Kieth Engen was an American operatic bass who was a member of Munich's Bavarian State Opera for decades.
16 Facts About Kieth Engen
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Kieth Engen was born Keith Sheldon Engen in Frazee, Minnesota, and died in Murnau am Staffelsee, Germany at the age of 79.
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Kieth Engen was given the title of Kammersanger in 1962 and was a recipient of the Bavarian Order of Merit.
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Kieth Engen came from a musical family and acquired his love for singing as a young boy.
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Kieth Engen's grandfather had been a conductor and his mother was a singer and singing teacher.
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Kieth Engen graduated from Berkeley High School and then went to the University of California.
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Kieth Engen studied business administration there without much enthusiasm, but on the side studied singing with Amy McMurray who had trained in Germany under Lilli Lehmann.
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Kieth Engen made his operatic debut in 1952 at the Graz Opera as Monterone in Rigoletto and sang various roles with the company during that season, including Zaccaria in Nabucco.
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Kieth Engen appeared at the Bayreuth Festival in 1958 as Heinrich in Wieland Wagner's production of Lohengrin and at the Salzburg Festival in 1962 as Achior in Mozart's Betulia liberata.
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Kieth Engen performed several times as a guest artist at the Vienna State Opera from 1955 to 1972 and made his US debut in 1961 as Raymond Bidebent in San Francisco Opera's production of Lucia di Lammermoor.
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Kieth Engen appeared at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the Edinburgh Festival.
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Kieth Engen took part in several world premieres, singing Emperor Rudolf in Hindemith's Die Harmonie der Welt, Alexandre Dumas in Norman Dello Joio's Blood Moon, Oceanus in Carl Orff's Prometheus, Senatsprasident in Volker David Kirchner's Belshazar, and the Czar in Penderecki's Ubu Rex.
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From 1956, Kieth Engen performed and recorded many of Bach's works with the Munchener Bach-Chor, conducted by Karl Richter; He was the soloist in Richter's first recording of the Kreuzstab Cantata for bass solo in 1957, among many cantatas, and he was the vox Christi in both the St John Passion and the St Matthew Passion, while singing the work's bass arias in a 1969 recording.
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Kieth Engen made several recordings on the Polydor label which entered the German charts.
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Kieth Engen sang under that name in the light comedy films Das alte Forsterhaus and Der kuhne Schwimmer.
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Kieth Engen died at the age of 79 in Murnau am Staffelsee, where he and his wife had lived since 1972.