Kurt Moll, bass

The richness and sonority of his voice and sensitivity to the inflections of both music and text make Kurt Moll one of the foremost performers of Wagner bass roles, especially King Mark in Tristan and Isolde and Gurnemanz in Parsifal, perhaps his most acclaimed role. He is also known for his lieder singing, and is especially admired for his renditions of Brahms' Four Serious Songs. He and Hermann Prey have championed the songs of Loewe, a song composer greatly overshadowed by Schubert and Schumann.

Moll first studied at the Cologne Hochschule fí¼r Musik, and while a student, made occasional appearances in small roles at the Cologne opera, though his official debut was not until 1961, as Lodovico in Otello. He sang at most of the small opera houses in Germany during the 1960s, slowly rising to larger parts and more prestigious houses. He joined the Hamburg Staatsoper in 1970, the same year of his Salzburg debut, and he made his Bayreuth Festival debut in 1974 as Fafner in Das Rheingold. His La Scala debut was also in 1974 as King Mark in Tristan and Isolde, and his Covent Garden debut was the next year as Caspar in Der Freischí¼tz. In 1982, he first began to perform Russian roles, first singing Pimen in Boris Godunov at the Vienna State Opera, and adding the title role of that opera to his repertoire in 1983, also at the Vienna State Opera.

Kurt Moll retired from the stage in 2006, after singing the Commendatore in Don Giovanni and, his last role, the Nachtwächter in Die Meistersinger von Ní¼rnberg, both for the Bavarian State Opera in Munich.He lives in Cologne with his family.