Born October 17, 1939, in Crostau, Lusatia, Reiner Goldberg was an internationally acclaimed operatic heldentenor. He learned to play trumpet and French horn while training to be a locksmith. However, after seeing a performance of Mozart’s Don Giovanni in 1955, he focused his attention on training as an opera singer. He studied singing at the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber (in Dresden Germany) before making his stage debut in 1966. He began performing at the Berlin State Opera in 1972 and appeared in the world premiere of Ernst Herman Meyer’s Reiter in der Nacht (1973) as well as in operas composed by Beethoven, Wagner, Gounod, Bizet, Verdi, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Strauss, and others. Reiner Goldberg became a member of the Berlin State Opera’s ensemble in 1981. He also appeared on stages in Japan, Italy, France, England, and the US. In 1983, he was set to make his debut at the esteemed Bayreuth Festival in Germany but was dismissed shortly before the first performance. Thankfully, he returned to perform at the festival several times over the next decade. He continued to perform for the Berlin State Opera in significant roles up through 2015. He had become well-known for his performances of Wagner operas and was asked to perform as Esslinger in a 2015 production of Die Meistersinger von Nümberg. Reiner Goldberg appeared on many recordings during his career including Schoenberg: Moses und Aron (1976), Wagner: Parsifal (1982), Strauss: Daphne (1983), Strauss: Guntram (1985), Reiner Goldberg (1985), Beethoven: Fidelio (1990), Wagner: Siegfried (1991), the Grammy-winning Wagner: Götterdämmerung (1991), and Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 (2010). Reiner Goldberg died on October 7, 2023, at the age of 83.
