"Im fernen Land, unnahbar euren Schritten" – for anyone who had the good fortune to hear Peter Seiffert sing the role of Lohengrin, these words from the Grail Lay will always be indelibly associated with the memory of his radiant tenor voice. The role of the swan knight, which he first performed on 23 June 1990 at his home base, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, marked not only the international breakthrough in the career of the then 36-year-old, but also the great turning point in his development as an artist: the slow farewell to the lyric tenor repertoire in which he had made a name for himself until then, and the turn to the great heroic roles, especially in the operas of Richard Wagner, with which Peter Seiffert was to become one of the greatest singers of his generation for three decades. Seiffert probably owed the fact that his career lasted so long to the years he had spent in the Deutsche Oper Berlin ensemble. On 9 October 1982, the young singer, coming from the ensemble of his hometown of Düsseldorf, introduced himself to the Berlin audience as Matteo in Strauss' ARABELLA and sang a variety of roles here in the following years, from Mozart's Tamino and Don Ottavio to Gounod's Faust and appearances in operas by Lortzing and Janáček. Looking back, Seiffert himself emphasised that these were decisive years in which his voice matured and he gained the necessary stamina for Wagner's operas, but also for Verdi's Otello or Pedro in Eugen d'Albert's TIEFLAND – both roles in which he also presented himself to Berlin audiences. Even after leaving the permanent ensemble to pursue a global career, Peter Seiffert remained loyal to the Deutsche Oper Berlin: By the time of his very last appearance at the house on 11 May 2019 as Tannhäuser, he had performed over 300 evenings in 26 different roles, and in recognition of this loyalty, Peter Seiffert was made an honorary member of the Deutsche Oper Berlin on 22 May 2024. On 14 April 2025, Peter Seiffert passed away after a long and serious illness.

Deutsche Oper mourns the loss of a great artist, colleague and human being and will honour his memory.