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Gotthelf Pistor (1887-1947) was an actor and singer whose brief operatic career began at the rather late age of 36. Born in Berlin, Pistor initially had his sights set on an acting career and was a member of the Staadtheater Brandenburg from 1913 to 1916. During the First World War he seemed to show a certain interest in soldiering (he rose to the rank of Captain) but resumed his stage career once the fighting was over. Pistor also made his mark on Germany’s burgeoning film industry, with appearances in Das Geheimnis der Wera Baranska (The Secret of Vera Baranska) (1919) and Die Erbschaft der Inge Stanhope (The Inheritance of Inge Stanhope) (1920). Early in 1919, he was appearing in Schiller’s Wallensteins Lager. During the concluding choral number, Pistor’s voice was noticed above the rest and he was singled out for his uncommonly fine singing. Deciding that his vocal talents might carry him farther than his talents as a thespian, he sought the advice of famed Polish baritone Juan Luria. It was Luria who gave Pistor the foundations of good vocal technique which allowed him to pursue a career as a singer. Between 1919 and 1922, Pistor divided his time between Berlin and Hamburg, singing with different operetta companies. His operatic debut came about in 1923 at the Nuremberg Staadttheater and by 1925 he had made his Bayreuth debut as Froh in Das Rheingold. Pistor’s career skyrocketed from this point, with appearances at the major opera houses of Darmstadt, Würtzburg, Cologne, Berlin, Dresden, Vienna, Brussels, Barcelona, Prague, Budapest, London, Paris, San Francisco, Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires. He was also a regular visitor to both Bayreuth and Sopot, appearing at these celebrated Wagner festivals nearly every season from 1925 to 1938. Pistor’s impressive repertoire of some two dozen roles encompassed practically all of the Wagnerian heroes including Siegmund in Die Walküre, Erik in Der Fliegende Holländer, Walther von Stolzing in Die Meistersinger and the title roles in Lohengrin, Siegfried, Tannhäuser, Parsifal, Tristan und Isolde and Rienzi. He was also quite successful in such non-Wagner roles as Pedro in Tiefland, Max in Der Freischütz, Menelaus in Die Ägyptischen Helena (a role he sang at the Dutch premiere of Strauss’ opera at The Hague in 1930), Huon of Bordeaux in Oberon, Matthias in Evangelimann, The Drum Major in Wozzeck, Agamemnon in Leben des Orest, Canio in Pagliacci and the title role in Otello. A decade and a half of the most punishing repertoire took its toll, however, and Pistor’s voice began showing signs of wear by the late 1930s. After singing the title role in the German premiere of Gino Marinuzzi’s Palla de’ Mozzi at the Deutche Oper Berlin in April of 1940, Pistor bade farewell to the operatic stage. The hardships Pistor endured during WWII made his final years particularly tragic. His savings depleted, he found himself destitute by the war’s end. Although he had found some success as a stage director during the 1920s and ‘30s, his attempts to revive this area of his career were unsuccessful. Desperate for income, he settled in Cologne, where he eked out a living as a private voice teacher from his modest apartment. Pistor passed away on April 4, 1947 at the age of 59. Gotthelf Pistor is practically forgotten today, even by diehard record collectors. This is a pity as the tenor was a wonderful combination of actor and vocal artist. Although his voice at times seems a bit light for the demands of Wagner, Pistor brings a refreshing lyricism and artistry to music that is typically bellowed and barked by today’s tenors. All in all, he was a pleasing interpreter who deserves more than the obscurity into which he has fallen. Pistor’s recordings, made primarily for Parlophon in the late 1920s (there exist a handful of pirated live recordings from the 1930s) are quite enjoyable and his performances stand up well to other Wagnerian tenors of the period.
