Career
Frick's teachers included Fritz Windgassen (father and teacher of Frick’s contemporary, the tenor Wolfgang Windgassen).
He was a member of the chorus at the Stuttgart State Opera from 1927 to 1934. His first solo role was in Coburg in 1934-5, followed by Freiburg (1936–40) and Königsberg (1938) where Karl Böhm discovered him and engaged him for the Dresden State Opera in 1941, which was his base for the following decade. In 1950 he moved to the Deutsche Oper Berlin, but his international career took him to all the leading houses in Europe.
His voice, instantly recognizable by its dark, evil-sounding almost to the point of reptilian timbre, was aptly described by Wilhelm Furtwängler as 'the blackest bass in Germany' (der schwärzeste Bass in Deutschland). This made up for the fact that it was somewhat smaller than others such as those of Josef Greindl, Ludwig Weber and Kurt Boehme.
The roles for which Frick was best known were Osmin, Sarastro, Commendatore, Kaspar, Rocco and, above all, the principal Wagner bass roles. He also performed in operetta, often with Fritz Wunderlich, and often sang Archangel Raphael in Haydn's Creation. Surprisingly, he avoided the role of Richard Strauss’s Baron Ochs in Der Rosenkavalier which many thought ideal for him.
He retired in 1970 from the stage, although a few of his recordings (for instance, as Gurnemanz in the Solti-led Parsifal), were later than that.
Read more about this topic: Gottlob Frick
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