Fritz Wunderlich

Although it has now been fifty years since Fritz Wunderlich tragically lost his life on September 17, 1966, his incomparable tenor voice remains unforgettable. This is partly because his artistic career began with such meteoric success: after a student production of Mozart's The Magic Flute in Freiburg, the young singer was engaged by the Stuttgart State Opera, then moved on to Munich via Frankfurt, performed at the Vienna State Opera and the Salzburg Festival, and had already received an offer from the New York Metropolitan Opera. Above all, however, people remember his vital, joyful personality as well as his seemingly inexhaustible voice, full of warmth, richness, radiance, and a captivating timbre. On the CD newly released by BR-KLASSIK on the occasion of his 50th anniversary of death, Fritz Wunderlich appears in early, previously unreleased radio recordings made between 1959 and 1965. The recordings of several Munich Sunday concerts and the studio recordings of the Bavarian Broadcasting show him and his tenor voice at the peak of his artistic career. Together with the Munich Radio Orchestra and the Bavarian Broadcasting Choir, he can be heard under the baton of renowned conductors such as Kurt Eichhorn, Siegfried Köhler, Willy Mattes, Hans Moltkau, and Meinhard von Zallinger. The focus was on the German repertoire, from Spieloper to operetta and popular hits, which owe their survival to the present day more or less to his interpretations in concert and on record.