Alexander Kipnis (1891 - 1978)

Note by Alan Bilgora











In the search for suitable and evocative words to describe a particular vocal quality, usually, for the bass voice one would expect of course adjectives like ‘deep’, ‘black’, ‘sonorous’, ‘cavernous’, ‘thundering’, ‘impressive’ or even ‘noble’. Rarely is the word ‘beautiful’ used. However, in the case of Alexander Kipnis, it most certainly applies. Alexander Kipnis was born into a very poor family in Zhitomir, Ukraine on l February 1891. They were very proud of the extraordinary quality of his singing voice, which attracted the attention of a visiting cantor from Bessarabia, who heard him as a soloist in the local synagogue choir. So taken was he by the boy’s natural talent, that, with a promise of some payment, the cantor persuaded Alexander’s mother to let him leave home and become a chorister at his synagogue. Alexander was befriended by one of the older singers with whom he lodged and who taught him the rudiments of music and also some Lieder. Kipnis then won a scholarship to enter the Warsaw Conservatoire, initially to study conducting, but of course he continued to sing, his voice having broken and become a bass. He decided to move to Berlin, undertaking further vocal studies with the well-known teacher Ernst Grenzebach.

During World War l Kipnis was interned but on his release made his operatic debut in 1916 at the Stadt Theater Hamburg. The next two years saw him as a member of the Wiesbaden opera, and from 1919-1930 his burgeoning reputation then gained for him a position as principal bass with Charlottenburg German Opera at the Theater das Westerns in Berlin and during this period he toured occasionally with a German Opera Company in the United States. Performances as a guest, with various companies, coupled with a career as a concert artist led to engagements at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires in 1926 in Die Walküre with Rudolf Ritter, Friedrich Schorr and Karin Branzell and performances of Der Freischütz celebrating the 100th anniversary of the death of Weber. In 1931 he took part there in the local première of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex and continued to appear there regularly until 1936.

Kipnis made his Covent Garden debut during the 1927 International season in a performance of Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots. In spite of the distinguished cast that included John O’Sullivan, the famous Irish dramatic tenor, Mariano Stabile, one of Italy’s most notable baritones, and the soprano Anna Maria Guglielmetti it received terrible reviews, the only principal singer to be complimented being Kipnis in the role of Marcel. He appeared as Sparafucile later that season in a Rigoletto that featured Stabile in the title role, the elegant tenor Dino Borgioli as the Duke with the lovely Maria Ivogün (1891-1987 teacher of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Rita Streich) as Gilda, at whose request the final moving duet ‘Lassù in cielo’, long omitted from the opera, was re-instated.

Between 1929 and 1935 London heard him mainly in Wagnerian roles: in Die Meistersinger, Tristan und Isolde, Walküre, Parsifal. He also appeared in Beethoven’s Fidelio and Borodin’s Prince Igor. Meanwhile, during this period he made outstanding guest appearances in Munich and Vienna, where, as Marcel Prawy in his book on the State Opera House comments, "appearances by the great Russian bass Alexander Kipnis were always festive occasions". His Paris Opéra debut occurred on 20 May 1930 as King Mark in Tristan und Isolde, and during that season there his Méfistophélès in Gounod’s Faust and Hunding in Die Walküre were also much admired. In 1933 the Paris audiences were introduced to his Gurnemanz in Parsifal and 1934 saw him appearing as Pogner in DieMeistersinger. From 1932-1935 he became the principal bass at the Berlin State Opera, appearing in many exciting productions including, one of Guglielmo Tell with the sensational Danish tenor Helge Roswaenge (1897-1972) and the colourful bass-baritone Michael Bohnen (1887-1965). Although he had become an American citizen in 1931, the rise of Nazism made it necessary for him, like so many other Jewish artists, to leave what was then his artistic home, and this in spite of his being a major performer, not only at Germany’s most important opera house but also at the Bayreuth Festivals from 1927 until 1933. In 1936 he was invited to sing Sarastro in Mozart’s Zauberflöte during Glyndebourne’s third season, and the following year Salzburg heard him as Rocco in Fidelio with Lotte Lehmann as Leonore and Helge Roswaenge as Florestan. Roswaenge also appeared with him as Tamino in Die Zauberflöte as part of a truly superb cast that included the delightful Czech soprano Jarmila Novotná as Pamina, Willie Domgraf-Fassbaender as Papageno, Alfred Jerger as the Speaker, with other supporting roles taken by Hilde Konetzni and Anton Dermota.

On 3 November 1925 Kipnis made his very successful Chicago debut in Der Rosenkavalier with Rosa Raisa as theMarschallin, EdithMason as Sophie and Olga Ferrai as Octavian and in subsequent seasons he presented to enthusiastic audiences there his Wotan in Walküre and King Mark in Tristan und Isolde. The San Francisco Opera was treated to his superb singing when he had made his debut with the company on 20 October 1929 as King Mark, followed by Rocco in Fidelio with Flagstad and Melchior as Leonore and Florestean respectively. The next season saw him in Lakmé, Rosenkavalier and Don Giovanni and in 1941 he added his Landgrave in Tannhäuser. In spite of his considerable reputation as an opera singer and his numerous concert appearances in Europe theAntipodes and North and SouthAmerica it was not until 4 January 1940 that he finally made hisMetropolitan Opera New York debut, as Gurnemanz in Parsifal. Olin Downes of the New York Times wrote "Mr Kipnis immediately won the favour of the audience. He invested the role with the utmost significance. The richness of the voice made one of several fine attributes of the singer and the dramatic interpreter. " ..The tenderness and wisdom exemplified by the later scenes were the continuation of one of the most authoritative and sympathetic representations of the character the Metropolitan stage has seen in recent years.

Over the next few years, he was heard in New York but also on the nationwide tours with the Company as Ochs in Die Rosenkavalier, King Mark in Tristan and Isolde, Arkel in Pelléas and Mélisande, Hermann in Tannhäuser, Hagen in Götterdämmerung, Fasolt in Das Rheingold, Rocco in Fidelio, Hunding in Die Walküre, Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte, Nilakantha in Lakmé Leporello in Don Giovanni and the title role in Boris Godunov, which he sang in Russian with the rest of the cast singing in Italian. His colleagues in the Wagnerian repertoire were invariably Kirsten Flagstad, Lauritz Melchior, Friedrich Schorr, Herbert Janssen, Astrid Varnay and Helen Traubel, all outstanding artists with the finest international reputations. Likewise in the principal roles in the German or French operas in which he participated, he sang with Helen Jepson, John Brownlee, Lily Pons, Raoul Jobin, Marjorie Lawrence, Salvatore Baccaloni and Ezio Pinza (1892-1957), who was his only real bass rival for theMetropolitan Opera audiences’ affections. Pinza had joined the company in 1926 and he and Kipnis overlapped in only a few roles. However, a somewhat less than friendly atmosphere did exist between the two singers, as backstage stories abound as to how they re-acted when they imitated each other when playing Don Giovanni and Leporello.

Kipnis decided to retire from the theatre in 1952, and Irving Kolodin in his monumental book on America’s foremost opera house comments that whatever roles Kipnis undertook he "left the listener with at least one valid reason for spending the evening in the Metropolitan". His consummate musicianship and superb vocal control over his mezza-voce enabled him to make sold out appearances on the concert platform, singing lieder by Brahms, Wolf, Schubert, melodies by Debussy and other French composers and songs in his native tongue, Russian, leading to an invitation to become a highly respected vocal coach at the New York College of Music. He was inordinately proud of the fact that his son Igor was recognised as an eminent author, critic and also one of the finest players of the harpsichord in the world, Alexander Kipnis died peacefully at his home in on 14 May 1978 at Stanford, Connecticut, leaving for lovers of vocal art an impressive legacy of recordings that show his considerable vocal talent to perfection. Selections by Prima Voce from his Russian repertoire show how much feeling he retained for his musical roots, and one is immediately aware of that special Slavic quality, not readily apparent when he sings in German or Italian. In the Miller’s aria fromAct 1 of Rusalka he displays a jolly attitude in giving his ill-fated daughter fatherly advice before her marriage to the Prince. In Eugene Onegin Prince Gremin’s confession to Onegin of how much he loves Tatiana his wife is suffused with dignity and sincerity, not realising that Onegin is himself in love with her. Kipnis sounds suitably inebriated and riotous as Galitsky, revelling in his brother Prince Igor’s absence, stating how he hates a dreary life and if he were governor things would be different. In Sadko, as the Viking guest, his rich rolling tones mirror the roaring waves when he recalls the storm tossed coastline of his own country. He is suitably demonic with hair-raising laughs as he recounts the famous song by Musorgsky of the unlikely story of a Flea who is made a courtier.

In the Boris Godunov excerpts, Kipnis fully understands the traditions of this music, sounding regal as he assumes the title of Tsar in the Coronation scene. He also readily characterises the vagabond monk Varlaam, who tells his drinking partners of how Tsar Ivan the Terrible scattered the rioters in the Town of Kazan with bombs. Again in the title role he is reflective in his realization of how he has assumed power, gradually showing his torment and emotional distress, as the plot unfolds in his exchanges with the traitorous Prince Shuysky who confirms the details of how they assassinated the Tsarevitch. His ability to alter the colour of his voice and use of his mezza-voce convincingly conveys his physical collapse and breakdown of his sanity in the ‘Clock scene’ as he hallucinates about his part in the assassination. Consumed with guilt he is suitably tender in his gentle farewell to his son, and his death is vocalised with a tragic dignity. This compilation is a tribute to one of the greatest bass voices ever to have recorded.

© 2008, Alan Bilgora

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