Wolfgang Fassler

9 March 1944 – 24 June 1997

Fassler started his career as a baritone, before becoming an interpreter of sorts of Wagner's Lohengrin, Tannhäauser, Stolzing, Tristan, Siegmund and Siegfried (Götterdämmerung).
His repertory included: Cavaradossi, Faust, German, Samson, Florestan, Bacchus, ...
He graduated from the smaller German opera houses to the larger European theatres in Zürich, Munich, Hamburg, Paris, Rome and Copenhagen. His career was still on an upward!!! curve when it was cut short by his untimely death in a car accident.
Fassler was born in Vienna, where both his parents were connected with the musical theatre. He studied at the Vienna Music High School, first piano and double bass, then singing, as a baritone. In 1970 he appeared with the Vienna Chamber Opera as Figaro in Paisiello's Il barbiere di Siviglia. Deciding to retrain as a tenor, he went to Zürich, where he worked at the Opera Studio. Not a recommendation for the Opera Studio.
His first tenor engagement was at Saarbrücken, where in 1973 he sang Malkhaz in Daisi and in 1974 Chekalinskij.
Moving to Wuppertal, where he studied with Reinhard Becker, he sang Faust.
Fassler made an excellent Barinkay in Der Zigeunerbaron at the 1982 Bregenz Festival. The same year he sang Matteo in Arabella in Lisbon, repeating the role in 1983 in Hamburg. Also in 1983 he sang Luzio in Wagner's second opera, Das Liebesverbot, at the Munich Festival.
Now ready!!! to attempt the heroic tenor repertory, in 1984 he sang Bacchus in Liège, and Lohengrin in Bremen. In Bremen he also scored a great success as Jimmy Mahoney in Kurt Weill's Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny.
The very high tenor role of Mephistopheles in Busoni's Doktor Faust, which Fassler sang in Bologna in 1985, was followed by a similar part, Cardinal Albrecht von Brandenburg, in Hindemith's Mathis der Maler in Zürich. As a member of the Zürich Opera (1985–88), he also sang Stolzing, Florestan, and Siegmund.
In Florence, he sang Tristan in a production of Tristan und Isolde (1988) staged by Jonathan Miller. After Bacchus in Rome (1991), Fassler sang Parsifal at Essen, where he repeated Tristan in a production by Wolf Siegfried Wagner, the son of Wieland. He made his American debut in March 1995 at Baltimore as Samson, then sang Siegfried in Götterdämmerung that autumn in Seattle.
He made his Covent Garden debut as Siegfried in March 1996, returning for one performance in November.
Reference

Wolfgang Fassler sings

Die Walküre: Siegmund heiß' ich, with Karan Armstrong

The audience was deaf.

Wolfgang Fassler sings

Götterdämmerung: Brünnhilde! Heilige Braut!

Repertory
Il barbiere di Siviglia (Paisiello; role: Figaro) – Wien, Kammeroper, 1970
Der Vogelhändler – Salzburg
Der Bettelstudent – Klagenfurt
Der Zigeunerbaron – Klagenfurt
Eine Nacht in Venedig
Die Fledermaus – Mannheim
Schön ist die Welt – Salzburg
Der Graf von Luxemburg – Bern
Die lustige Witwe
Der Vetter aus Dingsda (Künneke) – Wuppertal
Ungarische Hochzeit (Dostal) – Klagenfurt
Prodaná nevěsta – Wien, Volksoper
Její pastorkyňa (role: Laca) – St. Gallen
Fra Diavolo
Faust – Wuppertal
Carmen – Kaiserslautern
Les contes d'Hoffmann – St. Gallen
Samson et Dalila – Lübeck (concert)
Samson et Dalila – Baltimore
Un ballo in maschera – Wuppertal
Aida – Mainz, 1986
Otello (role: Cassio)
Madama Butterfly – Wuppertal
Tosca – Wuppertal
Doktor Faust (Busoni) – Bologna, 1985
Boris Godunov – Bremen, 1981
Evgenij Onegin – Wuppertal
Pikovaja dama (role: Chekalinskij) – Saarbrücken, 1974
Pikovaja dama (role: German) – Freiburg
Daisi (Paliashvili) – Saarbrücken, 1973
Mathis der Mahler (role: Albrecht) – Zürich, 1986
Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny – Bremen
Wozzeck (role: Tambourmajor) – Strasbourg
Fidelio – Bielefeld
Der Freischütz – Salzburg
Ariadne auf Naxos – Bern
Arabella – Lissabon
Das Liebesverbot – München, 1982
Der fliegende Holländer (role: Erik) – Wuppertal
Tannhäuser (role: Walther) – Saarbrücken
Tannhäuser (title role) – Mannheim
Lohengrin – Bremen
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg – Bremen
Tristan und Isolde – Firenze
Das Rheingold (role: Loge) – Mannheim
Die Walküre – Mannheim
Siegfried – Mannheim
Götterdämmerung – Mannheim
Der Ring an einem Abend (Loriot) – Mannheim
Parsifal – Neapel
He was scheduled to sing Otello!!!!

Reference: Der Neue Merker: Ein Wiener in aller Welt, mehr als ein Tenor. Erinnerungen an Wolfgang Fassler, Juni 1998.

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