Mariss Vētra (19 July 1901 – 24 December 1965) was a Latvian opera singer, stage director, educator, and writer.
Mariss Vētra (known as Morics Blumbergs till 1922) was born on 19 July 1901, at Dārta Estate of Tirza Civic Parish in the present-day Republic of Latvia (in 1901 a part of the Russian Empire).
Vētra studied at the Alexander Classical School of Riga, which during World War I was evacuated to Dorpat (now Tartu, Estonia).
His position at Bureau allowed to save his mother from being shot in 1919 during the temporary soviet government of Pēteris Stučka.
During his studies, in September 1922, Mariss Vētra became the premier of the recently founded opera of Liepāja, until the spring of 1923 singing with success in more than 70 performances.
In July 1930, he returned to Riga, joined the military service and served till February 1931 as a sergeant of an artillery regiment.
The management of the Opera had forgotten to recall him in time from the service, and after some heavy load, he had arrived running for the performance.
The reviewer Ernests Brusubārda wrote a destructive critique, declaring that Mariss Vētra is a tenor lacking a sense of duty.
There Vētra initially gave performances at the circus under the assumed name of Mārtiņš Vells, under which he also recorded albums of light music, then toured Germany, gaining particular success in the opera "Mahogany" by Kurt Weill.
Vētra continued writing for the newspapers "Latvis", "Pēdējā Brīdī", "Latvijas Karavīrs", the magazine "Daugava", also using the pseudonym M. Dūka.
Vētra had sued the administration of the Opera, and the court sentenced conciliation and ordered that he be paid compensation.
He toured Austria (the Vienna Opera, Graz), the Czech Republic (Prague), Poland, Stockholm (on the celebration of November 18, Latvian Independence Day), and Italy (a concert in Rome).
[2] In 1934, Vētra took part in the German movie "Spring Fairy" (Frühlingsmärchen) (directed by Carl Froelich), in which he played an Italian fisherman – a recently discovered natural tenor.
In 1940, during the Soviet occupation of Lavia, Vētra directed several one-act plays at the National Theatre, and also sung the part of Grigory Melekhov in the opera "Tihij Don".
During the German occupation, Vētra continued singing at the Riga Opera, gave concerts at the Aula-hall of the university.
In Halifax, Vētra did substantial organizing work, looking for employers, so as to make it easier for the Latvian refugees to survive in Canada until they could to return to Latvia.
He produced productions of "Stories of Hoffmann" by Offenbach, "La Traviata" by Verdi (both in 1950), "Madame Butterfly" by Puccini and "Le Nozze di Figaro" by Mozart (both in 1951), as well as the operetta "Graefin Mariza" by I. Kalman (1952).
Vētra was an active participant in the culture and social life of Canadian Latvians even until 1962, when he had a stroke and could not sing any more.