Metternich, Josef
Metternich, Josef
Metternich, Josef, German baritone; b. Hermuhlheim, near Cologne, June 2, 1915. He studied in Berlin and Cologne. After singing in the opera choruses in Bonn and Cologne, he made his operatic debut as Tonio at the Berlin Städtische Opera in 1945. In 1951 he sang the Dutchman at his first appearance at London’s Covent Garden. On Nov. 21, 1953, he made his Metropolitan Opera debut in N. Y. as Carlo in La forza del destino, and remained on its roster until 1956. In 1954 he became a member of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, where he created the role of Johannes Kepler in Hindemith’s Die Harmonie der Welt in 1957. His guest engagements took him to Cologne, Hamburg, Vienna, Milan, Edinburgh, and other European music centers. In 1963 he sang Kothner in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at the reopening of the National Theater in Munich. He retired from the operatic stage in 1971. From 1965 he was a prof, at the Cologne Hochschule für Musik. Among his other roles were Kurwenal, Wolfram, Amfortas, Amonasro, Jochanaan, and Scarpia.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire