Fritz Soot

Fritz Soot was a German tenor who studied with Karl Scheidemantel in Dresden and made his debut there in 1908 as Tonio in La fille du régiment. While at Dresden he created the Young Servant in Elektra in 1909 and, in the premiere of Der Rosenkavalier in 1911, doubled the Italian Tenor with Faninal's Major-Domo. He was a member of the Stuttgart Opera from 1918 to 1922, then moved to the Berlin State Opera, where his creations included the Drum Major in Wozzeck in 1925; he was also Berlin's first Laca in Jenůfa (1924), Mephistopheles in Doktor Faust (1927) and Babinsky in Švanda dudák (1929). He was best known, though, as a Wagner tenor, singing Siegmund, Siegfried, Tristan, Erik and Walther at Covent Garden in 1924 and 1925; his repertory also included Parsifal, Palestrina and Otello. He returned to the Berlin State Opera after World War II, singing character roles there until 1952, and took part in the premiere of Dessau's Die Verurteilung des Lukullus in 1951.