Few composers demand such a level of physical strength, stage presence, technical security and, last but not least, such enormous endurance from their singers as Richard Wagner almost takes for granted in his operas lasting up to five hours. Likewise, only a few singers meet these requirements. The American tenor and Austrian chamber singer Stephen Gould has not only been a regular guest at the Bayreuth Richard Wagner Festival since 2004, as Tannhäuser but also as Tristan, but at almost all major venues when it comes to Wagner. People almost forgot that he also sang other roles, at least when he was young. Born in Roanoke, Virginia, in 1962, Gould studied at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. Before he switched to the role of heldentenor, he was a musical singer for eight years, shining, for example, in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “The Phantom of the Opera”.
Wagner’s hero: The great tenor Stephen Gould succumbed to cancer at the age of 61 – culture
