For me, Holy Week usually means it’s time to trot out Wagner’s “Parsifal,” but in light of the death of tenor Peter Seiffert, here’s a delectable clip (at the link) from “Lohengrin,” with Seiffert’s then-wife Lucia Popp. Lohengrin was a Seiffert specialty, a role he sang several times at the Bayreuth Festival. In 2003, his recording of Wagner’s “Tannhäuser,” with Daniel Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin, was recognized with a Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording. Everyone loves to point out the fact that Popp was 15 years his senior. So what? I’d have married her myself! Popp died of brain cancer in 1993 at the age of 54, a great loss. Seiffert later married soprano Petra-Maria Schnitzer, who survives him. He was 71 years-old. R.I.P.
Grammy-winning “Tannhäuser,” in more immediate sound
Walther’s Prize Song from “Die Meistersinger”