Franz Mazura
Wagnerian bass baritone whose stage career spanned 70 years
FRANZ MAZURA, who has died aged 95, was an Austrian bassbaritone known not only for his rich dark tone and imposing stage presence, but also for the longevity of his career.
Having made his professional debut in 1949, he was still singing 70 years later, appearing last Easter on the eve of his 95th birthday as Hans Schwarz in Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at the Berlin Staatsoper conducted by Daniel Barenboim.
Although Mazura often appeared in operas by Wagner, he was arguably best known in the dual role of the newspaper editor Dr Schön and Jack the Ripper in Alban Berg’s Lulu, taking part in the 1979 premiere of the three-act version completed by Pierre Boulez and Patrice Chéreau at Paris Opéra.
Despite his warm smile and gracious manner, Mazura seemed to specialise in villains or darker characters. These included a gnarly Alberich in Das Rheingold with which he was a fixture in New York in the 1980s and Sir Edgar in Hans Werner Henze’s Der junge Lord,a part to which he gave a real sense of menace at Hanover in 2017.
In Britain he was a commanding Klingsor in Parsifal with Kurt Moll at Covent Garden conducted by Georg Solti in 1979 and 1980, the critic William Mann writing approvingly of how Mazura was “bitter of tone, splendidly realising the expressive power of the sound of his words”.
In 1994 he took part in Simon Rattle’s remarkable account of Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Hall, Birmingham.
Franz Mazura was born in Salzburg on April 22 1924 and studied mechanical engineering before being drafted into the German navy during the Second World War. Afterwards he turned to music, working on his singing technique with Frederick Husler in Detmold and supporting himself by working as an actor in the local theatre.
In 1949 he gave his first professional operatic performance at the Staatstheater in Kassel, later joining the Deutsche Oper Berlin.
He soon settled in Mannhein, where he became a member of the local opera company from 1964 to 1987, living in the shadow of Neckarhausen Castle. By the 1960s he was also appearing in many of the world’s great opera houses, including at the Vienna State Opera, the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires and especially Bayreuth, where he had a good relationship with Wolfgang Wagner.
“Because of Bayreuth, I haven’t had a day off in 25 years,” he once said, adding quickly: “Despite the work, it was like a vacation for me.” After his appearance there in 1993 the critic Andrew Clark urged him to “retire now before his bark turns hoarse”, advice Mazura chose not to heed – although his final appearance at Bayreuth was only two years later.
“You have to be obsessed with this profession,” he once said. “But then you can’t stop.”
In autumn 1968 he made his American debut with San Francisco Opera as a powerful Jochanaan in Strauss’s Salome, with Anja Silja in the title role. However, it was not until 1980, aged 56, that he made his first appearance with the Metropolitan Opera, New York. This was in Lulu, in which, according to Opera magazine, he “dominated the stage, both for acting and the clarity of enunciation”. Over the next 22 years he appeared at the Met on 175 occasions.
Franz Mazura, a largerthan-life character with a balding pate, enjoyed making line drawings and in 2006 published a German-language memoir that contained more than 40 satirical sketches. In 2010 he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
He is survived by a daughter, Susanna.
Franz Mazura, born April 22 1924, died January 23 2020