Griswold, Putnam

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Griswold, Putnam

Griswold, Putnam, American bass-baritone; b. Minneapolis, Dec. 23, 1875; d. N.Y, Feb. 26, 1914. He went to London to study at the Royal Coll. of Music and with A. Randegger. After making his operatic debut at Covent Garden as Leonato in Stanford’s Much Ado About Nothing (1901), he pursued his training in Paris with Bouhy, in Frankfurt am Main with Stockhausen, and in Berlin with Emerich. In 1904 he sang at the Berlin Royal Opera; after touring the U.S. with Savage’s opera company as Gurnemanz in an English language production of Parsifal (1904-05), he returned to Berlin to sing with fine success at the Royal Opera (1906-11). On Nov. 23, 1911, he made his Metropolitan Opera debut in N.Y. as Hagen, and sang there until his death. He was highly admired as a Wagnerian, being notably successful as Wotan, King Marke, Pogner, and Daland.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire