William Cochran was born on June 23, 1943, in Columbus, Ohio , and is an internationally noted Heldentenor . He studied at the Curtis Institute of Music with Martial Singher . A winner of the Lauritz Melchior Heldentenor Foundation Award, he debuted with the Metropolitan Opera , as Vogelgesang in Die Meistersinger , in 1968. The next year, he sang Froh, in Das Rheingold , with the San Francisco Opera .