Hermann Weil was born on September 25, 1876, in Mühlburg, near Karlsruhe. He studied musicology and conducting under Felix Mottl and, as a newlywed, began his career as a répétiteur in 1900 in Karlsruhe. After receiving vocal training from Adolf Dippel, he made his debut in 1901 as Wolfram in a production of Tannhäuser in Freiburg. In 1904, he became a member of the Stuttgart Opera, where he remained for nearly three decades with some interruptions. He gave his first performances in Bayreuth in 1911 and 1912, impressing audiences in the roles of Hans Sachs, Amfortas, and Gunther. In 1911, while under contract in Stuttgart as a guest, he was engaged at the Metropolitan Opera in New York for six seasons. He remained there after the war began in 1914, for which he was resented by “patriotic” circles in Stuttgart. After the Americans joined the war in 1917, he was interned for two years. Weil was a member of the Vienna State Opera from 1920 until 1923 before returning to Stuttgart in 1924 as well as to the Bayreuth Festival for its reopening. By that time, the festival had become “a chauvinistic hotbed in which the engagements of the Jews Weil and Schorr were met with extreme hostility.”
In Stuttgart, Hermann Weil was, as General Director Albert Kehm put it, “among the most extraordinary and busiest members” of the ensemble. He was an unrivaled star whose immense repertoire earned him roles in countless productions. In the 1932/33 season, he sang not only in Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, and Die Götterdämmerung, but also in Zar und Zimmermann, Undine, Fidelio, Tristan and Isolde, Der Rosenkavalier, Cavalleria Rusticana, Rigoletto, Der Freischütz, Palestrina, and Salome. The irreplaceable and well-paid baritone, Kehm later recalled, most certainly would have been “kept on at the Württembergisches Staatstheater.”
However, Weil was classified as a “half-Jew” according to National Socialist ideology, and so it was made abundantly clear to him upon entering the theater on March 31, 1933: “There is no need for you to come back.” Without any possibility to work, he was permitted to file for retirement. Only his colleague Fritz Windgassen claimed breach of law. The new minister of education and the arts Christian Mergenthaler responded to the suggestion to honor the long-standing ensemble member upon his departure, as was customary, by stating, “Because of his Jewish background, the chamber singer Hermann Weil cannot be named an honorary member of the State Theater.” Convinced that the new regime would not last long, Weil stayed in Stuttgart.
Only in 1939, after both of his sons had already gone into exile, did Weil decide to flee. Disguised as vacationers, he and his wife crossed the border to Switzerland in late August of 1939, carrying only a suitcase. Officially still registered in Stuttgart until 1940, the couple fled from Switzerland to the United States in 1941. In New York, the musician opened a voice school and worked as a voice teacher until his final days. Hermann Weil died from complications following a stroke suffered while fishing at Blue Mountain Lake on July 6, 1949.
1876 Mühlburg
1949 New York