Appearing in the British premiere of Die tote Stadt (The Dead City) at Covent Garden he won praise for his ‘thrilling juggernaut of a tenor’
Stephen Gould, who has died from bile duct cancer aged 61, was an American tenor with a powerful voice and a statuesque stage presence; he appeared in an estimated 3,000 performances of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera before switching to Wagner at Bayreuth.
In Britain he earned praise for his “thrilling juggernaut of a tenor” as the burly but reclusive Paul, gripped by the memory of his dead wife, in the British premiere of Erich Korngold’s opera Die tote Stadt at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in 2009.
Five years later he was Tristan in the Royal Opera’s Tristan und Isolde with Nina Stemme, Sarah Connolly and John Tomlinson, earning praise from John Allison in Opera magazine for his “powerhouse tenor, capable of refinement yet tireless in the Act 3 monologue”.
The tenor himself was more matter-of-fact, saying: “When you are tall and fat they tend to stick you in this stuff. With the repertoire I do, I doubt there will be anything other than Sturm und Drang.”