Kurt Moll

German bass Kurt Moll was born in Buir, near Cologne, on 11 April 1938. He played cello and sang as a schoolboy, then studied voice at Musikhochschule Köln and with Emily Müller. He had a very unusual voice, and could reach very low notes with good resonance and relaxed vibrato.

He made his professional debut in Aachen in 1961, and began his career with Cologne Opera, then Mainz Opera and Wuppertal Opera. By the end of the 1960s he was performing in major European opera houses, and he first appeared in the USA in 1974, at San Francisco Opera, and first sang at Covent Garden and at New York Metropolitan Opera in 1977.

He also made many recordings of opera, sacred music and lieder, and received several awards for his recordings. As Baron Ochs in Der Rosenkavalier he appeared on seven different recordings.

Kurt Moll retired from performing in 2006, gave a masterclass at Carnegie Hall in 2011 and died in Cologne on 5 March 2017, aged seventy-eight.