Erb, Karl (1877-1958)

German tenor. He was self-taught and after appearances in Stuttgart and Lübeck sang Lohengrin in Munich; he created Pfitzner's Palestrina there in 1917. Other roles included Parsifal, Adolar, Pylades, Florestan, and Belmonte (which he sang at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, in 1927). From 1930 he sang in Lieder and oratorio, and was often heard as the Evangelist in Bach's Passions. He appears in Thomas Mann's novel Dr Faustus (1945) as Erbe, who sings in the first performance of Adrian Leverkühn's Apocalypse oratorio, under the direction of Otto Klemperer.