make oneself superfluous!" - determined the progress of his teaching activities. He gave his students the tools to be independent singers, so that in case of problems they could always rely first on the basic rules of what they had learned. He taught beginners seven days a week, only to reduce the frequency of his lessons to the number of compulsory lessons in the course of time. Seven singers with the title Kammersänger have been initiated or vocally coached by Köhler, the singers Joan Carroll, Ruth-Margret Pütz, Margarete Berg, Elisabeth Pack and Gerd Nienstedt, Siegfried Haertel and Barr Peterson. The baritones Leonhard Delany, Tonio Larisch, Georg Schulz, Manfred Ball, Reinhard Braun and the tenors Horst Hoffmann as well as Joachim Siemann were also instructed in singing by him. Several later university professors received their vocal training from Köhler: Manfred Ball, Günter Binge, Gerd Nienstedt, Friedrich-Wilhelm Tebbe and Michael Temme, and the concert and opera singers Christine Reil, Heike Henkel, Dieter Miserre and Ulf Kenklies. Most of Köhler's male pupils had come from the Knabenchor Hannover, whose male voices he supervised vocally. Among them was Gerry Schmidt, who later directed both the extra choir of the Staatsoper Hannover and its children's choir. Thus, Köhler, both himself and through his pupils, shaped the sound of the Hanoverian opera ensemble, the aforementioned choirs under Gerry Schmidt, the Hanoverian Boys' Choir and the by F.-W. Tebbe. References External links German operatic baritones Voice teachers Academic staff of the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover 1903 births 1976 deaths People from Neu-Isenburg 20th-century German male opera singers