Oleg Bryjak, Maria Rader die in Germanwings plane crash
© Kerstin Joensson/AP Contralto singer Maria Radner performs during a dress rehearsal for Richard Wagner's opera "Goetterdaemmerung" on March 22, 2010, as part of the Salzburg Easter Festival in Salzburg, Austria.
A pair of internationally known opera singers, after performing in a Spanish production of Wagner’s “Siegfried,” died Tuesday in a horrific German airplane crash.
Baritone Oleg Bryjak and contralto Maria Radner were among the 150 people aboard Germanwings Flight 9525 when it crashed into the French Alps while headed from Barcelona to Dusseldorf.
The 34-year-old Radner died along with her husband and their baby.
Bryjak, 54, born in Kazakhstan, was reprising his role as Alberich in the German composer’s opera at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona.
He became an ensemble member of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Dusseldorf for the 1996-97 season and was heading back to the German city when he died.
“We have lost a great performer and a great person in Oleg Bryjak,” said Director Christoph Meyer. “We are stunned.”
His opera colleague Radner debuted in January 2012 at the Metropolitan Opera by singing eight performances of “Gotterdammerung” and rose quickly in prominence over the next three years.
Bryjak, according to his biography, appeared on opera stages in Berlin, Chicago, London, Los Angeles, Munich, Paris, Sao Paolo, Tokyo, Vienna and Zurich.
The “Siegfried” production marked Radner’s initial opera in Barcelona, and she was slated to sing later this year in Germany and Buenos Aires. Radner was a native of Dusseldorf.
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