Jean-Wilhelm Pfendt

Jean-Wilhelm Pfendt, born Johannes Pfendt, was a German bass who studied at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt am Main and made his stage debut in 1933 at the Landestheater Gotha as the King in Aida. He moved to Nordhausen in 1935, Augsburg in 1937 and the Nationaltheater Weimar in 1939, where the following year he created Der alte Herzog in the revised, 1940 version of Strauss's Guntram. From 1941 he spent the rest of his career, twenty-two years, as an ensemble member of the Hamburg State Opera, specialising in secondary roles that included the Hermit in Der Freischütz, Monterone in Rigoletto, the Police Commissioner in Der Rosenkavalier and Kothner in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.