Hopf, Hans

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Hopf, Hans

Hopf, Hans, German tenor; b. Nuremberg, Aug. 2, 1916; d. Munich, June 25, 1993. He studied in Munich with Paul Bender and in Oslo with Ragnvald Bjärne. In 1936 he made his operatic debut as Pinkerton at the Bavarian Landesbühnen in Munich, and then sang with the Augsburg Opera (1939–42), the Dresden State Opera (1942–43), the Oslo Opera (1943–44), and the Berlin State Opera (1946–49). In 1949 he joined the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, and sang there regularly until his retirement in 1988. In 1951 he was a soloist in Beethoven’s 9th Sym. under Furtwängler at the reopening of the Bayreuth Festival, where he later sang from 1961 to 1966. From 1951 to 1953 he appeared at London’s Covent Garden, returning there in 1963. On March 15, 1952, he made his Metropolitan Opera debut in N.Y. as Walther von Stolzing, remaining on the roster until 1953; he was again on its roster for the 1954-55, 1960-62, and 1963-64 seasons. He also sang at the Salzburg Festivals from 1954, and was a guest artist in Milan, Moscow, Zürich, San Francisco, Chicago, and Buenos Aires. Among his prominent roles were Florestan, Max in Der Freischütz, Siegfried, Parsifal, Tristan, Tannhäuser, Otello, and the Kaiser in Die Frau ohne Schatten.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire