Milan, he received in 1924 by Fritz Busch an obligation to the State Opera in Dresden. He debuted as a herald in Lohengrin.

In the following years he worked in Dresden in the following performances with: Doktor Faust ( premiere in Dresden May 21, 1925 ), Kurt Weill's Der Protagonist ( Dresden premiere March 27, 1926 ), Alfred Schatt 's The Marriage of monk (premiered May 19, 1926 ) Cardillac (premiered November 9, 1926 ), Penthesilea (8 January 1927), Erwin Dressel 's twin donkey (29 April 1932), Mark Lothar's Munchausen (6 December 1933), Rudolf Wagner- Régenys The Minion (premiered February 20, 1935 ) and Robert Heger's The Prodigal Son (premiered March 31, 1936 ).

In 1937 he was appointed professor at the Vienna State Opera, where he remained until 1972, since 1970 as an honorary member. Schöffler occurred in 42 large lots at the State Opera, alone 103mal as Count in The Marriage of Figaro. His farewell performance he gave in April 1972 as the Gran ' Sacerdote in Idomeneo.

Outside the State Opera Schöffler was represented in numerous guest appearances, as at the Bayreuth Festival 1943-44 as Hans Sachs in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and 1956 in the title role of The Flying Dutchman.

At the Salzburg Festival, he appeared almost every year. He sang Pizarro in Fidelio (1938, 1949-50, 1957), the title role in the premiere of the opera Danton's death on August 6, 1947 Jupiter in the premiere of Die Liebe der Danae, the title character in The Marriage of Figaro (1947 ), Don Alfonso in Cosi fan tutte (1947, 1953-54, 1956, 1962), Iago in Othello ( 1952) and Borromeo in Palestrina ( 1955).

Furthermore Schöffler guested at the Paris Opera (1948, 1949, 1950, 1953, 1956 ), at the Opera of Monte Carlo (1954, 1957), at the Opéra du Rhin in Strasbourg (1960), La Scala in Milan (1942, 1947, 1957), at the Opera of Rome (1939, 1942, 1948, 1954, 1962), at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples (1942, 1949, 1954), at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo (1958), at the Teatro Comunale in Bologna (1941 ), at the Teatro Giuseppe Verdi in Trieste (1945 ), at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice ( 1957), at the Teatro Carignano in Turin (1958), at the Maggio musicale in Florence (1959, 1969), at the Covent Garden Opera in London ( 1934-39, 1949-54 ), at the Bregenz Festival (1956, 1960), the Zurich Opera House ( 1946-47 ), at the Metropolitan Opera in New York ( 1950-51, 1954-56 and 1962-64, total in 14 different games in 91 performances), the Festival of Aix -en- Provence (1963, 1966), at the National Opera Budapest (1943, 1948), at the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos in Lisbon (1957, 1959), at the San Francisco Opera in San Francisco (1953, 1959, 1960, 1961), at the Opera of Chicago ( 1956), at the Canadian Opera Company (1962) and at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires ( 1958). On May 23, 1966, he joined the Theater an der Wien in the world premiere of the opera The Black Spider by Josef Matthias Hauer.

Schöffler was also a major oratorio singer. He was initially highly valued as a Mozart interpreter, later. Mainly as a Wagner singer, not least because of his great talent representational He found in a grave of honor in Vienna's central cemetery his final resting place.