You offer up onesigned autograph card (sent as a postcard in 1932) as well as an album sheet handwrittenDedication of the opera singer (baritone) Willi Domgraf Fassbaender (1897-1978).

The autograph card (14.8 x 10.5 cm) with a handwritten signature on the motif side.

Photo: Jacobi.

"Willi Domgraf-Wassbaender plays the title role in 'Student Prince' in the large theater."

Postally sent (postmark Berlin, 5.12.32), addressed by someone else to Fräulein Eva Schmidt, Berlin-Charlottenburg, Westendallee 87.

The recipient was certainly a daughter of the Reichsbank chief inspector Karl Schmidt, who is listed in the Berlin address book at this address.

Included is an undated A4 album sheet with a personal dedication from Willi Domgraf Fassbaender. The dedication is in the middle (size approx. 5x10cm).

Enclosed in a protective sheet; with handwritten attribution "Faßbaender 1936" (the year certainly refers to the dedication on the album sheet).

Condition: autograph card on quite thin paper; this one browned, with a tear in the area of ​​the stamp and a small corner crease. Album sheet folded lengthwise and crosswise; with corner crease. BPlease note also the pictures!

Internal note: Opera 21-04

OverWilli Domgraf Fassbaender (Source: wikipedia):

Willi Domgraf-Fassbaender (actually Fassbaender; * 19. February 1897 in Aachen; † 13 February 1978 in Nuremberg) was a German opera singer (baritone).

Life: Fassbaender studied singing in Aachen with Felix Knubben, in Berlin with Jacques Stückgold and Paul Bruns and finally in Milan with Giuseppe Borgattis. He made his debut in Aachen in 1922 at the municipal theater there as Count Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro.

From 1923 to 1925 Fassbaender worked at the German Opera House in Berlin, from 1925 to 1927 at the Düsseldorf Opera and from 1927 to 1928 at the State Opera in Stuttgart. During the Stuttgart period, Fassbaender added the nickname "Domgraf" to his surname because of frequent confusion with his colleague Wilhelm Fassbinder.

On Richard Tauber's recommendation, he was engaged in 1928 at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin, where he was a permanent member of the ensemble until 1948. After the National Socialists "seized power" he became a member of the NSDAP in May 1933.[1] After the end of his engagement in Berlin, he first moved to Hanover and then went to Nuremberg, where he worked as senior director (1953–1962) and director at the municipal theaters; In 1964 he took over the opera and singing class at the Meistersinger Conservatory.

Guest appearances at the Glyndebourne Festival, the Salzburg Festival, the Vienna State Opera[2] and La Scala in Milan, among others, made him internationally known. Willi Domgraf-Fassbaender was particularly successful as an interpreter of Mozart, Wagner and Verdi. He was considered one of the leading lyrical German baritones of his time. He was also often referred to as the most Italian baritone in Germany. According to his own statements, he achieved his greatest successes as Figaro (Le nozze di Figaro) and Guglielmo (Così fan tutte), which he sang under the direction of Otto Klemperer at the Kroll Opera and also at the Glyndebourne Festival in 1934 and 1935 under the direction of Fritz Busch . In 1937 he made his debut at the Salzburg Festival as Papageno in Mozart's Magic Flute[3]. He was also successful in roles by Italian and French opera composers, such as Rigoletto, Escamillo (Carmen), Scarpia (Tosca), Tonio (Pagliacci), Sharpless (Madama Butterfly), Ford (Falstaff), Marcello (La Bohème) or as Charles Gerard (Andrea Chenier). Frequent partners were Danish tenor Helge Rosvaenge and Romanian (Moldovan) soprano Maria Cebotari.

The versatile artist's repertoire included operettas and hit films as well as lieder (piano partners: Hubert Giesen, Michael Raucheisen), and he also became a successful film actor. In the film The Bartered Bride based on Friedrich Smetana's opera of the same name, the first German opera film adaptation ever, he sang Hans, although this role was actually intended for a tenor.

Willi Domgraf-Fassbaender was also a sought-after singing teacher. His students included B. Rita Streich, Erwin Wohlfahrt and his daughter, the mezzo-soprano Brigitte Fassbaender.

He was married to the actress Sabine Peters.

Filmography (selection)

1932: The Bartered Bride

1932: Theodor Korner

1934: Invitation to dance. The path of Carl Maria von Weber

1938: A Song of Love

1940: pure love

1949: The Marriage of Figaro.