Jacques Urlus

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Jacques Urlus (* January 6, 1867 in Hergenrath, near Aachen, † June 6, 1935 in Noordwijk, Netherlands, was a Dutch dramatic tenor.

[edit] Life

Jacques Urlus was born to music loving Dutch parents in the - then german, nowadays belgian - town of Hergenrath and grew up in the small Dutch town of Tilburg. Since the family was very poor they could not afford a musical education for their son who had to work at a steel mill in Utrecht instead and sang in choirs in his free time. During his military service an officer recognised his musical talents and offered to pay for his musical lessons. But since this offer did not include money for food and lodging, the young man could not accept.

So Urlus was more or less an autodidact when he made his stage début at Amsterdam opera house on September 20, 1894 as Beppe in Leoncavallo's I Pagliacci - at the age of 27, and as a married man. He stayed in Amsterdam for the next years where he got further musical training on the job. He appeared as guest in other dutch cities and built himself a small reputation, especially as Lohengrin.

In 1898, Urlus was invited to Hannover where he sang his famous Lohengrin and another Wagner role, Tannhäuser. This journey won him an audition with Cosima Wagner, the composer's widow and Mistress of the Bayreuth Festival. But although Urlus had learned all his Wagner roles in German especially for this occasion he did not get an invitation.

On his way back to Holland the tenor auditioned in Frankfurt and was offered a contract for five years and a generous salary. And though the singer and his wife had several children already and needed the money, Urlus turned it down because the company wouldn't grant him the time off each summer for Bayreuth - he still hoped for a call that wouldn't come for another 13 years.

After returning to Holland he continued enlarging his repertoire and improving his singing technique until he got a contract at Leipzig opera House in 1900. This company would stay his musical home for the next 14 years. In addition the singer made a routine of returning to Amsterdam and Antwerp every year for several performances.

During the first decade of the 20th century Urlus made his début at Berlin State Opera, in Prague, at Vienna State Opera (1908), Bavarian State Opera in Munich, Stuttgart, Dresden, Frankfurt, Royal Opera House Covent Garden in 1910, until - finally - the Bayreuth Festival audience heard him as Siegmund in Die Walküre in 1911 for the first time.

In 1912 the singer sang in the US for the first time - in Boston, where he sang Tristan next to Johanna Gadski and Lillian Nordica as Isolde. This series of performances got him a contract for the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, where his début took place on 8 Feb 1913 - and turned out to be one of the worst disasters in MET history:

Urlus tried to sing in spite of a heavy head cold and lost his voice completely during the second act of Tristan und Isolde - having to pantomime in act three. Still, when he sang Siegfried only a week later he not only restored his reputation completely but became the MET's leading (and later the only) heldentenor until 1917.

Urlus' MET career ended in 1917 when the United States joined World War I and Wagner operas were banned for the following years.

The tenor returned to Leipzig, with occasional concerts at Amsterdam and in Scandinavia. Since 1922 Urlus sang at the new Wagner Festival at the Zoppoter Waldoper, helping to build it's reputation as "Bayreuth of the north".

His operatic schedule continued to diminish as he accepted an increasing number of concert engagements: London, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Berlin were visited on a regular basis, while at Berlin he occasionally performed at the Volksoper.

On November 19, 1931, Urlus sang his last Tristan in Amsterdam, his last opera performance after more than a thousand nights during thirty seven years. He still appeared occasionally in concerts until 1933.

Jacques Urlus died on 6 July 1935 while undergoing routine surgery. Upon the news of his decease the Netherlands lamented him like a national hero.

[edit] Repertoire

Though Urlus is best remembered for his Wagner performances, he sang many very different roles: He regularly sang the evangelist part in Johann Sebastian Bach's Matthäuspassion to great success, Tamino in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, italian roles like Manrico (Il trovatore), Radames (Aida), Otello, french ones like Don José (Carmen), etc..

In later years Urlus developed a reputation as a Gustav Mahler specialist.

His voice was not that of a typical heldentenor, especially in comparison to the archetypical one of Lauritz Melchiors. Urlus's voice was an elegant, flexible instrument with a light, lively vibrato. Still it maintained it's luminosity throughout the singer's long career and in spite of his mostly strenuous roles until his last concerts.

Today Urlus ist considered as one of the most important Wagner tenors of all time.