Kieth Engen

Kieth Engen (5 April 1925 – 2 September 2004) was an American operatic bass who was a member of Munich's Bavarian State Opera for decades. Although his career was based in Munich, he appeared internationally as a guest singer at major opera houses and festivals and performed and recorded many of Bach's Passion oratorios and cantatas, primarily with the conductor Karl Richter. He was born Keith Sheldon Engen in Frazee, Minnesota, and died in Murnau am Staffelsee, Germany at the age of 79. He was given the title of Kammersänger in 1962 and was a recipient of the Bavarian Order of Merit. In the mid-1950s he also had a brief parallel career as a pop singer under the pseudonym Stan Oliver.

Engen was born in Frazee, Minnesota. He came from a musical family and acquired his love for singing as a young boy. His grandfather had been a conductor and his mother was a singer and singing teacher. He graduated from Berkeley High School and then went to the University of California. He studied business administration there without much enthusiasm, but on the side studied singing with Amy McMurray who had trained in Germany under Lilli Lehmann. After leaving university, he studied German language and literature in Zürich on a two-year scholarship. When he returned to California he sang in local concerts and recitals and worked in a warehouse and as a chorus assistant to save enough money to train as an opera singer in Europe. Engen entered Vienna's Wiener Musikakademie in 1951 where he studied under Elisabeth Radó, Tino Pattiera, and the bass Pavel Ludikar, who also became his friend and role model. His first name was originally "Keith", but after several years in Germany, he changed the spelling to "Kieth" to conform to German phonetics.