ORBITUARIES.(Obituary)

WALTER BERRY, Vienna, April 8, 1929 -- October 27, 2000

The war was over, and the Vienna State Opera was flourishing. Those, not incidentally, were the glory days of Welitsch and Cebotari, Schwarzkopf, Jurinac and Della Casa, Gueden and Seefried, Ludwig and Hongen, Patzak and Dermota, Schoeffler, Hotter and Wachter, Kunz and Weber....

And then there was Walter Berry. Viennese to his toenails, he joined the team modestly in 1950, at the almost indecent age of twenty. He never left. At the time of his fatal heart attack, on October 27, 2000, he had illuminated 100 roles in 1,288 performances at the Staatsoper. The Salzburg Festival, his operatic home-away-from-home, enjoyed the pleasure of his hearty company in 209 additional performances spread over thirty-one summers. Significantly, perhaps, he had undertaken the noble cameo of the Speaker in Die Zauberflote at the Salzburg Landestheater only a month before his death, and he had been scheduled to return in January.

Warm-hearted and high-spirited, earthy and unpretentious, he was equally revered as a concert singer. In later years he enjoyed considerable success as a pedagogue. (His pupils included Angelika Kirchschlager and Adrian Erod.)

At the outset of his career, Berry had to contend with the shadow cast by Erich Kunz, a comedian of unique charm and, to many Viennese, the ideal Figaro, Papageno, Leporello and Guglielmo. But Kunz was twenty years older; Berry had time on his side. Later he had to contend with Hermann Prey, who was the same age. But there was plenty of work for both baritones.

When the Staatsoper reopened in 1955, Berry was chosen by Karl Bohm for Wozzeck. He portrayed the unhappy soldier with rare sympathy, simplicity and pathos and went on to make Berg's forbidding opera a signature piece. His recording, made in 1963 under Pierre Boulez, remains a lasting testament (CBS Masterworks).

Berry's repertory embraced heroes and villains, mortals and supermen, wise men and fools. He was most imposing, however, when the character at hand could reflect his own good nature. Although his voice was more lyric than dramatic, he could be equally persuasive in the sweet ascending phrases of Papageno and the dark descents of Baron Ochs. The secrets of his success no doubt included his refusal to exaggerate, his concern for coloring the text and his sense of musical and dramatic proportion.