Waldemar Kmentt
Austrian tenor Waldemar Kmentt was born in Vienna on 2 February 1929 and studied at the Vienna Music Academy, initially piano, then voice with Adolf Vogel, Elisabeth Radó and Hans Duhan. Kmentt, associated specially with German operatic repertoire, sang the tenor solo in Beethoven's Choral Symphony in 1950 under Karl Böhm. The following year he made his professional debut as the Prince in The Love for Three Oranges at Vienna State Opera, where he continued to appear regularly for the following thirty-five years. He also often sang at the Salzburg Festival - particularly in Mozart.
From 1956 he began to appear in other countries - Italy, France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.
Waldemar Kmentt gave his last Vienna State Opera performance in 2005, as the Haushofmeister in Ariadne auf Naxos, and died on 21 January 2015, aged nearly eighty-six.