Nimsgern, Siegmund
Nimsgern, Siegmund
Nimsgern, Siegmund, German bass-baritone; b. Stiring-Wendel, Jan. 14, 1940. He was a student in Saarbrücken of Sibylle Fuchs, Jakob Stämpili, and Paul Lohmann. In 1965 he made his debut as a concert artist, and his operatic debut followed in 1967 when he appeared as Lionel in Tchaikovsky’s The Maid of Orleans in Saarbrücken, where he sang until 1971. In 1970 he made his Salzburg Festival debut. From 1971 to 1974 he was a member of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf. He made his British debut in 1972 as a soloist in La Damnation de Faust. In 1973 he made his first appearance at London’s Covent Garden as Amfortas, and he also made debuts as Milan’s La Scala and the Paris Opéra. In 1974 he made his U.S. debut as Jokanaan at the San Francisco Opera. He made his Metropolitan Opera debut in N.Y. as Pizarro on Oct. 2, 1978, and returned there as Jochanaan in 1981. From 1983 to 1985 he appeared as Wotan at the Bayreuth Festivals. Among his other roles were Telramund, Alberich, Günther, the Dutchman, Macbeth, lago, and Luna.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis Mclntire