Dygas, Ignacy (EN)

Dygas Ignacy, *29 July 1881 Warsaw, †17 May 1947 Warsaw, Polish singer (heldentenor). He was a pupil of J. Szczepkowski at the Warsaw Conservatoire. In 1905, he made his debut at the Warsaw Opera as a baritone in the role of Valentin in Gounod’s Faust, under the stage name Gorczyński. He subsequently continued his studies with W. Aleksandrowicz, who rightly retrained him as a tenor. As a tenor, he appeared (10 May 1905) in the role of Jontek (Moniuszko’s Halka) at the Warsaw Opera, now under his own name. In 1907, he left for Italy. Following his success in Parma (Wagner’s Lohengrin), he was engaged for a series of performances. In Milan, he continued to train his voice with G.B. Lamperti. He performed in many Italian cities (Genoa, Naples, Rome, Bologna, Palermo), and enjoyed success in Spain and South America (including in Buenos Aires, where he sang Siegfried in Wagner’s Götterdämmerung with S. Kruszelnicka as his partner). He also made guest appearances in Warsaw, and between 1911 and 1914 he collaborated regularly with the Warsaw Opera. During the First World War, he was in Russia. He was a soloist at Zimin’s private theatre, and subsequently at the Imperial Opera in Moscow, where he won over the Russian public by creating the role of Herman in Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades. In 1918, he returned to Warsaw and became a permanent member of the Warsaw Opera, sharing the role of principal heldentenor with S. Gruszczyński. In 1924, he set off on a tour of the USA (New York, Chicago, Detroit) and also travelled throughout Europe (Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Austria, Scandinavia). In 1937, he retired from the stage due to ill health. He spent the Second World War in Warsaw; in 1944, he took up a teaching post in Lublin, but returned to Warsaw a year later to take charge of a singing class at the F. Chopin Music School. In 1947, he celebrated the 40th anniversary of his artistic career and performed in public for the last time. Dygas possessed a voice of immense power and dramatic expression. He went down in history primarily as an unrivalled performer of Wagnerian roles (Tristan in Tristan und Isolde, Siegmund in Die Walküre, the title roles in Lohengrin, Tannhäuser and Parsifal) and as a performer of lyrical roles in Polish operas (Moniuszko’s Halka and The Countess, Żeleński’s Konrad Wallenrod, Statkowski’s Maria, Szymanowski’s Hagith, Różycki’s Casanova and Beatrix Cenci). His performances impress with masterful vocal technique and a high standard of musical interpretation.