James King was born in 1925 and earned a bachelor’s degree in music from Louisiana State University in 1949, initially training as a baritone. After recognizing his true voice type in 1956, he retrained as a heldentenor with French baritone Martial Singher and German tenor Max Lorenz. He won the American Opera Auditions in Cincinnati in 1961 and made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 1966 as Florestan in Fidelio, going on to sing 113 performances there over three decades.

King became one of the leading Wagnerian and Straussian heldentenors of his era, notably recording Siegmund in Die Walküre for Georg Solti’s landmark Ring cycle. After his performing career, he taught at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University from 1984 to 2002, giving his final performance in 2000 as Siegmund at the school. He died in 2005.

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_King_(tenor)