Paul Kuen was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 operatic tenor

Tenor

The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...

 particularly known for his portrayals of character roles such as Mime in 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...

's Der Ring des Nibelungen

Der Ring des Nibelungen

Der Ring des Nibelungen is a cycle of four epic operas by the German composer Richard Wagner . The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied...

.

Kuen was born at Sulzberg, Oberallgäu

Sulzberg, Oberallgäu

Sulzberg is a municipality in the district of Oberallgäu in Bavaria in Germany....

. He had originally wanted to be an organ

Pipe organ

The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air through pipes selected via a keyboard. Because each organ pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre and volume throughout the keyboard compass...

-builder, but then studied singing with Heinrich Knote

Heinrich Knote

Heinrich Knote was an outstanding German dramatic tenor with an international reputation.Born in Munich, he studied in that Bavarian city with Emmanuel Kirschner before joining the Munich Opera in 1892, debuting in Lortzing's Der Waffenschmied...

 and Adalbert Ebner in Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

. He made his stage debut at the State Theatre in Konstanz

Konstanz

Konstanz is a university city with approximately 80,000 inhabitants located at the western end of Lake Constance in the south-west corner of Germany, bordering Switzerland. The city houses the University of Konstanz.-Location:...

 in 1933 and went on to sing in many European opera houses, including Munich State Opera from 1946, Bayreuth

Bayreuth Festspielhaus

The or Bayreuth Festival Theatre is an opera house north of Bayreuth, Germany, dedicated solely to the performance of operas by the 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner...

 where he sang from 1951-1957, Salzburg

Salzburg Festival

The Salzburg Festival is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer within the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart...

, the Vienna State Opera

Vienna State Opera

The Vienna State Opera is an opera house – and opera company – with a history dating back to the mid-19th century. It is located in the centre of Vienna, Austria. It was originally called the Vienna Court Opera . In 1920, with the replacement of the Habsburg Monarchy by the First Austrian...

, the Bavarian State Opera

Bavarian State Opera

The Bavarian State Opera is an opera company based in Munich, Germany.Its orchestra is the Bavarian State Orchestra.- History:The opera company which was founded under Princess Henriette Adelaide of Savoy has been in existence since 1653...

 and London's Royal Opera House

Royal Opera House

The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...

. He made his debut at the New York Metropolitan Opera

Metropolitan Opera

The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...

 on 16 December 1961 as Mime in Das Rheingold

Das Rheingold

is the first of the four operas that constitute Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen . It was originally written as an introduction to the tripartite Ring, but the cycle is now generally regarded as consisting of four individual operas.Das Rheingold received its premiere at the National Theatre...

. He also sang Mime in the Met's 1962 Siegfried

Siegfried (opera)

Siegfried is the third of the four operas that constitute Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner. It received its premiere at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 16 August 1876, as part of the first complete performance of The Ring...

 and the multiple roles of Andrès, Cochenille, Pitichinaccio, and Frantz in the company's 1962 production of The Tales of Hoffmann.

A Kammersänger

Kammersänger

Kammersänger , abbreviation: "Ks.", literally means "Chamber singer." It is a German honorific title for distinguished singers...

 of the Federal Republic of Germany, Paul Kuen taught singing following his retirement from the operatic stage. Amongst his pupils was the noted lieder

Lied

is a German word literally meaning "song", usually used to describe romantic songs setting German poems of reasonably high literary aspirations, especially during the nineteenth century, beginning with Carl Loewe, Heinrich Marschner, and Franz Schubert and culminating with Hugo Wolf...

 singer, Christian Gerhaher

Christian Gerhaher

Christian Gerhaher is a German baritone and bass singer in opera, concert and notably Lied.- Biography :Christian Gerhaher studied with Paul Kuen and Raimund Grumbach at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München, and Lied with Friedemann Berger, already together with his accompanist for decades...

. In 1976 he published his autobiography, Allgäuer Lausbub erobert die Bühnen der Welt (A rascal from Allgäu

Allgäu

The Allgäu is a southern German region in Swabia. It covers the south of Bavarian Swabia and southeastern Baden-Württemberg. The region stretches from the prealpine lands up to the Alps...

 conquers the stages of the world).

Recordings

Kuen can be heard on many recordings of Wagner's operas, including performances conducted by Herbert von Karajan

Herbert von Karajan

Herbert von Karajan was an Austrian orchestra and opera conductor. To the wider world he was perhaps most famously associated with the Berlin Philharmonic, of which he was principal conductor for 35 years...

, Joseph Keilberth

Joseph Keilberth

Joseph Keilberth was a German conductor who specialized in opera.He started his career in the State Theatre of his native city, Karlsruhe. In 1940 he became director of the German Philharmonic Orchestra of Prague. Near the end of World War II he became principal conductor of the Dresden...

, Clemens Krauss

Clemens Krauss

Clemens Heinrich Krauss was an Austrian conductor and opera impresario, particularly associated with the music of Richard Strauss.-Biography:...

, Hans Knappertsbusch

Hans Knappertsbusch

Hans Knappertsbusch was a German conductor, best known for his performances of the music of Richard Wagner, Anton Bruckner and Richard Strauss....

, and Sir Georg Solti

Georg Solti

Sir Georg Solti, KBE, was a Hungarian-British orchestral and operatic conductor. He was a major classical recording artist, holding the record for having received the most Grammy Awards, having personally won 31 as a conductor, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In addition to his...

. He also appears on recordings of several rarely performed German operas such as Goetz

Hermann Goetz

Hermann Gustav Goetz was a German composer.After studying in Berlin, he moved to Switzerland in 1863. After ten years spent as a critic, pianist and conductor as well, he spent the last three years of his life composing...

's Der Widerspänstigen Zähmung

Der Widerspänstigen Zähmung

Der Widerspänstigen Zähmung is a comic opera in four acts by the German composer Hermann Goetz. It was written between 1868 and 1872 and first performed in Mannheim, Germany on 11 October 1874 under the conductor Ernst Frank...

, Lortzing

Albert Lortzing

Gustav Albert Lortzing was a German composer, actor and singer. He is considered to be the main representative of the German Spieloper, a form similar to the French opéra comique, which grew out of the Singspiel.-Biography:Lortzing was born in Berlin to Johann Gottlieb Lortzing and Charlotte Sophie...

's Die Beiden Schützen, Nicolai's Die Lustigen Weiber Von Windsor

The Merry Wives of Windsor (opera)

The Merry Wives of Windsor is an opera in three acts by Otto Nicolai to a German libretto by Hermann Salomon Mosenthal, based on the play The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare....

, and Orff

Carl Orff

Carl Orff was a 20th-century German composer, best known for his cantata Carmina Burana . In addition to his career as a composer, Orff developed an influential method of music education for children.-Early life:...

's Der Mond

Der Mond

Der Mond is an opera in one act by Carl Orff based on a Brothers Grimm fairy tale with a libretto by the composer. It was first performed on 5 February 1939 by the Bavarian State Opera in Munich under the direction of Clemens Krauss...

, Die Kluge

Die Kluge

Die Kluge. Die Geschichte von dem König und der klugen Frau is an opera in 12 scenes written by Carl Orff. It premiered in Frankfurt, Germany, on 20 February 1943. Orff referred to this opera as a Märchenoper...

 and Antigonae.

External links

• Discography on arkivmusic.com
• Biography (in German)