Stephen Gould – born on January 24, 1962, in Roanoke, Virginia – was a heldentenor best known for his repertoire that focused on Richard Wagner’s opera works. Born the son of a pastor and piano teacher, he first began studying as a baritone at Olivet Nazarene University. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in 1984, he continued his studies at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts before joining the Lyric Opera of Chicago, one of the leading opera companies in the US. In 1988, he joined the inaugural US tour of Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s Phantom of the Opera. After 3,000 performances, he returned to opera and continued his studies, focusing on a heldentenor repertoire with voice teacher John Fiorito. After years of studying, he made his tenor debut in 2000 performing in Beethoven’s Fidelio at the Landestheater Linz in Austria. In 2001, conductor Zubin Mehta invited him to perform in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde at the Bavarian State Opera. The following year, he teamed up with Mehta again for Berlioz’s Les Troyens at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Italy. Stephen Gould returned to the same stage in 2003 in Verdi’s Otello. His first appearance at the Bayreuth Festival was in 2004 in a performance of Wagner’s Tannhäuser. Over the next 18 years, Stephen Gould would take the Bayreuth stage nearly 100 times in twenty different productions of Wagner’s works. He also appeared in many other esteemed venues including the Vienna State Opera, the Royal Opera House (London, England), the Metropolitan Opera (New York), and many other stages around the world. Stephen Gould’s discography includes performances in productions including The Essence of Viennese Music (2004), Wagner: Siegfried (2010), Wagner: Tristan un Isolde (2012), Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen (2013), R. Strauss: Die Frau Schatten, Op. 65, TrV 234 (2020), and Korngold: Einfache Lieder - Much Ado About Nothing – Abschiedslieder (2023). On August 25, 2023, Stephen Gould surprised the opera world by announcing his retirement for health reasons. He died from bile duct cancer on September 19, 2023, at the age of 61.
