Hermann Winkelmann

Hermann Winkelmann (8 March 1849 – 18 January 1912) was a German Heldentenor, notable for creating the title role in Richard Wagner's Parsifal in 1882.

Hermann Winkelmann was born in Braunschweig in 1849. His father, Theodore Christian Ludewig Winkelmann, was the founder of Zeitter & Winkelmann, piano manufacturers, and he himself planned to continue his father's trade. He went to Paris to study piano construction, but while there he decided to become a singer. He had his initial training in Paris, and later with Koch in Hanover.

Winkelmann made his debut as Manrico in Verdi's Il trovatore in the Court Theatre of Sondershausen in 1875. He then sang in such places as Altenburg, Darmstadt, and Leipzig. He joined the Hamburg State Opera in 1878.

The first role he created was that of Anton Rubinstein's Néron, in a German translation at the Theater an Dammtor in Hamburg on 1 October 1879 (it did not have its Russian premiere until 1884).

Winkelmann became a Heldentenor specialising in the music dramas of Richard Wagner, and was known for the title roles of Tannhäuser and Lohengrin, and as Walther von Stolzing in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.

Most notably, Wagner himself chose Winkelmann to create the title role of Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus in 1882, and he sang it there until 1891, usually alongside Amalie Materna, the creator of the role of Kundry.

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