Hans Hotter Memoirs,
translated by Donald Arthur.
Northwestern University Press,
324 pages, $35

Opera-lovers are as naturally contentious as, if less homicidal than, Iraqi insurgents. Yet on one issue they speak with impressive unanimity. They all admit that, apropos Wagner performances, the two decades following World War II—on both sides of the Atlantic—constituted our last true golden era. Among those performances’ protagonists, Hans Hotter reigned supreme. Those privileged to see and hear him as Wotan in the Ring cycle, or as Gurnemanz (Parsifal’s biggest, most pitilessly demanding part), beheld a perfect alignment of music and interpreter. Recordings, thank goodness, disclose to us comparative youngsters much of Hotter’s subtlety, flawless diction, and—the Teutonic noun is as unavoidable as it is untranslatable—Innigkeit. What they cannot convey is Hotter’s often frightening theatrical presence. At six foot four, he dominated any scene where he appeared, aided by aquiline facial features that, in retrospect, implied kinship with Law & Order’s Jerry Orbach. Hotter’s physique, in short, perfectly complemented that astounding thunderstorm of a voice. Surely, if God sang, He would sound like Hotter.

Blessed with the stamina of three oxen, Hotter died only in 2003, aged ninety-four. That he possessed exceptional dedication, no one could dispute. But numerous exceptionally dedicated singers are almost total airheads, as soon becomes manifest if their technical powers prematurely wane. (The less said of Maria Callas during her vocal atrophy, the better. Let Aristotle Onassis’s caustic reproach suffice: “What are you?