Tenor Peter Seiffert died: a radiant hero

A Rheinische Frohnatur and a radiant voice – Peter Seiffert was twice favored by nature: the son of a family of musicians born in 1954 studied singing in his hometown and also found his first job there, from 1978 at the German Opera on the Rhine.

Four years later he was able to switch to the Deutsche Oper Berlin, where director Götz Friedrich became his father’s friend who accompanied the development of his voice from the lyrical tenor to the heroic dentor Klug. But his first wife, the Slovak soprano Lucia Popp, who Peter Seiffert met in 1982 at a guest appearance in Munich, was also a valuable artistic consultant.

300 evenings in Berlin

In Berlin, Seiffert introduced himself as Matteo in “Arabella” by Richard Strauss, but the most important roles in this career section became two Mozart parts, the Tamino from the “Magic Flute” and the Don Ottavio from “Don Giovanni”. The years at the German Opera gave him time for a vocal ripening process, so that he could develop organically in the direction of the heroic roles.

When it comes to Richard Wagner, the conductor Wolfgang Sawallisch became a mentor, under his direction Peter Seiffert sang his first Lohengrin in Munich before causing a sensation in this game in Berlin in 1990. For two and a half decades, the tenor was then celebrated as a Wagner protagonist worldwide, often alongside his second wife Petra-Maria Schnitzer.

In addition to Erik and Tannhäuser, Siegmund, Tristan, Walther von Stolzing (in this role he was experiencing for the first time in 1996 at the Bayreuth Festival) and Parsifal, Peter Seiffert also interpreted Verdis Otello and the Pedro in Eugen d’Alberts “Tiefland”, Florestan in Beethoven’s “Fidelio” and Max in Weber’s “Freischütz”.

On 300 evenings, the singer was on the stage of the Deutsche Oper, the last appearance in May 2019 was a “Tannhäuser”. Peter Seiffert was still an honorary member of the house eleven months ago, now he died after a long, serious illness.