Skip to main content

Exhibition

Friedrich Plaschke (1875 – 1952), operatic bass-baritone at the Dresden Hofoper from 1900 to 1937.

Friedrich Plaschke

January 2025

(b.Jaroměř, 7 January 1875; d.Prague, 4 February 1952)

This month we feature a postcard image of the renowned Czech bass-baritone Friedrich Plaschke. Born in Jaroměř in the Czech Republic, Plaschke studied in Prague and afterwards in Dresden, and made his debut with the Dresden Hofoper in 1900 as the Herald in Lohengrin. He was a member of that company for thirty-seven years and took part in the premieres of five operas by Richard Strauss, appearing as the First Nazarene in Salome, as Count Waldener in Arabella, as Pöschel in Feuersnot, Altair in Die ägyptische Helena and Morosus in Die schweigsame Frau. Among other roles created by Plaschke was that of Arcesius in Eugen d’Albert’s opera Die Toten Augen, the premiere of which was featured in our exhibition of September 2016.

In 1911 Plaschke married Eva von der Osten, the soprano who created the role of Octavian in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier. They both took part in the 1914 production of Parsifal at Covent Garden, Eva singing the role of Kundry, and Friedrich that of Amfortas. He was described as ‘strongly dramatic’, and a ‘picturesque figure’ who ‘sang with distinction’, by The Standard and The Daily News, whereas The Times thought his singing ‘robust rather than imaginative’, though ‘his tone was admirable in many passages of his two great scenes.’ We reproduce the programme here:

Plaschke was also a guest artist at the Bayreuth Festival and, later in his career, toured the USA with the German Opera Company. He retired from the Dresden Hofoper in 1937 following Eva’s death in 1936, and died in Prague in 1952.

An extract of Plaschke singing Hans Sachs in Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg can be found on Youtube: Gut’n Abend, Meister (Elisabeth Böhm van Endert and Friedrich Plaschke)