Leon Rains

Leon Rains was an American bass who began his training in 1890 at the National Conservatory in New York, later studying with Oscar Saenger and, from 1896, with Jacques Bouhy in Paris. He made his debut in 1897 with the Damrosch-Ellis Opera Company, touring the United States with it in 1899, the same year he first sang with the Dresden Court Opera, where he remained for eighteen seasons and took part in world premieres including Salome. Guest engagements took him to Bayreuth and Covent Garden in 1904, and he spent one season, 1909-10, at the Metropolitan Opera, singing Méphistophélès and Hagen. The outbreak of World War I obliged him to leave Dresden and return to the United States, where he occasionally appeared in concert, and after 1924 he lived and taught in Los Angeles.