Opera Scotland

Josef Greindl Suggest updates

Born Munich, 23 December 1912.

Died Vienna, 16 April 1993.

German bass.

Josef Griendl was one of the leading interpreters of Wagnerian bass roles in the post-war period.  He trained in Munich, makng his professional debut in 1936 as Hunding while a member of the Krefeld company.  His major German debuts included Berlin (1942) and Bayreuth (1943).  He was the leading bass at Bayreuth from its post-war reopening in 1951 to 1970.

He worked in Italy as well as North and South America.  His appearances in Britain include several visits to the Edinburgh Festival, two of them as a member of the company of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin.

He sang Moses in Moses und Aron at its German stage premiere in Berlin (1959), repeating the role over the following months in Vienna, Paris and Milan.  Roles he created include Oger in Reimann's Melusine (Schwetzingen 1971).

He can be heard in several of his Wagner parts recorded live at Bayreuth. He is also King Marke in the famous recording of Tristan und Isolde made in London in 1953, with Kirsten Flagstad and the Philharmonia under Furtwängler.