For many, simply the Tamino: his 1964 recording under Karl Böhm is still the reference. He died at 35 after a fall, weeks before his Met debut, leaving one of the shortest and most loved careers in opera.
He grew up poor in Kusel, played horn in dance bands to pay for school, and got to Freiburg on a scholarship; the voice did the rest. What remains is cruelly little and completely alive: a Tamino, a Dichterliebe, some Bach and operetta, records that have never once been out of print in sixty years. His grave is in Munich; his bust stands in the small town he came from.