Alfred Jerger

Alfred Jerger was an Austrian bass-baritone who studied musicology and conducting in Vienna before joining the Zurich Opera in 1913, working as a conductor and actor there before turning to singing. His Baron Ochs so impressed Strauss that he was invited to the Munich Opera in 1919, and two seasons later he moved to the Vienna State Opera, where he sang some 150 roles over three decades, including Don Giovanni, Hans Sachs and the title role of Krenek's Jonny spielt auf. He created the Man in Schoenberg's Die glückliche Hand in 1924, Mandryka in Strauss's Arabella in 1933 and, the same year, Altair in the revised Die ägyptische Helena at Salzburg. Appointed the Staatsoper's provisional director after World War II, he oversaw its reopening with Figaro on 1 May 1945, and became a professor at the Vienna Music Academy in 1947.