Felix von Kraus (October 3, 1870 - October 30, 1937) was an

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

n dramatic bass. Born in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, he received a

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...

musicology Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some mu ...

from the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich histor ...

in 1894; as a singer, however, he was mainly self-taught. He made his debut at

Bayreuth Bayreuth (, ; bar, Bareid) is a town in northern Bavaria, Germany, on the Red Main river in a valley between the Franconian Jura and the Fichtelgebirge Mountains. The town's roots date back to 1194. In the 21st century, it is the capital of U ...

as Hagen in '' Götterdämmerung'' in 1899 and was heard thereafter at numerous Bayreuth Festivals and at other opera houses throughout

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; he specialized in the works of

Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...

. In 1908 he became the artistic director of the

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Opera; that same year he became a professor at the Munich Conservatory. Among his students was the Swiss tenor and early music specialist

Max Meili Max Meili, a Swiss tenor, was born 11 December 1899 in Winterthur and died 17 March 1970 in Zürich, Switzerland. He first trained as a painter then turned to singing, leading to lessons with Felix von Kraus. Meili was mainly a concert singer, ...

and heldentenor

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. In 1899 Kraus married the

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contralto A contralto () is a type of classical female singing voice whose vocal range is the lowest female voice type. The contralto's vocal range is fairly rare; similar to the mezzo-soprano, and almost identical to that of a countertenor, typically b ...

Adrienne Osborne, also a Wagnerian. He had a child called Max Kraus. He retired from the stage in 1927 and died in Munich in 1937. The name of his child was: Felizitas and not Max. He had a second daughter who died as a small child - her name was Maria or "Moidl". His grave is in the cemetery of Zell am Ziller in the Tyrol.

References

*David Ewen, ''Encyclopedia of the Opera: New Enlarged Edition''. New York; Hill and Wang, 1963. *https://mahlerfoundation.org/mahler/personen-2/kraus 1870 births 1937 deaths 19th-century Austrian male opera singers Operatic basses 20th-century Austrian male opera singers University of Vienna alumni {{Austria-opera-singer-stub