The following information is taken from The New Grove Dictionary of Opera
FREDERICK DALBERG [Dalrymple], bass, born 7 January 1907 (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England), died May 1988 (South Africa)
Frederick Dalberg was a South African bass of English birth.
He studied in Dresden, making his debut in 1931 at Leipzig as Monterone (Rigoletto), later singing King Henry (Lohengrin), Osmin, Sarastro, Phillip II and many Wagner roles. He appeared at Munich, Dresden, Vienna and Berlin, where he spent the war years. At Bayreuth (1942-4 and 1951) he sang Hagen, Fafner, and Pogner.
After an engagement at Munich, he joined Covent Garden in 1951. There he created John Claggart in Billy Budd (1951), Sir Walter Raleigh in Gloriana (1953) and Calkas in Walton's Troilus and Cressida. He sang the Doctor in the British stage premiere of Wozzeck (1952) and his repertory included King Mark, Hunding, Caspar, Pizarro, Ochs, Kečal, Sparafucile and Mozart's Bartolo.
From 1957 to his retirement in 1970 he was engaged at Mannheim, where, as well as Daland, Gurnemanz and Fasolt, his roles included Don Pasquale, Boris and Dikoj (Kát'a Kabanová). He created Cousin Brandon in Hindemith's Long Christmas Dinner (1961).
A most versatile singer, he excelled in German roles.
His daughter Evelyn sang in Europe and South Africa as a mezzo-soprano.
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The following is extracted from Volume I of the 1986 edition of South African Music Encyclopedia (J.P. Malan, ISBN 0 86965 586 8)
DALBERG (Dalrymple), FREDERICK, bass, born 7 January 1908 in Newcastle-on-Tyne, England, died May 1988 in South Africa.
Frederick Dalberg came to South Africa as a child of 12 and grew up in Pretoria, where he was a choirboy in St Alban's Cathedral for many years. He was the only boy soprano in the Pretoria Musical Association, of which Sydney Rees was the conductor, and sang as soloist in concerts. At the age of 19 he started taking lessons from Ernesto Ferri in Johannesburg, winning the bursary for the most promising singer at the Johannesburg Eisteddfod and recording songs in Afrikaans for the Columbia Gramophone Company.
With the financial assistance of Stanley Lezard he left South Africa in 1930 to study in Dresden. In 1931 he joined the Leipzig Opera, becoming first bass three years later. Whilst in Leipzig he sang in the Gewandhaus and in performances of Bach's works at the St Thomas Kirche, where for a number of years he sang the part of Christ in the annual Good Friday performances of either the St Matthew or the St John Passion. After a period as first bass at the Berlin State Opera, he joined the Munich State Opera as principal bass (1946-9). He returned to South Africa at this time to sing in the Johannesburg opera seasons and in concerts in various parts of the country. In 1951 he became first bass in Covent Garden, and participated in first performances of works by Britten and Walton, but in 1957 he resigned to accept the position of first bass in the Mannheim Opera. He stayed there until January 1970. During the latter part of this period, he was also a senior lecturer at the Musikhochschule in Mannheim. Some of his pupils were employed in the opera houses of Mannheim, Mainz, and Würzburg.
During his career, Frederick Dalberg performed in many other opera centres, in Rome, Paris, Vienna, Lisbon, Brussels, Hamburg, Cologne, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, and Düsseldorf, and he was engaged for the Bayreuth Festivals to sing in Götterdämmerung (Hagen), Meistersinger (Pogner), Ring der Nibelungen (Fafner) and other Wagner works. He also sang in the Berlin, Glyndebourne and Schwetzingen Festivals and was well-known as a Lieder singer in German cities. For his achievements as operatic, oratorio and Lieder singer, the title of Kammersänger was conferred on him in Germany and he has the distinction of being listed in the second edition of the lexicon, Unvergängliche Stimmen.
In all these years Dalberg rarely sang in South Africa. In 1956 he appeared at a symphony concert of the Cape Town Municipal Orchestra; in 1960 he sang Sarastro in The Magic Flute during the Union Festival in Bloemfontein; in 1963 he had the part of the school teacher in Lortzing's Wildschütz produced in Afrikaans by the Pretoria Opera Society; and in 1964 he sang the part of Mephistopheles in PACT's production of Gounod's Faust. In his earlier years he recorded a few Afrikaans songs. He was married to the German soprano Ellen Winter, and their daughter, Evelyn (a mezzo-soprano), has been a lecturer in singing at the South African College of Music, Cape Town, since 1967. In January 1970, Frederick Dalberg returned to South Africa and assumed a part-time appointment as lecturer in singing at the Stellenbosch Conservatoire of Music.
Frederick Dalberg died in May 1988 in South Africa.
