After his natural beautiful singing voice was discovered, he studied singing privately in Berlin with Frederick Husler, then head of the voice department at the Stern Conservatory, and baritone Konrad von Zawilowski.
At the latter theater he created the role of the blind judge in the world premiere of Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Das Wunder der Heliane in 1927.
[1] As part of the 1928 Bayreuth cast of Tristan und Isolde, he participated in the first recording of that opera.
[2] In 1931 he gave concerts of music by Richard Wagner in Paris and Brussels, and in 1932 he sang Tristan for his debut at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo,[2] He made two guest appearances at the Salzburg Festival; portraying Aegisthus in Richard Strauss's Elektra (1934) and the title role of Hugo Wolf's Der Corregidor (1936).
[1][2] In 1936 he portrayed Herod in Salome at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden with Hans Knappertsbusch conducting.