Background
Johann Beck was born on the 5th of May, 1827 in Budapest, Hungary, in a family of musicians.
Johann Beck was born on the 5th of May, 1827 in Budapest, Hungary, in a family of musicians.
Beck trained as a theology student there but was an active member of the choral society. During a touring season at Budapest from the Vienna Hofoper in about 1847, he sought advice over his 'splendid baritone' voice from the bass Karl Formes and tenor Josef Erl. Formes coached him in the role of Riccardo in I puritani and performed the opera with him in the same season. He then studied singing in Vienna and made his professional opera debut as the Speaker in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte at the Hofoper in 1851. He spent the next two years in short commitments at the opera houses in Hamburg, Bremen, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Mainz, Würzburg and Wiesbaden.
He sang for more than thirty years at the Hofoper (now the Vienna State Opera), particularly excelling in works by Giacomo Meyerbeer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Giuseppe Verdi. He notably portrayed the role of King Solomon in the world premiere of Karl Goldmark’s Die Königin von Saba in 1875. In 1853, Beck was hired as a member of the company at the Hofoper where he sang roles for more than the next three decades. He notably performed the title role in Mozart's Don Giovanni for the opening of the new opera house in 1869.
In the late 1880s, Beck began to show signs of mental instability and was hospitalized in a mental institution in Inzersdorf. He was eventually released in the early 1890s into the care of his son, Joseph Beck, who gave up a successful opera career to look after his father. They lived together happily first in Vienna and then in Pressburg (modern Bratislava) until Joseph became ill and died in 1903. Johann died the following year.