Wlaschiha, Ekkehard

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Wlaschiha, Ekkehard

Wlaschiha, Ekkehard, German baritone; b. Pirna, May 28,1938. He was trained in Leipzig. In 1961 he made his operatic debut as Don Fernando in Fidelio in Gera. After singing in Dresden and Weimar (1964-70), he was a member of the Leipzig Opera from 1970. From 1983 he sang at the Berlin State Opera. In 1985 he appeared as Kaspar in Der Freischütz in the reopening of the Semper Opera House in Dresden. He made his debut at the Bayreuth Festival as Kurwenal in 1986. For his first appearance at London’s Covent Garden in 1990, he sang Alberich in Siegfried, a role he also sang at the Lyric Opera in Chicago in 1996 and at the Metropolitan Opera in 1997. He sang in the premiere of Henze’s Venus und Adonis in Munich in 1997. Among his other roles are Pizzaro, Tonio, Telramund, Scarpia, and Jochanaan.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire