Adolf Löltgen was a huge-voiced German heldentenor who made but two commercial sides on Vox (German folksongs,
to make things worse). Thus, almost his entire recording output are private recordings made at home after his career was
over - the original discs are of course unique, and still in family possession, but the whole lot has been published on CD
(TT-2437) by Christian Zwarg. I take this opportunity to advertise Zwarg's incomparable CD label.
Zwarg is a class apart as far as remastering historical material, his reissues have no equal,
or to put it more precisely, no other sound engineer has so far achieved even faintly similar results on CD. Really
big recommendation. Also Löltgen's photo is from said CD issue.
Löltgen, a pupil of Nikolaus Rothmühl in Berlin and Giuseppe Borgatti in Milano, made his debut in Barmen in 1908 as Siegmund. He stayed
in Barmen until 1911, and quickly became noted as a Wagner interpreter. 1911–15 in Dresden, 1915–21 in
Wrocław/Breslau, then two seasons each in Düsseldorf and at the Berlin Volksoper, 1926–30 in Mannheim. Guest
appearances at several German theaters as well as in Vienna. He retired to Dresden, where he taught voice.
He sang exclusively heldentenor parts, most notably Tristan (more than 200 times). Other than Wagner, he sang also Manrico,
Alvaro, Radames, Otello, Pedro, Palestrina or Éléazar.
Reference: Kutsch & Riemens
