Pompeu Harasteanu

Osmin, Sarastro, King Philip, Fiesco, Zaccaria, Daland, Sparafucile, Gremin and Konchak — the parts that need the bottom of the voice were his territory for four decades. Born at Luduș in 1935 and trained at the Ciprian Porumbescu Conservatory in Bucharest with Petre Ștefănescu Goangă, Constantin Stroescu, Elena Sachin and George Ionescu, he made his debut at the Bucharest National Opera as Ferrando in Il trovatore. Four seasons at Oper Bonn between 1968 and 1972 were followed by a return to Bucharest, where he sang for the rest of his career and served as general director of the house in the 1990s. His repertoire reached from Mozart to Bartók and took in Enescu's Oedipe, with Verdi and Wagner at its centre. He taught at the theatre institute in Bucharest, at the National University of Music and at Ovidius University in Constanța, and was made a Knight of the National Order of Merit in 2002. He died in Bucharest in 2016.