According to the New Grove Dictionary of Opera he was "a stylish singer and a fine actor" who "excels in dramatic and character roles.
and studied voice with Karin Branzell in New York, Luigi Ricci and Giuseppe Bertelli in Italy and with Hertha Kalcher in Stuttgart, Germany.
He soon moved on to the opera houses in Braunschweig and Mannheim before joining the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich and, in 1971, the Deutsche Oper Berlin.
It was marked that he "convinced vocally and in the expression"[2] He was a frequent guest in most of the leading opera houses in Europe, including the Vienna State Opera (Don Giovanni, Tannhäuser), Teatro alla Scala, Milano (Italian premiere of Luigi Dallapiccola's Ulisse), the Grand Theatre in Geneva, Switzerland (Rigoletto), Oper Hamburg, Germany (Rigoletto), Bonn Opera (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg), Amsterdam (Rigoletto, Dallapiccola's Ulisse), Teatro Bellini in Catania, Italy (Ernani), Marseille, France (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg), Opera Torino, Italy (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg).
Among his signature roles were the baritone leads in the Verdi operas Rigoletto, Trovatore, La Traviata, La Forza del Destino, Don Carlos, Falstaff, but he was also famous for his portrayals of such different roles as Figaro (Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro) and Don Giovanni, Wolfram von Eschenbach (Wagner's Tannhäuser), and Scarpia (Tosca) and Michele (Puccini's Il Tabarro).