Siegmund Nimsgern

Siegmund Nimsgern, born in Germany in 1940, belonged for many decades to the international elite of singers. In addition to radio and recording studios, his artistic career led him to the major opera houses in Bayreuth, Milan, New York, London, Paris, Vienna, Chicago, Buenos Aires, and Munich, as well as to renowned music festivals in Florence, Israel, Munich, Orange, and Salzburg.

In 1989, he received the Grammy Award together with Plácido Domingo and Jessye Norman for Lohengrin under the baton of Georg Solti. He was also honored with the French State Prize in 1985 and won the German Record Critics’ Award several times, among others for Bluebeard’s Castle conducted by Pierre Boulez.

At the Bayreuther Festspiele, he performed the role of Wotan in Der Ring des Nibelungen from 1983 to 1986 under the direction of Sir Georg Solti.

Throughout his career, he collaborated with nearly all major conductors of his time, including Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Karl Böhm, Riccardo Chailly, Colin Davis, Christoph von Dohnányi, Carlo Maria Giulini, Marek Janowski, Herbert von Karajan, Carlos Kleiber, Erich Leinsdorf, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Seiji Ozawa, Helmuth Rilling, Wolfgang Sawallisch, and Horst Stein.

More than 200 recordings released by BMG, Bayer, Sony, Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, EMI, harmonia mundi, Philips, Telefunken, and Universal, as well as numerous live recordings and television productions, document his exceptional artistic achievements.

As a lieder and oratorio singer, and above all as a character and heroic baritone in operas by Beethoven, Berg, Puccini, Rossini, Verdi, and in particular Strauss and Wagner, Siegmund Nimsgern established himself as an outstanding vocal and stage personality.

In the 1990s, he was appointed Professor at the Universität Mozarteum Salzburg, where he shaped generations of young singers.

Siegmund Nimsgern passed away at the end of 2025.