Hans Duhan

He belonged to the ensemble of the Vienna State Opera for 26 years and was the first Count Almaviva (The Marriage of Figaro) and the first Papageno (the Magic Flute) of the Salzburg Festival.

Besides singing with Heinrich Gottinger [de] and Emil Steger, he studied piano, organ and music theory with Ferdinand Rebay and completed the conducting course with Franz Schalk and Felix Weingartner.

[3] Duhan participated in three important world premieres: in 1916 he impersonated the music teacher and Harlequin in the new version of Ariadne auf Naxos by Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Richard Strauss.

From 1927 on, he sang and played the violin virtuoso Daniello 21 times in Ernst Krenek's highly controversial jazz opera Jonny spielt auf.

Hans Duhan also accompanied the Vienna State Opera on numerous tours to London, Paris, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Rome, Budapest, etc.

In 1924, he sang the title role in Don Giovanni as well as Count Almaviva at one of these guest performances at the Paris Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in The Marriage of Figaro.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Duhan was an important pillar of the festival – in 1922 also as the first Count Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro, in 1926 as the first cast of Don Giovanni, as prison director Frank in Die Fledermaus and as the music teacher in Ariadne auf Naxos, in 1927 again as Almaviva and Don Giovanni, in 1928 as first Papageno of the festival, 1933 as Melot in Tristan und Isolde and as soloist in Brahms' Deutsches Requiem, and from 1934 to 1936 again as Melot.

From 1934 to 1938 Duhan was a member of the Federal Cultural Council as a representative of the art group, designed programmes for "patriotic events" and was closely associated with Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg and the Heimwehr.