His voice is preserved on several live complete opera recordings from the 1960s and 1970s that have been released on disc; including performances with Luciano Pavarotti, Renata Scotto, Shirley Verrett, Plácido Domingo, Jon Vickers, Birgit Nilsson, and Richard Tucker.
[2] He first studied singing with Canadian soprano Doris Lewis in Manitoba, before entering the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia on a full scholarship in 1950 at the age of 18.
[4][3][5] He made his professional opera debut in Santa Barbara in 1956; portraying Count Almaviva in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro and Harlequin in Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos in productions directed by Lehmann.
[1][8] Other roles he portrayed at the Met included Amonasro in Aida, Don Carlo in La forza del destino, Donner in Das Rheingold, Faninal in Der Rosenkavalier, Gunther in Götterdämmerung, the High Priest in Samson et Dalila, Jochanaan in Salome, Kothner in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Mandryka in Arabella, both Silvio and Tonio in Pagliacci, and Valentin in Faust.
[1][3] In 1970 he created the role of Daniel in the world premiere of Willy Burkhard’s Ein Stern geht auf aus Jaakob at the Hamburg State Opera.
[1] He performed in several productions with the San Francisco Opera from 1972 until 1979; appearing as Amonasro, Barnaba in La Gioconda, Germont, Nelusko in L'Africaine, and Rodrigo in Don Carlo.