Karl August Neumann was born into a family of prominent intellectuals and artists. His father, Karl Eugen Neumann, was well-known scholar of Asian studies; his grandfather, the opera singer Angelo Neumann, had been the director of the opera houses in Leipzig, Bremen, and Prague and popularized the works of Richard Wagner throughout Europe with a top-class guest ensemble in the 1880s. Karl August Neumann followed in the footsteps of his grandfather, becoming an opera singer himself. The baritone made his debut in Mainz in 1917. After engagements in Wuppertal-Elberfeld, Halle, Vienna, and Breslau (present-day Wrocław), he went to Leipzig in 1928. Among his performances there was the premiere of Ernst Krěnek’s Das Leben des Orest. Heinz Tietjen, general director of the Prussian State Theater and artistic director of the Bayreuth Festival, engaged Neumann at the Berlin State Opera in 1933. In addition to title roles in Don Giovanni, Rigoletto, and Figaro, he also sang the part of Wolfram in Tannhäuser and Beckmesser in Die Meistersinger. In 1933, the year the Nazis’ came to power, Tietjen brought him Bayreuth.
In 1936, the singer was barred from the Reich Theater Chamber, which prohibited him from exercising his profession. This was due to his family ties to a Jew: his wife, Irma Growi. Heinz Tietjen was able to secure Neumann special permission to keep working, which could be revoked at any time, and so he remained an ensemble member at the Berlin State Opera, singing a number of major roles over the years that followed. He also performed as a guest on stages in Germany and abroad in addition to performing in films. Neumann was abruptly arrested in July of 1944 and charged with “conspiracy to commit high treason” before the “Volksgerichtshof”, a court that became infamous for its sham trials. Neumann had met frequently with members of a communist resistance group in Berlin and was arrested when the group’s activities became known. At his trial, the tribunal came to the conclusion that he had merely “had credible, though not extensive knowledge of the communist functionaries’ illegal activities and failed to report them as required by law.” On October 12, 1944, he was sentenced to three years in prison in Bautzen for “failure to report a conspiracy to commit high treason”. Neumann’s imprisonment left his Jewish wife, Irma Growi, to fend for herself in the face of persecution. She was deported to Auschwitz in autumn of 1944, where she was murdered.
Neumann was released from prison shortly after the war, on May 21, 1945. He returned to Berlin and worked as a singer and stage director at the State Opera, where he watched in dismay as former party members and Nazi activists returned to their old posts. He was never able to pursue a second career: Karl August Neumann died on September 18, 1947, in Berlin at the age of 55.
1892 Barmen-Elberfeld/Wuppertal
1947 Berlin