Alois Burgstaller

Alois Burgstaller ( born September 22, 1871 in wooden churches, Bavaria, † April 19, 1945 in Gmund am Tegernsee, Bavaria ) was a German opera singer.

Burgstaller was a watchmaker journeyman; his singing talent was discovered at an amateur theater performance in wooden churches. About the former Munich music director Hermann Levi, he met Cosima Wagner know who recognized his talent and encouraged. After vocal studies in Frankfurt and Bayreuth Burgstaller started singing at the Bayreuth Festival in 1896 the Siegfried.

In the following years he sang all the great roles of the works of Richard Wagner in Bayreuth and other major opera houses.

After guest appearances in Paris, Zurich, Budapest, London, Amsterdam and Moscow, the call came to the Metropolitan Opera in New York, where he was a member from 1903 to 1909. From there he performed in many prestigious opera houses in the United States, such as San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Pittsburgh and Los Angeles, until he gave his last performance at the Metropolitan Opera on 23 January 1909. In 1908 he returned to wooden churches. He spent his life in St. Quirin, community Gmund am Tegernsee.

The market town of wooden churches gave Alois Burgstaller an honorary citizen and named a street after him. In the old cemetery next to the Plague Chapel he found his final resting place in the parents' grave.

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