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The Mapleson Cylinders - Program Notes
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Robert Blass
(1867-1930), American bass from New York, went
to Germany at the age of twenty to study roles, and made his debut at Weimar in
1895, as King Henry in Lohengrin. He first sang at
Covent Garden in 1900; Grau brought him on to New York for a Lohengrin debut, December 24, 1900. During 1902-03, when Mapleson
recorded him in Lohengrin, he was paid
$5,922.18 for thirty performances of the Landgrave in Tannhäuser, Giacomo in Fra Diavolo, Fasolt
in Rheingold, Hagen in Götterdämmerung, Pogner in [Begin Page 15]
Meistersinger, Fafner in
Siegfried, Hunding in Walküre,
the Commendatore in Don Giovanni, and a Peddler
in Smyth's Der Wald. He was Gurnemanz in
Parsifal when Conried staged it for the first time
outside Bayreuth in 1903. Blass sang with the Met until 1910, and returned in
1920 for two seasons to appear in some postwar Wagner performances in English.
LOHENGRIN (King): Side 8/Bands 4, 5, 9
