Luria, Juan (real name, Johannes Lorie)

views updated

Luria, Juan (real name, Johannes Lorie)

Luria, Juan (real name, Johannes Lorie), Polish baritone; b. Warsaw, Dec. 20, 1862; d. in the concentration camp in Auschwitz, 1942. He was a student of Gänsbacher in Vienna. In 1885 he made his operatic debut in Stuttgart. On Dec. 3,1890, he made his Metropolitan Opera debut in N.Y. as Nevers in Les Huguenots, singing there for a season. He subsequently pursued his career in Berlin, Milan, Vienna, Munich, Paris, and other European music centers. In 1893 he sang the role of Wotan at its first performance at Milan’s La Scala. From 1914 he taught voice in Berlin. As a Jew, Luria left Germany under the Hitler regime in 1937 and made his way to Holland, where he taught at the conservatories in Amsterdam and The Hague. After the Nazis occupied Holland in 1939, he was unable to flee, and in 1942 was arrested and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Luria was best known as a Wagnerian. He also sang in the premiere of Pfitzner’s Die Rose vom Liebesgarten (1901).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire