Georg Wilhelm Dettmer

Georg Wilhelm Dettmer was a German bass who trained as a schoolteacher at the Alfeld seminary before turning to the stage. He took singing lessons in Hannover, more at Kassel at Louis Spohr's urging, and finished with Johann Aloys Miksch in Dresden. He made his operatic debut at Brunswick in 1834 and sang at Breslau, Kassel and Frankfurt before joining the Dresden court opera, where he created Steffano Colonna in Wagner's Rienzi and, three years later, the Landgrave in Tannhäuser. He returned to Frankfurt in 1849, moved into the bass-buffo repertoire, and retired in 1874 after forty years on stage.