Vienna Opera mourns an American singer...William Blankenship

William Leonard Blankenship (7 March 1928 Gatesville, Texas – 2 December 2017 Vienna, Austria) was an American operatic tenor, music pedagogue at the collegiate level, stage and television actor, and stage director. In Europe, Blankenship sang roles at the opera houses in Vienna (Vienna Volksoper & Vienna State Opera), Stuttgart, Hamburg, Braunschweig (1957–1960), Bern (1960), Mannheim, Brunswick, Munich (from 1965), Berne, Klagenfurt (1956 European debut), Bregenz (1972 as Phoebus in The Fairy-Queen by Henry Purcell). In the United States, he sang with the Santa Fe Opera, San Antonio, San Diego (1968), Dallas Opera, and Houston Grand Opera. He has sung in international festivals in Moscow, Salzburg, Vienna, Munich, and Rio de Janeiro. He performed concerts with major orchestras on radio and television. He was the father of Rebecca Blankenship, an American operatic soprano. (Wikipedia) SLIPPED DISC, Vienna Opera link