Walter Berry

Bass baritone Walter Berry earned a reputation as one of the most active figures in postwar opera, logging more than 1,280 appearances at the State Opera across a hundred distinct roles. His readings of Franz Schubert’s lieder, another Austrian’s songs, earned him particular affection inside his homeland. Berry first appeared on a professional stage at the 1953 Salzburg Festival, after which he remained active across Europe for the rest of the decade. When the State Opera reopened in 1955 following postwar reconstruction, he belonged to the ensemble that inaugurated the rebuilt house. Among the parts he assumed were Wozzeck in Alban Berg’s opera of that title and Masetto in Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Eight years later he made his United States debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. Additional praise came for his contributions to Gottfried von Einem’s The Trial and Werner Egk’s Irish Legend. In 1989 he joined the faculty of the Vienna University for Music and Performing Arts. Berry suffered a fatal heart attack in Vienna on 20 October 2000 at the age of seventy-one.