(Image Source: Opera Magazine)

Tenor William Cochran has passed away on Jan. 16, 2022. He was 78.

Born on June 23, 1948 in Columbus, Ohio, he would go on to study at the Curtis Institute and the Music Academy of the West. He would go on to win the Lauritz Melchior Heldentenor Foundation Award and made his Met Opera debut in 1968 as the Vogelgesang in “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.” He would return to the Met in 1985 for two performances of “Ariadne auf Naxos” alongside Jessye Norman.

His Royal Opera House Covent Garden debut would come in 1974 in the role of Laca in “Jenufa.” He would become particularly associated with the Oper Frankfurt where he was a company member for several years. He also performed at the Bayerische Staatsoper, San Francisco Opera, New Orleans Opera, Hamburg Staatsoper, and Vienna State Opera, among many others.

Cochran’s repertory included such operas as “Katya Kabanova, “ “Lohengrin,” “Die Soldaten,” “Salome,” “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk,” “Boris Godunov,” “Les Troyens,” “Otello,” “La Juive,” “Idomeneo,” “Elektra,” “Der Prinz von Homburg,” “Ariadne auf Naxos,” “The Makropoulos Case,” “Die Walküre,” and “Siegfried,” among many others.

Among the works that he recorded were “Die Walküre (Act one),” “Mathis der Maler,” “and “Die Soldaten.”