Werner Wolff
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Dr. Werner Wolff was a musicologist and founder of the Chattanooga Opera Association.
The son of Hermann and Louse Wolff, Wolff and his wife Emmy Land were opera singers who emigrated to the United States in the late 1930s. They resided in New York until Wolff was employed as head of the music department at Tennessee Wesleyan College in Athens, Tennessee and Land became voice and music teacher at the same school. In the early 1940s they were hired by the University of Chattanooga and the Cadek Conservatory of Chattanooga, Tennessee as teachers. In 1942 Dr. Wolff wrote a book entitled Anton Bruckner, rustic genius (ISBN 0-8154-0449-2).
Interested citizens learned of the Wolffs' operatic expertise from their great success in Europe (mainly in Hamburg, Vienna) and asked them to organize a Chattanooga Opera Association which they did in 1943. Madame Emmy Land Wolff died in 1955 and Dr. Wolff retired from opera five years later and returned to Ruschlikon, Switzerland, where he died in 1961. Many feel that this couple created a sensation with their opera productions in Chattanooga. The opera company they founded (now known as the Chattanooga Symphony and Opera Association) is still active, and many believe it is better than ever.
