Friedrich "Fritz" Karl Otto Wunderlich was born on September 26, 1930, and died on September 17, 1966. He was a German lyric tenor, a type of male singer known for his high, clear voice. He was famous for singing music written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and for performing art songs called lieder.
Biography
Fritz Wunderlich was born in Kusel, a town in the Palatinate region of Germany. His mother played the violin, and his father led a choir. For a short time, the family ran an inn called "Emrichs Bräustübl" (Emrich's Brewing Cottage). Fritz's father lost his job because of pressure from local Nazis and also suffered from a serious injury he received during a war. He died by suicide in 1935 when Fritz was five years old.
As a young student, Fritz learned to play several musical instruments. In 1950, he entered the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg, a music college in Freiburg, where he studied the horn. Later, a singing teacher named Margarethe von Winterfeldt discovered his talent and trained his voice.
In 1956, Fritz married Eva Jungnitsch, a harpist born in 1934 and who died in 2016. The couple had three children: Constanze (born in 1957), Wolfgang (born in 1959), and Barbara (born in 1964 and who died in 2022). The family first lived in Stuttgart, Germany, and later moved to Munich.
Wunderlich became known as a very talented young tenor, especially for performing roles written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Over time, he expanded his performances to include a wide variety of songs for tenors.
He also sang and recorded smaller roles in operas by Richard Wagner, such as the steersman in Der fliegende Holländer, Walther von der Vogelweide in Tannhäuser, and the shepherd in Tristan und Isolde. He performed and recorded the role of the Italian Tenor in Der Rosenkavalier.
Recordings
During Wunderlich's career, German theaters performed operas in German. Because of this, most of his recordings of Italian operas were sung in German, including Verdi's La traviata and Rossini's The Barber of Seville. He performed Verdi's Requiem in Germanic Latin. Wunderlich earned the highest recognition in the German opera collection. A particularly important recording is the 1964 version of Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, conducted by Karl Böhm. In this recording, Wunderlich played the role of Tamino, with soprano Evelyn Lear as Pamina and soprano Roberta Peters as the Queen of the Night, and baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as Papageno. Another live recording of Die Zauberflöte was made in 1960 at the Salzburg Festival. He also recorded several performances as Belmonte in Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail. Recordings of lesser-known Mozart operas, such as Zaide and La finta giardiniera, also exist.
Wunderlich continued to record songs from Schubert and Schumann's lieder cycles with pianist Hubert Giesen, who was also his teacher. These included Schumann's Dichterliebe. Many tenors later followed Wunderlich's way of performing this cycle.
Another important recording was J. S. Bach's Christmas Oratorio, performed with Gundula Janowitz, Christa Ludwig, and Franz Crass, conducted by Karl Richter. He also sang in Herbert von Karajan's recording of Beethoven's Missa solemnis, alongside Janowitz, Ludwig, and Walter Berry. He recorded an album of sacred songs from before Bach's time, featuring works by Schütz, Telemann, Buxtehude, and other composers. With Christa Ludwig, he performed Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde with the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Otto Klemperer.
At the time of his death, Wunderlich was recording Haydn's Die Schöpfung with the Berlin Philharmonic and the Wiener Singverein, conducted by Karajan, alongside soloists Janowitz, Ludwig, Berry, and Fischer-Dieskau. He had completed his arias, but another singer, Werner Krenn, was hired to record the recitatives. Several live recordings of Wunderlich performing his full role in Die Schöpfung under Karajan's direction remain. Many collections of his opera and operetta arias are available.
Videos include a full performance (in German) of Count Almaviva in Rossini's The Barber of Seville, with Hermann Prey, Erika Köth, and Hans Hotter, and a recital of operatic arias.
Death
Wunderlich performed at the 1966 Salzburg Festival. His last performance was on September 4, 1966, at Usher Hall in Edinburgh. Two weeks later, his career ended early due to an accident during a hunting trip. He fell down a stairway in a country house owned by bass singer Gottlob Frick in Oberderdingen near Maulbronn after tripping on a loose shoelace, which caused a broken skull. He passed away at the University Clinic of Heidelberg nine days before his 36th birthday and a few weeks before his planned debut on October 8, 1966, at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City as Don Ottavio in Mozart's Don Giovanni. Wunderlich is buried in Munich's Waldfriedhof cemetery.