Manfred Jungwirth

Manfred Jungwirth (4 June 1919 – 23 October 1999) was an Austrian opera singer in the bass vocal range.

Born in St. Pölten, Jungwirth first worked as a choirboy in the Sankt Pölten Cathedral. In his hometown he was taught by Alice Goldberg, in Vienna by Emilie Auer-Weißgerber, in Bucharest by Albert d'Andrée, in Munich by Rudolf Großmann and in Berlin by Josef Burgwinkel.

An engagement of Jungwirth in the Stadttheater Klagenfurt did not come about because he had to do military service. Therefore he had his debut at the Romanian National Opera, Bucharest. Still in 1942 and then again from the end of the war until 1949 he was engaged at the Tyrolean State Theatre, where he also studied musicology and obtained his doctorate in this discipline in 1948. From 1949 to 1954 as well as 1958 to 1961 and then 1971 to 1982 he was a permanent guest at the Zurich Opera House. In between 1956/57 also in Staatstheater Wiesbaden, from 1960 to 1968 in Oper Frankfurt and 1967 to 1985 at the Wiener Staatsoper.

He mainly sang the bassbuffo parts, including operas by Domenico Cimarosa, Peter Cornelius, Friedrich von Flotow, Albert Lortzing, W. A. Mozart, Richard Strauss, Otto Nicolai, Gioacchino Rossini and Bedřich Smetana. He also took on roles like Rocco in Beethoven's Fidelio, but also some of the roles of Giuseppe Verdi, Richard Wagner and Carl Maria von Weber.