Heinz Rehfuss

Heinz Julius Rehfuss, born in Frankfurt am Main on 25 May 1917 and died in Buffalo, New York, on 27 June 1988, was a German bass-baritone who built much of his career in Switzerland, the United States and Canada. He trained in Neuchâtel with his father, Carl Rehfuss.

He made his debut in 1937–38 at the Städtebundtheater in Biel-Solothurn. Between 1940 and 1952 he sang at the Zurich Opera, where he came to perform more than eighty roles. He was a distinguished interpreter of lieder and oratorio, above all as Christ in Bach's Passions. From 1952 he appeared in numerous European theatres, notably as Don Giovanni, Boris Godunov and Golaud, and gave concerts across America, Asia and Africa.

He premiered works by Stravinsky, Milhaud, Britten and Nono, and created the role of Dr Schön in Lulu. He taught singing at Dartington Hall and Darmstadt between 1947 and 1964, and in 1965 became a professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo.

In 1962 he received the Hans Georg Nägeli Medal from Zurich. He left numerous recordings, among them his Golaud in Pelléas et Mélisande under Ansermet and Creon and the Messenger in Oedipus rex, conducted by the composer himself.