Grundheber, Franz
Grundheber, Franz
Grundheber, Franz, German baritone; b. Trier, Sept. 27, 1937. He studied in Trier, Hamburg, at Ind. Univ., and at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara. In 1966 he became a member of the Hamburg State Opera. In 1983 he sang Strauss’s Mandryka at the Vienna State Opera, and in 1985 Strauss’s Olivier at the Salzburg Festival. After appearing as Amonasro at the Savonlinna Festival in 1989, he sang Strauss’s Barak at the Holland Festival in 1990. In 1992 he was engaged as Germont in Barcelona, and as Wozzeck in Paris and at London’s Covent Garden. He also sang Wozzeck at the Lyric Opera in Chicago in 1994, and then appeared as Wagner’s Dutchman at the Los Angeles Opera in 1995. In 1997 he returned to Covent Garden as Rigoletto, which role he sang at his Metropolitan Opera debut in N.Y. on March 8, 1999.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire