100 Singers - KURT BÖHME
Kurt Böhme, Bass (1908-1989) Albert Lortzing: DER WILDSCHÜTZ ("The Poacher") "5000 Taler" Conducted by Hans Müller-Kray / Recorded 1954 My personal opinion: A distinctive character head, an impressive deep voice and an unbridled playful mood. With these you portray either villains or comedians. Kurt Böhme, born 1908 in Dresden, was a specialist in both. He embodied evil and funny as well as stupid and intelligent figures - and was first and foremost always unmistakably himself: A popular singer, loved by the audience. Right at his debut 1930 in Bautzen he sang two different roles at once, Kaspar and the Hermit in Weber's DER FREISCHÜTZ. Already a few months later he was engaged by the Dresden State Opera, where he remained as an ensemble member for twenty years ... becoming a favorite of opera-goers and attracted people like a magnet as Baron Ochs in Richard Strauss' DER ROSENKAVALIER. Highly appreciated by the composer, Böhme took also part in the world premieres of ARABELLA (1933) and DIE SCHWEIGSAME FRAU (1935), led by the then musical director Karl Böhm, who is said to have cancelled guest performances by Feodor Chaliapin and Boris Christoff, because he held Böhme in higher esteem ... The German bass made a rapid international career that took him to Munich, Salzburg, London, Buenos Aires, New York and Vienna, where he sang 259 performances, including 37 times Ochs. Kurt Böhme and his rival, Gottlob Frick - a comparison lies close: In "The Great Singers", author Jürgen Kesting wrote that "the singing of Frick had more rigor, shape and tonal consistency", while Böhme was "a vital, lively, plump-funny but hardly an accurate singer." In his extensive study about "The Metropolitan Opera Broadcasts", Paul Jackson held a similar opinion. Reviewing Böhme's Hagen in GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG, Jackson wished "a grander and more solid tonal mass. Böhme relies too much on rather stagy vocal gestures." And J. B. Steane found little to like in Böhme's Sarastro in the 1955 recording of ZAUBERFLÖTE: "His wobble afflicts him throughout." The Austrian music journalist Karl Löbl wrote with a wink about Böhme's excessive vocal overacting: "It seems, his Sarastro knows Lortzing's Burgomaster Van Bett ..." Once, the singers theatricality may have had an effect in the opera house, but nowadays it misses the mark on records. Today, much of Kurt Böhme's interpretations reminds us of cheap showmanship: He was loud, rumbling, begging for laughs at any price. He deformed "O Sancta Justitia" from ZAR UND ZIMMERMANN with ridiculous exaggerations into a burlesque. As the boastful overseer Osmin in the 1965 recording of DIE ENTFÜHRUNG AUS DEM SERAIL (with Fritz Wunderlich's incomparable Belmonte), Kurt Böhme thunders coarsely to the point of embarrasment through a role that demands the skills of a bass virtuoso. Osmin's "O, wie will ich triumphieren" includes difficult coloratura and goes down twice to a low D. Böhme turns the coloratura into stuttering and the low note into an indefinable noise of gurgling. As the ghostly apparition of the dead Commendatore (DON GIOVANNI, under Josef Krips, 1955), he does not seem at all menacing. He sounds unsteadily and reminds more of an old frail man - no comparison to the raven-black Gottlob Frick, the unearthly sonorous Kurt Moll or the demonic Matti Salminen ... But Böhme cannot be evaluated on the basis of recordings alone. No doubt, he was a stage hog. He needed an audience to unfold his full potential. From Wagner's Hagen and Hunding to the pig farmer Kálmán Zsupán in DER ZIGEUNERBARON - it was always the combination of voice and stage presence that made up Kurt Böhme's appealing appearance. "I saw him many times in Munich. He spread a wonderful atmosphere in the entire theater, he put everyone into a good mood just being there ...", this is how an elderly user commented on the duet Kecal / Jenik from THE BARTERED BRIDE (with Wunderlich) here on YouTube. Böhme was untamed in comic roles - and not infrequently he did too much of a good thing. As devious Kaspar in DER FREISCHÜTZ, he did not achieve the abysmal malevolence that Gottlob Frick gave the character. Instead he offered fierce vocal grimacing. But we have to give him credit in one thing: Unlike Frick, Böhme served a far clearer pronunciation of words. Also in the fast parlando he proved to be a true acrobat. His phrasing was, if he controlled himself under the authority of a stern conductor, simply exemplary. Even if Böhme's odd performance style seems old-fashioned now, he must be seen as one of the most memorable opera-personalities of the 20th century.
Kurt Böhme, Bass (1908-1989) Albert Lortzing: DER WILDSCHÜTZ ("The Poacher") "5000 Taler" Conducted by Hans Müller-Kray / Recorded 1954 My personal opinion: A distinctive character head, an impressive deep voice and an unbridled playful mood. With these you portray either villains or comedians. Kurt Böhme, born 1908 in Dresden, was a specialist in both. He embodied evil and funny as well as stupid and intelligent figures - and was first and foremost always unmistakably himself: A popular singer, loved by the audience. Right at his debut 1930 in Bautzen he sang two different roles at once, Kaspar and the Hermit in Weber's DER FREISCHÜTZ. Already a few months later he was engaged by the Dresden State Opera, where he remained as an ensemble member for twenty years ... becoming a favorite of opera-goers and attracted people like a magnet as Baron Ochs in Richard Strauss' DER ROSENKAVALIER. Highly appreciated by the composer, Böhme took also part in the world premieres of ARABELLA (1933) and DIE SCHWEIGSAME FRAU (1935), led by the then musical director Karl Böhm, who is said to have cancelled guest performances by Feodor Chaliapin and Boris Christoff, because he held Böhme in higher esteem ... The German bass made a rapid international career that took him to Munich, Salzburg, London, Buenos Aires, New York and Vienna, where he sang 259 performances, including 37 times Ochs. Kurt Böhme and his rival, Gottlob Frick - a comparison lies close: In "The Great Singers", author Jürgen Kesting wrote that "the singing of Frick had more rigor, shape and tonal consistency", while Böhme was "a vital, lively, plump-funny but hardly an accurate singer." In his extensive study about "The Metropolitan Opera Broadcasts", Paul Jackson held a similar opinion. Reviewing Böhme's Hagen in GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG, Jackson wished "a grander and more solid tonal mass. Böhme relies too much on rather stagy vocal gestures." And J. B. Steane found little to like in Böhme's Sarastro in the 1955 recording of ZAUBERFLÖTE: "His wobble afflicts him throughout." The Austrian music journalist Karl Löbl wrote with a wink about Böhme's excessive vocal overacting: "It seems, his Sarastro knows Lortzing's Burgomaster Van Bett ..." Once, the singers theatricality may have had an effect in the opera house, but nowadays it misses the mark on records. Today, much of Kurt Böhme's interpretations reminds us of cheap showmanship: He was loud, rumbling, begging for laughs at any price. He deformed "O Sancta Justitia" from ZAR UND ZIMMERMANN with ridiculous exaggerations into a burlesque. As the boastful overseer Osmin in the 1965 recording of DIE ENTFÜHRUNG AUS DEM SERAIL (with Fritz Wunderlich's incomparable Belmonte), Kurt Böhme thunders coarsely to the point of embarrasment through a role that demands the skills of a bass virtuoso. Osmin's "O, wie will ich triumphieren" includes difficult coloratura and goes down twice to a low D. Böhme turns the coloratura into stuttering and the low note into an indefinable noise of gurgling. As the ghostly apparition of the dead Commendatore (DON GIOVANNI, under Josef Krips, 1955), he does not seem at all menacing. He sounds unsteadily and reminds more of an old frail man - no comparison to the raven-black Gottlob Frick, the unearthly sonorous Kurt Moll or the demonic Matti Salminen ... But Böhme cannot be evaluated on the basis of recordings alone. No doubt, he was a stage hog. He needed an audience to unfold his full potential. From Wagner's Hagen and Hunding to the pig farmer Kálmán Zsupán in DER ZIGEUNERBARON - it was always the combination of voice and stage presence that made up Kurt Böhme's appealing appearance. "I saw him many times in Munich. He spread a wonderful atmosphere in the entire theater, he put everyone into a good mood just being there ...", this is how an elderly user commented on the duet Kecal / Jenik from THE BARTERED BRIDE (with Wunderlich) here on YouTube. Böhme was untamed in comic roles - and not infrequently he did too much of a good thing. As devious Kaspar in DER FREISCHÜTZ, he did not achieve the abysmal malevolence that Gottlob Frick gave the character. Instead he offered fierce vocal grimacing. But we have to give him credit in one thing: Unlike Frick, Böhme served a far clearer pronunciation of words. Also in the fast parlando he proved to be a true acrobat. His phrasing was, if he controlled himself under the authority of a stern conductor, simply exemplary. Even if Böhme's odd performance style seems old-fashioned now, he must be seen as one of the most memorable opera-personalities of the 20th century.