Gottlob Frick was born in 1906 in Olbronn, in Germany, and studied with Neudorfer-Opitz at the Stuttgart Conservatory. He had a large, dark bass voice of wide range. He became the dominant Wagnerian bass of his time, but his career started with four years in the chorus of the Stuttgart Opera.
He made his soloist début in Coburg as Daland, the Norwegian sea-captain, in Wagner’s Der Fliegende Holländer. His repertoire covered most of the German operas and he created rôles in the premières of operas by composers Sutermeister, Haas and Egk. He sang in most of the major opera houses of Europe and at the Metropolitan Opera.
He died in Pforzheim in 1994, but his fame lives on in many recordings, notably the 1960ΓÇÖs Decca recordings of WagnerΓÇÖs Ring Cycle, conducted by Sir Georg Solti.
