Hermann Prey

Hermann Prey demonstrated remarkable range as a performer, embracing lieder, sacred music, operetta, and opera while, late in his professional life, emerging as a popular television host and comedian throughout his homeland of Germany. Audiences experienced him as an especially approachable and responsive recitalist who adjusted his lieder readings to the shifting atmosphere he sensed from listeners. Although lieder formed the foundation of his singing, he also excelled as an opera actor, earning praise for portraying Beckmesser in Die Meistersinger with ordinary human qualities instead of caricature. Near-contemporaries with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, he shared nearly identical repertoire with him; public friction remained minimal, yet a quiet rivalry existed that gradually softened, allowing both to be recognized as distinct artists offering complementary qualities rather than one merely echoing the other. Prey additionally gained recognition as an instructor in both vocal technique and the interpretive demands of lieder.

His father showed little engagement with music, whereas his mother maintained a deep attachment to vocal repertoire. During his school years Prey participated in the choir, taking occasional solo parts, and at age eleven he gained admission through audition to the selective Berlin Mozart Choir. Wartime conditions interrupted these activities, yet he continued singing whenever feasible and joined several amateur ensembles. After completing school he sought entry to the municipal conservatory; although initially rejected, the panel advised lessons with the still-student Harry Gottschalk. Determining whether Prey’s voice suited tenor or baritone became an early priority, and although the instrument lowered over time, he retained a firm upper extension. Gottschalk concentrated on exercises and songs, enabling sufficient advancement that Prey’s 1948 re-audition secured acceptance. At the conservatory he strengthened ear training and intonation while acquiring familiarity with styles ranging from medieval to contemporary works. There he first encountered lieder in depth, and during his student period he resolved that nineteenth-century song would anchor his artistic path.

His initial professional appearance occurred in 1950 at Grunewald Castle in the baritone role of Paul Hoffer’s Woodland Serenade. While accumulating broad experience he also performed considerable popular repertoire and received encouragement to pursue that direction exclusively. His primary loyalty nevertheless stayed with lieder and, secondarily, opera; he sustained an affinity for lighter music, recording and performing it across his career and consistently asserting that a singer need not limit themselves to either classical or popular categories. Early in 1952 the conservatory expelled him for secretly persisting with Gottschalk, whose pedagogical approach he favored, yet by then his accumulated performances and visibility protected his momentum.

He soon captured first prize in the American Army’s German youth organization Mastersinger Competition among three thousand entrants, generating further attention and an abundance of offers that left him declining more engagements than he accepted. One accepted contract placed him at the Hesse State Theater in Wiesbaden, where his stage debut came as Moruccio in d’Albert’s Tiefland. As part of the competition award he undertook a four-week United States tour late in 1952, during which he made his television debut on The Ed Sullivan Show and appeared in additional concerts. Back in Germany by January 1953, he auditioned successfully at Electrola Studios for several recording projects; in 1954 he completed his first EMI session in The Gypsy Baron and undertook his first leading role with the Hamburg Opera as Don Carlo in Verdi’s La Forza del Destino.

Prey reached the Metropolitan Opera in 1960 as Wolfram in Tannhäuser. Two years later he debuted at the Salzburg Festival as Guglielmo in Così fan tutte and recorded Schumann’s Dichterliebe for Electrola. His San Francisco Opera debut followed in 1963 as Rossini’s Figaro. First singing Papageno in 1964, the role became his most frequently requested operatic part; the same year he appeared as Wolfram at Bayreuth. He first encountered Fritz Wunderlich in 1959, and the two formed a close personal and professional bond. In his autobiography Premierefieber/First Night Fever, within the chapter “Amico Fritz,” Prey conveyed his grief at Wunderlich’s early death. The pair had recorded an album of Christmas music issued roughly a month afterward; Prey supplied a sleeve tribute that closed, “We were going to take the world by storm. We were to become the Castor and Pollux of song. But fate would have it otherwise. I must remain as the lonely and abandoned twin. I mourn the loss of a friend and brother singer, whom no one can ever replace.” Numerous joint recordings and broadcasts survive on compact disc.

Prey’s initial television program, Schaut Her, Ich’s Bin, premiered in 1967 and achieved widespread popularity. He assembled an eight-LP anthology of folk songs for Philips in 1970 and, the following year, made his first appearance at the Lyric Opera of Chicago again as Rossini’s Figaro. The same role marked his delayed Covent Garden debut in 1973. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s he maintained an active schedule of recitals and recordings while adding roles such as Beckmesser in Die Meistersinger. Phonogram issued his long-planned Prey Lied Edition in 1976, encompassing 450 German songs stretching from Minnesinger works to contemporary pieces. That year he founded the Schubertiade Festival at Hohenems, directing it until 1981, when artistic differences with management arose over his plan to present Schubert’s songs in strict chronological sequence. His directorial debut occurred in 1988 at Salzburg with Le Nozze di Figaro. He died suddenly in 1993 of heart failure. He and his wife Barbel had three children; one son, Florian Prey, pursued a singing career whose vocal timbre recalls aspects of his father’s richness.

Although numerous recordings remain, the Prey Lieder Edition is currently unavailable on compact disc. EMI has issued selected Schubert and Brahms performances on CDZC 68432, while Intercord Klassische Diskothek released a distinguished survey of lieder by Loewe, whose output Prey regarded as unjustly overshadowed despite its merit. In 1988 EMI also issued a collection of opera arias (545-CDM), largely recorded in German. Although Prey’s Toreador Song emerges avuncular rather than flamboyant, the remaining selections, drawn from both his established parts (Die Zauberflöte, Le Nozze di Figaro) and operas outside his usual sphere (Faust, Pique Dame), stand as distinguished examples of his work.