Peter Hofmann, German operatic tenor, died from dementia and Parkinson's disease he was , 66

 Peter Hofmann^[1] was a German operatic tenor who also worked in the rock and musical theatre fields. He had been suffering from Parkinson's disease since 1994, and ceased performing in 1999.

(22 August 1944 - 30 November 2010)

Hofmann was born in Marienbad (modern Mariánské Lázně,Czech Republic) and became a singer in a rock band before joining the army. During his military service he started studying singing which he continued to do in Karlsruhe. He made his opera debut in 1972 in Lübeck, as Tamino in Die Zauberflöte. He subsequently appeared in Stuttgart, Paris, Vienna, London, Chicago and San Francisco. he is best known for singing on the heldentenor roles of Wagner, he has performed Siegmund, Lohengrin, Parsifal, Tristan and Loge, notably at the Bayreuth Festival where he first appeared in 1976. He was heard at the Metropolitan Opera from 1980 to 1988, in Lohengrin, Parsifal, Die Meistersinger and Die Walküre.
From 1990 to 1991, he played the title role in The Phantom of the Opera, in Hamburg.

Recordings

From Bayreuth, Hofmann appears as Siegmund in the 1980 Die Walküre (with Dame Gwyneth Jones as Brünnhilde) conducted by Pierre Boulez, in Patrice Chéreau's 1976 Ring production (Deutsche Grammophon), and in the title role of the 1982 Lohengrin (opposite Karan Armstrong as Elsa) conducted by Woldemar Nelsson (EuroArts), in Götz Friedrich's production.
In the studio, he made a remarkable 1978 recording of Die Zauberflöte under French conductor Alain Lombard with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and Kathleen Battle which was surprisingly not widely distributed, then Fidelio (conducted by Sir Georg Solti, 1979), Parsifal (opposite Dunja Vejzovic's Kundry, led by Herbert von Karajan, 1979–80), Orfeo ed Euridice (1982) and Der fliegende Holländer (with José van Dam and Vejzovic, conducted by von Karajan, 1981–83). Hofmann is also heard in Leonard Bernstein's "live" recording of Tristan und Isolde (1981).
The 1986 live DVD performance under James Levine of Lohengrin gives some idea of Hofmann's physical appeal. He certainly looked the part of the Aryan Wagnerian figure with his piercing blue eyes, florid blond hair and a square-set facial features.

Light music career

In 1987, Hallmark published Songs for the Holidays featuring Hofmann and the soprano Deborah Sasson. At the same time as singing classic roles in opera, Hofmann was also making a number of pop albums selling well in Europe such as Rock Classics of 1987 and Love Me Tender: Peter Hofmann Sings Elvis Presley in 1992. By the late 1980s he had abandoned opera completely in favour of musical theatre, making 300 appearances in the show Phantom of the Opera in the Hamburg production of the early 1990s.
Peter Hofmann moved to live in Bayreuth and spent his time writing his autobiography and supporting research through the Peter Hofmann Parkinson Project.^[2] He died in October 2010, at the age of 66.

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