The Mozarttenor

During this difficult time, the Bregenz City Theater was looking for a lyric tenor for the opera "Così fan tutte". Then, one day after the premiere, I was offered the role of "Tamino" in "The Magic Flute", by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at the Vienna State Opera. Some members of the management of the Vienna State Opera had attended the performance to find out about the soprano - the tenor was engaged.

 

A month later, I was on stage at the Vienna State Opera. And I will never forget those performances. For I had never sung this role before, and in such a famous opera house at that. I am eternally grateful above all to the prompter, or rather the maestro suggeritore, István Cserján, who gently guided me through the role and thus contributed significantly to the Vienna State Opera getting a new Mozart tenor. A "successor to Anton Dermota and Waldemar Kmentt," as the newspaper reviews said at the time. I was actually compared to these "sacred" tenors of the Vienna State Opera? An incredible euphoria and joy spread through me in the following weeks when the then director of the Vienna State Opera, Eberhard Waechter, offered me a contract as Mozart tenor.

 

Roles like "Don Ottavio" in "Don Giovanni", "Belmonte" in the "Abduction from the Seraglio", further "Taminos" in the "Magic Flute" or operas by Richard Strauss like "Arabella" and "Capriccio" followed. Collaborations with great tenor colleagues such as José Carreras, Gösta Winbergh, Plácido Domingo, Ben Heppner, Peter Seiffert or Luciano Pavarotti soon became the norm! Musical highlights of these early days at the State Opera were also the personal encounters with the great conductors and conductors, such as Horst Stein and Heinrich Hollreiser, but also with the established chamber singers of the house.

 

Engagements and performances followed at the most important opera houses in the world, such as the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, La Scala in Milan, the Palais Garnier in Paris, the Opéra Bastille in Paris, the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, the Salzburg Festival and many others.