Josef Traxel

Josef Traxel was a German tenor who studied at the Darmstadt Conservatory but was conscripted before he could properly begin his career, making his debut as Don Ottavio at Mainz in 1942 while on sick leave. After internment in Britain as a prisoner of war, he resumed his career at the Nuremberg Stadttheater in 1946, moving to Stuttgart in 1952. That year he created Mercury in the premiere of Strauss's Die Liebe der Danae at the Salzburg Festival, and he first appeared at Bayreuth in 1953 as Walther. His lyrical tenor, unusually high for a German singer, was also admired in the roles of Belmonte and Siegmund, though his recordings were mostly confined to arias and excerpts and to smaller roles, including in Der fliegende Holländer under Ferenc Fricsay and Das Rheingold under Hans Knappertsbusch. From 1963 he taught at Stuttgart.