Heinz Imdahl

Heinz Imdahl (9 August 1924 – 21 March 2012) was a German operatic baritone. A member of the Bavarian State Opera, he performed many leading roles at the Vienna State Opera, and appeared as Beethoven's Pizarro at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma and Wagner's Hans Sachs at the Philadelphia Opera.

Life Imdahl was born in Düsseldorf, where his parents ran a butcher shop. After graduating from school, he completed an apprenticeship as a butcher. He then studied singing privately for seven years with the well-known singing teacher and Kammersänger Berthold Pütz in Krefeld. After the Second World War, further studies at the Musikhochschule Köln followed.

In Italy, he performed at the Teatro Comunale di Firenze in 1953 as Wolfram in Wagner's Tannhäuser, the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma in 1958 as the Speaker and in 1970 as Pizarro, the Teatro Regio di Torino in 1967 as Telramund, in 1971 as Kurwenal, in 1972 as Wanderer in Wagner's Siegfried, at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna as Wotan (1966) and Wanderer (1968), the Teatro San Carlo in Naples in 1970 as Jochanaan, in 1972 as Wotan, in 1974 as Wanderer, and at the Teatro Lirico Giuseppe Verdi in Trieste in 1975 as Faninal in Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss. Since 1999 the Chiemgauhof has been run by one of Imdahl's two sons.

Recordings Imdahl recorded two complete operas: a radio recording of Wagner's Das Liebesverbot, made in 1963 by the ORF, in the role of the governor Friedrich, and a studio recording of Lohengrin from August 1968, under the musical direction of Hans Swarowsky, with Imdahl as Telramund.