Barry McDaniel (October 18, 1930 – June 18, 2018)[1] was an American operatic baritone who spent his career almost exclusively in Germany, including 37 years at the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

From the age of nine he took systematic lessons in singing, piano and percussion and enjoyed considerable local popularity as a boy soprano soloist in churches and private concerts.

[2][3] In autumn 1961, Egon Seefehlner, the deputy director and talent scout of the newly reopened Deutsche Oper Berlin, heard him in a performance in Karlsruhe and recruited him for his opera.

[6] He collaborated with some of Germany's most distinguished stage directors such as Rudolf Sellner, Götz Friedrich or Günther Rennert, in an ensemble that included singers such as Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Elisabeth Grümmer, Josef Greindl, Ernst Haefliger, James King, Pilar Lorengar and Edith Mathis.

He was also a frequent performer of French mélodies, such as by Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel and Francis Poulenc, and a specialist of contemporary scores by composers such as Aribert Reimann, Anton Webern, Günter Bialas, Luigi Dallapiccola and Carl Orff.

In 1967, he performed the vocal part in the premiere of Wilhelm Killmayer's song cycle Tre Canti di Leopardi in Munich, conducted by Reinhard Peters.

[10] Over the years the voice gained in nuances and depth of expression but never lost its youthful, lyrical character, and McDaniel always avoided straying beyond the limits of his Fach, e.g. to heavy Wagner or Italian Verismo parts.

The weekly Die Zeit commented on his role in Melusine in 1971: "Such poetic vocal expression, such lucid operatic lyricism is unequalled today, and who could give it a more beguiling voice than Barry McDaniel.

Some of them are commercially available: cantatas and oratorios by Johann Sebastian Bach, operas by Mozart, Strauss and Henze, and works of contemporary church music, many of which he was the first and only to commit to record.