Mazura, Franz

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Mazura, Franz

Mazura, Franz, Austrian bass-baritone; b. Salzburg, April 21, 1924. He studied in Detmold. He made his operatic debut in Kassel (1949), and later appeared at the opera houses of Mainz, Braunschweig, and Mannheim. In 1963 he made his first appearance at the Berlin Städtische Oper and in 1967 at the Hamburg State Opera; also sang at the Bayreuth Festivals (from 1971). In 1979 he sang Dr. Schön in the premiere of the 3-act version of Lulu in Paris, which role he also sang at his Metropolitan Opera debut in N.Y. (Dec. 12, 1980). In addition to the Wagnerian repertoire, he sang Pizzaro in Fidelio, Jochanaan in Salome, and Moses in Schoenberg’s Moses und Aron.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire