Arnold van Mill
Encyclopedia
Arnold van Mill was a Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 opera singer who specialised in bass.

Debut

He made his debut in 1941 at the 'Circustheater' in The Hague
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...

 as Wagner in the opera Faust
Faust (opera)
Faust is a drame lyrique in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré from Carré's play Faust et Marguerite, in turn loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Part 1...

of Charles Gounod
Charles Gounod
Charles-François Gounod was a French composer, known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.-Biography:...

. After the Second World War ended, he started to sing at the Flemish Opera. There, he already sang the great bass roles of the repertoire like Boris Godunov, King Marke, Hagen and Gurnemanz. Minor detail worth mentioning: he sang these roles in Dutch.

Bayreuther Festspiele

His career got a real boost when he was invited, after an audition, to sing at the first Post-War Bayreuth Festival in 1951. Wieland and Wolfgang Wagner
Wolfgang Wagner
Wolfgang Wagner was a German opera director. He is best known as the director of the Bayreuth Festival, a position he initially assumed alongside his brother Wieland in 1951 until the latter's death in 1966...

 thought Arnold van Mill was suited well for the roles of Titurel, Hunding and Hans Foltz. It was the beginning of a long period at the Grüne Hügel, although it was not as long as it could have been. Van Mill sang all important bass roles in Bayreuth, until a misunderstanding ended the cooperation between Wieland Wagner
Wieland Wagner
Wieland Wagner was a German opera director.- Life :Wieland was the elder of two sons of Siegfried and Winifred Wagner and grandson of composer Richard Wagner....

 and Van Mill.

Other roles

Between 1950 and 1980 he was famous not only for his interpretations of roles in operas of Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

, but also of roles in the operas of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

 and Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...

. He also performed with success in operettas like 'Zar und Zimmermann' von Lortzing. He worked with the great stars of the fifties and sixties like Kirsten Flagstad, Birgit Nilsson, Christa Ludwig, Herbert von Karajan, Wolfgang Windgassen, Hans Knappertsbusch and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.

He was a member of the Hamburger Staatsoper from 1953-1971. He received the German/Austrian honorary title of Kammersänger
Kammersänger
Kammersänger , abbreviation: "Ks.", literally means "Chamber singer." It is a German honorific title for distinguished singers...

 from this theatre for his duties.

His legacy on record consists of, among others, Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Die Entführung aus dem Serail is an opera Singspiel in three acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The German libretto is by Christoph Friedrich Bretzner with adaptations by Gottlieb Stephanie...

 (Osmin), Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde is an opera, or music drama, in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the romance by Gottfried von Straßburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting...

 (König Marke), Die Walküre
Die Walküre
Die Walküre , WWV 86B, is the second of the four operas that form the cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner...

 (Hunding) and Aïda
Aida
Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...

 (Ramfis). He also sang in the famous 1959 recording of the 8th Symphony of Mahler under Horenstein.
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