Anton Dermota

Born in 1910 in Kropa, a Slovenian settlement of metalworkers and blacksmiths, Anton Dermota rose to prominence as a lyric tenor whose Mozart roles shaped mid-twentieth-century opera. His career also encompassed concert repertoire, lieder, and decades of teaching. His father worked as a metal fabricator whose modest earnings came from producing nails for construction, leaving the household with limited resources. As youngsters, Dermota and his siblings offset meager meals by gathering wild fruit and taking produce from nearby fields.

During the late 1920s he entered the Ljubljana School of Organists, later shifting his concentration to voice. A 1934 scholarship brought him to Vienna for lessons with Marie Radó-Danielli. That same year he made his stage debut at Romania’s Cluj-Napoca National Opera Theater. Bruno Walter soon invited him to the Vienna Staatsoper, where Dermota first appeared in 1936 and sang his initial leading part the following year as Alfredo in Verdi’s La Traviata. Also in 1937 he debuted at the Salzburg Festival when Arturo Toscanini conducted Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.

He became a mainstay at the Staatsoper, remaining there more than forty years. As a recitalist he appeared frequently with his wife, pianist Hilde Berger-Weyerwald, and for thirty years performed at every major European and Australian opera house plus the Teatro Colón in Argentina. In concert he earned recognition for Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde. In 1966 he and his wife joined the faculty of the University of Music and Performing Arts of Vienna.

He marked his fortieth anniversary with the Staatsoper in 1977. His first American appearance came in 1979 at a recital in Stanford, California. Two years later he sang Tamino in Mozart’s The Magic Flute for his final Staatsoper performance. He continued to appear in Slovenia and Austria until his death from heart failure in Vienna in 1989.