Nico Castel

Nico Castel (born Naftali Chaim Castel Kalinhoff; He was raised in Venezuela by multilingual parents and a German nanny and attended a French school in Caracas. After some vocal study in Caracas and then the University of Mainz in Germany, Castel moved to New York City at the age of 16 to pursue a singing career and to study romance languages at Temple University in Philadelphia. In the early 1950s, he served in the United States Army as a translator in Germany. With the Metropolitan Opera in 1970, he debuted as Don Basilio in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. and Mannes School of Music in New York and Boston University, and was a lecturer, teacher and master class leader at other universities and conservatories around the world. Castel annually presented the Nico Castel International Master Singer Competition, which accepted competitors up to age 40.

Among Castel's recordings are Manon (with Beverly Sills, 1970) and The Tales of Hoffmann (with Sills and Norman Treigle, 1972), both conducted by Julius Rudel, and a live performance from the Metropolitan Opera of Ariadne auf Naxos (1988, with Jessye Norman, Tatiana Troyanos, and Kathleen Battle, conducted by James Levine; issued on DVD).

Personal life Castel's first wife was Carol Bayard and his second was Nancy Benfield. Both marriages ended in divorce. He died at the age of 83 in New York City, where he lived with his wife, Carol Cates Castel. He had one child (with his second wife), Sasha Castel, who lives in Canberra, Australia.

Publications Complete Opera Libretti Translation Series, Marcie Stapp, ed. (Leyerle Publications, Geneseo, New York) The Nico Castel Ladino Song Book (Tara Publications, Cedarhust, New York) A Singer's Manual of Spanish Lyric Diction (Excalibur Press, New York)