36 Facts About Karl Erb

Karl Erb was a German tenor who made his career first in opera and then in oratorio and lieder recital.

Karl Erb 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.

Karl Erb was the first husband of Maria Ivogun and was considered by many the ideal Evangelist in Bach's St Matthew Passion.

Karl Erb's mother taught him to love poetry and he excelled at school.

Karl Erb's voice did not break abruptly, but deepened and intensified to a beautiful and spiritual timbre.

Karl Erb was sought out for private musical events and performed in amateur theatre at the Ravensburg Konzerthaus.

Karl Erb later worked at Wolfegg and at Rot as cashier for the State Gas and Waterworks.

Karl Erb had the help of a young repetiteur, a singing teacher, a drama tutor and a ballet master.

Karl Erb studied the roles of Max in Weber's Der Freischutz, Lionel in Flotow's Martha, Walter in Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg and Mathias in Der Evangelimann by Wilhelm Kienzl.

Karl Erb was gave recitals and made oratorio appearances during his probation at Stuttgart.

Karl Erb then appeared as Wagner's Lohengrin, as Buddha in Adolf Vogel's Maja, as Little Massarena in Le domino noir, Achilles i Gluck's Iphigenia in Aulis, Walter and as Gounod's Faust.

Karl 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 Lubeck.

Karl Erb maintained a sober existence, but gravitated to the social circle of Ida Boy-Ed, where he mixed with Hermann Abendroth, Wilhelm Furtwangler and others.

Karl Erb travelled to Hamburg to see Caruso and Edith Walker in Puccini's Tosca.

Karl Erb returned to Lubeck for a second season in Autumn 1909, adding Tannhauser, Les Huguenots, Die Zauberflote, Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail, the Gotterdammerung Siegfried, Naraboth in Salome, The Barber of Seville, and Fredy Wehrburg in The Dollar Princess to his repertoire.

Karl Erb then sang in Kiel and Hamburg, returning to Stuttgart for the winter season of 1910.

Karl Erb sang Schubert for Mottl, who was deeply impressed, and started planning to get him to Munich.

Von Putlitz decided that Karl Erb was the only singer suitable.

Karl Erb wanted to go, but there were three years remaining at Stuttgart: he declined a Munich offer of a guest Tannhauser 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 Karl Erb, and staged it with him at the Prinzregententheater at Munich, privately, whereupon von Speidel for the Hoftheater asked Karl Erb his price and was told 24,000 Marks per year.

In September 1912 the new Stuttgart Hoftheater was completed and Karl Erb sang Walter in Meistersinger.

Karl Erb sang this role for 12 years at the Munich Festivals.

Karl Erb now sang Erik, Tannhauser, Loge, Pinkerton and Cavaradossi.

Karl Erb 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 Karl Erb became completely, almost exclusively associated with it.

Karl Erb sank his whole artistic personality into the Evangelist, reading what Albert Schweitzer and Heuser had written.

Karl Erb created the title role, with Maria Ivogun as Ighino.

Karl 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.

Karl Erb was a very great Mozartian singer, and thereafter he played many roles, including Octavio, Belfiore, Tamino and Ferrando, as well as Belmonte.

Karl Erb was held up, returning, at Ingolstadt, and the Munich revolution had settled by the time of his return there.

That week Karl Erb sang five Parsifals and a Belmonte at Zurich Festival.

The couple toured there widely together between December 1924 and late February 1925, when, after Willem Mengelberg had failed to persuade Karl Erb to sing the St Matthew Passion in New York City, amid press sensations offering to 'buy' the performance, Karl Erb left Maria to complete her tour and went home.

Karl Erb sang it throughout the second war, and after, in Germany: a 1940 reviewer described his Cologne cathedral performance as an 'unfassbaren, ubermenschlichen, unirdisch wirklichen Vollendung'.

When Karl 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.

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.

Karl Erb died in Ravensburg, on his 81st birthday, in 1958.