Eduard Tumagian

Prizes at international competitions carried Eduard Tumagian out of Bucharest, where he had trained at the Ciprian Porumbescu conservatory and made his first appearances, and into the company of the Opéra du Rhin in Strasbourg — Germont and Scarpia among his roles there. La Scala came in 1986 with Nabucco, followed by the first performances of Flavio Testi's Riccardo III in 1987, I due Foscari in 1988, I vespri siciliani in 1989. He sang at the Paris Opera and in Lyon, Toulouse, Montpellier, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Munich, Vienna, Zurich and Amsterdam, with Muti, Abbado and Rostropovich among his conductors, and the dramatic Italian and French baritone roles at the centre of it throughout. Born in Bucharest in 1942, of Armenian descent, he died at Basel in February 2024. His teacher in Bucharest was Viorel Ban, and his first role there, in 1968, was Malatesta in Don Pasquale. Covent Garden, Berlin and Buenos Aires also had him, Alain Lombard was among the conductors he worked with, and he left recordings of opera and song for Romanian Radio, Romanian composers among them. He died on 11 February.