Gerhard Stolze

Who was Gerhard Stolze?

Gerhard Stolze was a German tenor.

He was a character tenor best known as a Wagner singer. His most famous roles were Mime, David, Loge, Aegisth and Herod. He also sang the Captain in Wozzeck and, the roles of Oberon and the Emperor Nero, both of which were originally written for countertenor. He recorded Mozart's high-tenor Singspiel roles, Monostatos and Pedrillo.

He portrays Mime on both the studio recordings of Siegfried by Herbert von Karajan and Georg Solti.

His voice was very high, thin, and piercing, and capable of an extraordinary range of colors. His style sharply divided critics and audiences, especially in the roles of Mime and Herod. It was denigrated as being over-neurotic, glorified sprechstimme by some, while others praised it for its deep characterization and astonishing virtuosity.

He made his debut in 1949 at the State Opera in Dresden as Moser, one of the Mastersingers in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, the same role in which he was make his first appearance at the Bayreuth Festival in 1951. He was a member of the Berlin State Opera from 1953–1961.