Werner Enders (11 March 1924 – 1 December 2005) was a German operatic

tenor A tenor is a type of male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. Composers typically write music for this voice in the range from the second B below m ...

and member of the

Komische Oper Berlin The Komische Oper Berlin is a German opera company based in Berlin. The company produces operas, operettas and musicals. The opera house is located on Behrenstraße, near Unter den Linden. Since 2004, the Komische Oper Berlin, along with the Be ...

Life and career

Born in

Beiersdorf Beiersdorf AG is a German multinational company that manufactures personal-care products and pressure-sensitive adhesives headquartered in Hamburg, Germany. Its brands include Elastoplast, Eucerin (makers of Aquaphor), Labello, La Prairi ...

, Enders attended the music school of

Radebeul Radebeul (; ) is a town (''große Kreisstadt'') in the Elbe valley in the district of Meißen (district), Meißen in Saxony, Germany, a suburb of Dresden. It is well known for its viticulture, a Karl May Museum, museum dedicated to writer Karl ...

and then studied

violin The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...

Zwickau Zwickau (; ) is the fourth-largest city of Saxony, Germany, after Leipzig, Dresden and Chemnitz, with around 88,000 inhabitants,. The West Saxon city is situated in the valley of the Zwickau Mulde (German: ''Zwickauer Mulde''; progression: ), ...

and Berlin. In 1941/42 he helped as second violinist at the

Semperoper The Semperoper () is the opera house of the Sächsische Staatsoper Dresden (Saxon State Opera) and the concert hall of the Staatskapelle Dresden (Saxon State Orchestra). It is also home to the Semperoper Ballett. The building is located on the Th ...

Dresden. During the war he suffered a paralysis of his left hand, which made it impossible for him to continue playing the violin. From 1945 he therefore played drums and from 1947 he was a choir singer in Zwickau, since he had also received singing training. Two years later he went to the Landestheater Altenburg where he worked as a soloist for four years. Later he was at the Landestheater

Halle (Saale) Halle (Saale), or simply Halle (), is the second largest city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It is the sixth-most populous city in the area of former East Germany after (East Berlin, East) Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden, Chem ...

and belonged together with Philine Fischer,

Margarete Herzberg Margarete Herzberg (10 February 1921 – 29 March 2007) was a German operatic mezzo-soprano. Life Born in Osnabrück, Herzberg studied singing at the Leipzig Conservatory with Gertrud Bartsch. The mezzosoprano belonged to the ensemble of the ...

, Günther Leib, Hellmuth Kaphahn,

Kurt Hübenthal Kurt Hübenthal (30 November 1918 – 13 March 2007) was a German operatic bass baritone, director and music teacher. He was professor for singing at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt, Weimar. Life Hübenthal was born in 1918 as one of two ...

and others to the ensemble of the

Handel Festival, Halle The Handel Festival (in German: Händel-Festspiele) in Halle an der Saale, Saxony-Anhalt, is an international music festival concentrating on the music of George Frideric Handel in the composer's birthplace. It was founded on May 25, 1922 and it ...

. In 1955 Enders was engaged by the

. There he was a member of the ensemble from 1957 and then denoted as

Kammersänger Kammersänger (male; ) or Kammersängerin (female; ), abbreviated Ks. or KS, is a German Title of honor, honorific title for distinguished singers of opera and classical music. It literally means "chamber singer". Historically, the title was besto ...

, from 1993 he was an honorary member. "

Walter Felsenstein Walter Felsenstein (30 May 1901 – 8 October 1975) was an Austrian theater and opera director. He was one of the most important exponents of textual accuracy, productions in which dramatic and musical values were exquisitely researched and b ...

discovered the young tenor by chance in Halle and was so convinced of his creation of a women's role in ''

Il Campiello ''Il campiello'' (''The Little Square'') is an opera in three acts by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari. The libretto was by Mario Ghisalberti, after the famous comedy of the same name written for the 1756 Venetian Carnival by the great Venetian playwright, Ca ...

'' that he brought him to the comic opera together with the director and stage designer," was tribute paid by the Komische Oper to him on his death.

Genossenschaft Deutscher Bühnen-Angehöriger The Guild of the German Stage (''Genossenschaft Deutscher Bühnen-Angehöriger'', or GDBA) is the guild for people who work on the legitimate stage. Its members come from both the areas of stagecraft and artistic workers in theaters from all over Ge ...

(editor), ''Deutsches Bühnen-Jahrbuch 2007'', Verlag Bühnenschriften-Vertriebs-Gesellschaft mbH, Hamburg, 2007, Enders appeared in 61 productions by Walter Felsenstein,

Joachim Herz Joachim Herz (15 June 1924 – 18 October 2010) was a German opera director and manager. He learned at the Komische Oper Berlin as an assistant to Walter Felsenstein. His major stations were the Leipzig Opera where he opened the new house with Wa ...

Götz Friedrich Götz Friedrich (4 August 1930 in Naumburg, Germany – 12 December 2000 in Berlin, Germany) was a German opera and theatre director. He was a student and assistant of Walter Felsenstein at the Komische Oper Berlin in (East) Berlin, where he w ...

and

Harry Kupfer Harry Alfred Robert Kupfer (12 August 1935 – 30 December 2019) was a German opera director and academic. A long-time director at the Komische Oper Berlin, he worked at major opera houses and at festivals internationally. Trained by Walter Fe ...

on stage, including King Bobèche in Offenbach's ''

Bluebeard "Bluebeard" ( ) is a French Folklore, folktale, the most famous surviving version of which was written by Charles Perrault and first published by Barbin in Paris in 1697 in . The tale is about a wealthy man in the habit of murdering his wives an ...

'' (which he played for 29 years) and a double role in Janáček's ''

The Cunning Little Vixen ''The Cunning Little Vixen'' (original title ''Příhody lišky Bystroušky'' or ''Tales of Vixen Sharp-Ears'' in English), is a three-act Czech-language opera by Leoš Janáček completed in 1923 to a libretto the composer himself adapted from a ...

''. He was also one of the soloists who sang in the world premiere of the opera ''Das Land Bum-Bum'' composed by

Georg Katzer Georg Katzer (; 10 January 1935 – 7 May 2019) was a German composer and teacher. The last master student of Hanns Eisler, he composed music in many genres, including works for the stage. Katzer was one of the pioneers of electronic new music ...

with a libretto by

Rainer Kirsch Rainer Kirsch (17 July 1934 – 4 September 2015) was a German writer and poet. Life and career Kirsch was born in Döbeln in 1934. After graduating from high school, he studied history at the Klosterschule Roßleben and philosophy at the Marti ...

at the Komische Oper, a piece critical of the East German communist regime. Enders died in Berlin at age 81.

Awards

* 1956: First

Handel Prize The Handel Prize () is an annual award, instituted in 1956, which is presented by the city of Halle, in Germany, in honour of the celebrated Baroque composer George Frideric Handel. It is awarded, "for exceptional artistic, academic or politico- ...

* 1962:

National Prize of the German Democratic Republic The National Prize of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) () was an award of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) given out in three different classes for scientific, artistic, and other meritorious achievement. With scientific achievem ...

Theatre

* 1968: Hans Werner Henze: ''

Der junge Lord ''Der junge Lord'' (''The Young Lord'') is an opera in two acts by Hans Werner Henze to a German libretto by Ingeborg Bachmann, after Wilhelm Hauff's 1827 fairy tale "Der Affe als Mensch" (The Ape as Man) from ''Der Scheik von Alessandria und s ...

'' (Lord Barrat) – direction:

(

)

References

External links

Werner Enders
on Operissimo
Gratulationsdefilee für Bobéche, den König der Komödianten. Zum 80. Geburtstag
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Enders, Werner 1924 births 2005 deaths Musicians from Saxony German operatic tenors 20th-century German male opera singers Handel Prize winners People from Görlitz (district)

Life and career

Awards

Theatre

References

Further reading

External links