Born in Vienna, Duhan was a "real Viennese", was born there, grew up there and completed his secondary school and his musical studies there. Besides singing with and Emil Steger, he studied piano, organ and
music theory with
Ferdinand Rebay and completed the conducting course with
Franz Schalk and
Felix Weingartner. With the exception of Salzburg, he rarely worked outside Vienna's city limits. Of course he made his debut at the Stadttheater of
Troppau in 1910, as usual in the province at that time. On 27 April 1914, Duhan made his debut as Amonasro in Verdi's
Aida at the
Wiener Hofoper. He remained a member of the institute until 1940, not only as an esteemed
baritone, but later also as a director and occasionally as conductor. In the Haus am Ring, Duhan sang at least 16 times Count Almaviva in
The Marriage of Figaro and 17 times Bassa Selim in
Die Entführung aus dem Serail, 24 times Scarpia in Puccini's
Tosca, 29 times Don Fernando in Beethoven's
Fidelio and 62 times the prison director Frank in
Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss. Duhan participated in three important world premieres: in 1916 he impersonated the music teacher and Harlequin in the new version of
Ariadne auf Naxos by
Hugo von Hofmannsthal and
Richard Strauss. He represented the music teacher a total of 60 times, Harlequin 76 times. From 1927 on, he sang and played the violin virtuoso Daniello 21 times in
Ernst Krenek's highly controversial jazz opera
Jonny spielt auf. In 1934, in the premiere of Lehár's
Giuditta, he took over the Duke, whom he was to perform a total of 19 times. He also took over the role of Manuele Biffi 7 times. From the end of the 1920s, Duhan was increasingly used as a director and director, he was responsible for the smooth running of several hundred evenings at the Staatsoper. Hans Duhan also accompanied the Vienna State Opera on numerous tours to London, Paris, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Rome, Budapest, etc. In 1924, he sang the title role in
Don Giovanni as well as Count Almaviva at one of these guest performances at the Paris
Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in
The Marriage of Figaro.
Salzburg Festival Duhan made his debut at the
Salzburg Festival as early as 1922: in the very first opera production of the festival he sang the title role three times in Mozart's
Don Giovanni, at that time nobly called
Don Juan, as the understudy of
Alfred Jerger. He conducted
Richard Strauss. His last appearance took place in 1937 at the last festival before the
Anschluss, in a Liederabend together with the soprano
Helen Gahagan, dedicated to "Österreichs Gegenwart im Lied". Works were sung by
Josef Matthias Hauer,
Hans Ewald Heller,
Rudolph Reti,
Joseph Marx,
Alban Berg,
Wilhelm Kienzl and Joseph Rinaldini. At the piano Joseph Marx and Fritz accompanied Kuba. Two of the composers had to emigrate shortly afterwards, a third (Hauer) was defamed by the National Socialists in the travelling exhibition "
degenerate music". In the 1920s and 1930s, Duhan was an important pillar of the festival – in 1922 also as the first Count Almaviva in
The Marriage of Figaro, in 1926 as the first cast of
Don Giovanni, as prison director Frank in
Die Fledermaus and as the music teacher in
Ariadne auf Naxos, in 1927 again as Almaviva and Don Giovanni, in 1928 as first Papageno of the festival, 1933 as Melot in
Tristan und Isolde and as soloist in Brahms'
Deutsches Requiem, and from 1934 to 1936 again as Melot. As early as 1926 he was to perform a lieder recital, but this had to be cancelled due to indisposition.
Lieder recitals and oratorios Duhan gave a series of lieder recitals, mainly singing works by
Franz Schubert,
Franz Liszt,
Carl Loewe and
Richard Strauss. Numerous audio documents of his song interpretations are available. He was the first singer to record all three song cycles of Franz Schubert – namely
Die schöne Müllerin,
Winterreise and the
Schwanengesang. This was realized in 1928 for ''
His Master's Voice''. He also endeavoured to produce works by contemporary composers; in addition to the composers mentioned in the Salzburg Liederabend, he also interpreted works by
Erich Zeisl who was later forced to emigrate. His Christ in Bach's
St Matthew Passion signaled him above all as an
oratorio singer.
Singing teacher From the 1931/32 season until 1955 Duhan worked as a teacher of opera drama at the
Vienna Music Academy. He trained numerous baritones, bass baritones and basses of the following generation, among them
Hans Braun,
Ernst Gutstein,
Erich Kunz,
Peter Lagger,
Hermann Uhde and
Otto Wiener, as well as the
tenor Waldemar Kmentt.
Composer and conductor •
Mozart. A singspiel in two acts and an epilogue, libretto by and . Gabor Steiner Verlag, Wien/Leipzig 1923. World premiere on 2 June 1923,
Vienna Volksoper. Occasionally he also stood on the podium of the
Vienna Philharmonic: once each time he conducted the
Der fliegende Holländer and
Lohengrin, twice Verdi's
Rigoletto and five times Puccini's
Tosca. == Miscellaneous ==