Willi Domgraf-Fassbaender

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Willi Domgraf-Fassbaender (February 19, 1897, Aachen - February 13, 1978, Nuremberg) was a German baritone, particularly associated with Mozart roles, one of the leading lyric baritones of the inter-war period.

[edit] Life and career

Domgraf-Fassbaender studied first in Berlin with Jacques Stuckgold and Paul Bruns, and later in Milan with Giuseppe Borgatti. He made his stage debut in his native Aachen in 1922, as Almaviva in Nozze di Figaro.

He sang at the Deutsche Oper Berlin from 1923 to 1925, at the Opera House in Dusseldorf from 1925 to 1927, at the Staatstheater Stuttgart from 1927 to 1930, and at the Berlin Staatsoper from 1930 until 1948.

Regularly invited at the Glyndebourne Festival from its foundation in 1934 until 1937, singing Mozart roles. He also sang at the Salzburg Festival in 1937, as Papageno in The Magic Flute. After the war, he performed mostly in Vienna, Munich, Hannover, and Nuremberg, where he was resident producer at the Opera house from 1953 to 1962.

He began teaching at the Music Conservatory of Nuremberg, in 1954, where he trained his daughter, mezzo-soprano Brigitte Fassbaender.

Domgraf-Fassbaender had a beautiful voice used with fine musicianship, and was an accomplished singer-actor. He also made a few musical films.

[edit] Sources

• Dictionaire des interprètes, Alain Pâris, (Éditions Robert Laffont, SA, Paris, 1989) ISBN 2-221-06660-X