Opera: Thinking Man's Baritone

While Dietrich is making records in London, Fischer is giving a lieder recital at Carnegie Hall, and Dieskau is appearing as Falstaff at the West Berlin Opera. Or so one critic claims. Actually, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau is not a brother act but one man. It is just that, as one of the world's busiest, most sought-after singers, he often seems to be—smiling, stage center, ready to go —everywhere at once. Last week he popped up at the Munich Opera Festival singing the lead role in Hindemith's rarely performed Cardillac. Premiered in 1926, the opera —a starkly sketched exercise in early expressionism—is...