Waechter, Eberhard
Waechter, Eberhard
Waechter, Eberhard, Austrian baritone and opera administrator; b. Vienna, July 9, 1929; d. there, March 29, 1992. He studied at the Univ. of Vienna, the Vienna Academy of Music (1950-53), and with Elisabeth Rado. In 1953 he made his operatic debut as Silvio at the Vienna Volksoper. From 1954 he was a member of the Vienna State Opera, and in 1963 he was named an Austrian Kammersänger. He made his debut at London’s Covent Garden as Count Almaviva and his first appearance at the Salzburg Festival as Arbace in Idomeneoin 1956. In 1958 he made his debut at the Bayreuth Festival as Amfortas. He sang for the first time at the Paris Opéra as Wolfram in 1959. In 1960 he sang Count Almaviva at his debuts at Milan’s La Scala and Chicago’s Lyric Opera. On Jan. 25, 1961, he made his Metropolitan Opera debut in N.Y. as Wolfram. In subsequent years, he continued to appear regularly in Vienna, where he created the role of Joseph in Einem’s Jesu Hochzeitin 1980. In 1987 he became director of the Vienna Volksoper, and from 1991 he was also co-director of the Vienna State Opera.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire