Helmut Krebs
Encyclopedia
Helmut Krebs was a distinguished German tenor
in opera and concert, who sang a wide range of roles from Baroque
to contemporary works.
the Berlin Volksoper in 1938, but the war interrupted his career. He resumed his career in 1945 in Düsseldorf
, and joined the Berlin State Opera
in 1947, where he was to remain for some 40 years.
He quickly established himself in lyric
roles in German and Italian repertoire such as Belmonte, Tamino
, Idamante
, Ferrando
, Nemorino
, Ernesto
, Fenton, David, Chateauneuf
, he also enjoyed success in German operetta
s, notably as Alfred in Die Fledermaus
, etc.
He also took part in creation of contemporary works such as Henze's Konig Hirsch
, Arnold Schoenberg
's Moses und Aron
, Carl Orff
's Antigonae, also singing as Albert in Rolf Liebermann
's Leonore 40-45, the title role in Igor Stravinsky
's Oedipus Rex, and Pelléas in Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande
.
He was also an admired recitalist of Lieder and Bach
's oratorio
s, especially noted as the Evangelist
. In the 1950s, he began exploring ancient music and became a noted interpreter of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, where his evenly controlled technique, wide vocal range, expressive declamation and highly individual timbre were shown to great effect.
Krebs made guest appearances at the Munich State Opera, the Vienna State Opera
, La Scala
in Milan, the Royal Opera House
in London and the Glyndebourne Festival Opera
. He began teachinng at the Berlin Musikhochsule in 1957, and at the Frankfurt
Musikhochschule in 1966. He was made a Kammersänger
in 1963.
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...
in opera and concert, who sang a wide range of roles from Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
to contemporary works.
Professional career
Krebs studied at the Dortmund Conservatory and the Berlin Musikhochschule with Paul Luhmann, and later privately with Max Meili. He began singing in concert in 1937 and made his stage debut atthe Berlin Volksoper in 1938, but the war interrupted his career. He resumed his career in 1945 in 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 joined the Berlin State Opera
Berlin State Opera
The Staatsoper Unter den Linden is a German opera company. Its permanent home is the opera house on the Unter den Linden boulevard in the Mitte district of Berlin, which also hosts the Staatskapelle Berlin orchestra.-Early years:...
in 1947, where he was to remain for some 40 years.
He quickly established himself in lyric
Vocal weight
Vocal weight refers to the perceived "lightness" or "heaviness" of a singing voice. This quality of the voice is one of the major determining factors in voice classification within classical music...
roles in German and Italian repertoire such as Belmonte, 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....
, Idamante
Idomeneo
Idomeneo, re di Creta ossia Ilia e Idamante is an Italian language opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto was adapted by Giambattista Varesco from a French text by Antoine Danchet, which had been set to music by André Campra as Idoménée in 1712...
, 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....
, Nemorino
L'elisir d'amore
L'elisir d'amore is an opera by the Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. It is a melodramma giocoso in two acts...
, Ernesto
Don 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 ....
, Fenton, David, Chateauneuf
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...
, he also enjoyed success in German operetta
Operetta
Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
s, notably as 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 :...
, etc.
He also took part in creation of contemporary works such as Henze's Konig Hirsch
König Hirsch
König Hirsch is an opera in three acts by Hans Werner Henze to an German libretto by Heinz von Cramer after a fable by Carlo Gozzi.-Performance history:...
, Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
's Moses und Aron
Moses und Aron
Moses und Aron is a three-act opera by Arnold Schoenberg with the third act unfinished. The German libretto was by the composer after the Book of Exodus.-Compositional history:...
, Carl Orff
Carl Orff
Carl Orff was a 20th-century German composer, best known for his cantata Carmina Burana . In addition to his career as a composer, Orff developed an influential method of music education for children.-Early life:...
's Antigonae, also singing as Albert in Rolf Liebermann
Rolf Liebermann
Rolf Liebermann , was a Swiss composer and music administrator born in Zurich, and associated with several different musical genres. His output included chansons, classical, and light music. His classical music often combines myriad styles and techniques, including those drawn from baroque,...
's Leonore 40-45, the title role in Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
's Oedipus Rex, and Pelléas in Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande
Pelléas et Mélisande (opera)
Pelléas et Mélisande is an opera in five acts with music by Claude Debussy. The French libretto was adapted from Maurice Maeterlinck's Symbolist play Pelléas et Mélisande...
.
He was also an admired recitalist of Lieder and Bach
Bạch
Bạch is a Vietnamese surname. The name is transliterated as Bai in Chinese and Baek, in Korean.Bach is the anglicized variation of the surname Bạch.-Notable people with the surname Bạch:* Bạch Liêu...
's 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...
s, especially noted as the 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 1950s, he began exploring ancient music and became a noted interpreter of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, where his evenly controlled technique, wide vocal range, expressive declamation and highly individual timbre were shown to great effect.
Krebs made guest appearances at the Munich State Opera, the Vienna State Opera
Vienna State Opera
The Vienna State Opera is an opera house – and opera company – with a history dating back to the mid-19th century. It is located in the centre of Vienna, Austria. It was originally called the Vienna Court Opera . In 1920, with the replacement of the Habsburg Monarchy by the First Austrian...
, 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...
in Milan, the Royal Opera House
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...
in London and the Glyndebourne Festival Opera
Glyndebourne Festival Opera
Glyndebourne Festival Opera is an English opera festival held at Glyndebourne, an English country house near Lewes, in East Sussex, England.-History:...
. He began teachinng at the Berlin Musikhochsule in 1957, and at the 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...
Musikhochschule in 1966. He was made a Kammersänger
Kammersänger
Kammersänger , abbreviation: "Ks.", literally means "Chamber singer." It is a German honorific title for distinguished singers...
in 1963.
Selected recordings
- 1951 - Gluck - Iphigenie in AulisIphigénie en AulideIphigénie 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...
- Martha Musial, Helmut Krebs, Johanna Blatter, Dietrich Fischer-DieskauDietrich Fischer-DieskauDietrich Fischer-Dieskau is a retired German lyric baritone and conductor of classical music, one of the most famous lieder performers of the post-war period and "one of the supreme vocal artists of the 20th century"...
, Josef GreindlJosef GreindlJosef Greindl was a German operatic bass.Josef Greindl was born in Munich and studied at the Munich Music Academy with Paul Bender. His opera debut was in 1936, as Hunding in Wagner's Die Walküre in the State Theatre in Krefeld. He is remembered mainly for his performances in Wagner at Bayreuth,...
- RIAS KammerchorRIAS KammerchorThe RIAS Kammerchor is a professional chamber choir of the RIAS in Berlin, founded originally for contemporary music, with an international reputation.-History:...
und Sinfonieorchester, Artur RotherArtur RotherArtur Martin Rother was a German conductor who worked mainly in the opera house.He was born in Stettin, Pomerania . His father was an organist and music teacher. He studied under Hugo Kaun and other teachers. By the age of 20, in 1906, he was conducting in Wiesbaden, and was assistant conductor...
- Gala (sung in German)
- 1955 - Monteverdi - L'Orfeo - Helmut Krebs, Hanni Mack-Cosak, Margot Guilleaume, Fritz WunderlichFritz WunderlichFriedrich "Fritz" Karl Otto Wunderlich was a German lyric tenor, famed for his singing of the Mozart repertory and Italian and German opera and lieder. He died in an accident when he was only 35...
, Horst Günter, Peter Rot-Ehrang - Sommerliche Musiktage Hitzacker, August Weinzinger - Cantus Classics
- 1957 - Monteverdi - Vespro della Beata Vergine - Maria StaderMaria StaderMaria Stader was a Hungarian born Swiss lyric soprano, known particularly for her Mozart interpretations.-Biography:...
, Hertha TöpperHertha TöpperHertha Töpper is an Austrian contralto opera singer.Töpper, the daughter of a music teacher, began her singing studies at the Graz Conservatorium while still at high school. In 1954, she began her career at the Graz Opera in the role of Ulrica in Un ballo in maschera...
, Marga Höffgen, Helmut Krebs, Richard Holm, Walter Berry - Bavarian Radio Chorus and Orchestra, Eugen JochumEugen JochumEugen Jochum was an eminent German conductor.Born in Babenhausen, near Augsburg, Germany, Jochum studied the piano and organ in Augsburg until 1922. He then studied conducting in Munich...
Sources
- Grove Music Online, Nicholas Anderson, May 2008