Opera Singer. A baritone best known for his long career in Berlin, he performed in leading venues on both sides of the Atlantic and is perhaps most remembered as the evil police chief Baron Scarpia of Puccini's "Tosca". Trained at the Stockholm School of Music, he joined the Royal Swedish Opera upon his 1955 graduation and bowed as Papageno from Mozart's "The Magic Flute". Essentially a lyric baritone, he was able to color his voice for heavier roles thus allowing him to sing a wide variety of parts over the years including the title leads of Giuseppe Verdi's "Rigoletto", "Falstaff", and "Simon Boccanegra", Figaro in Rossini's "The Barber of Seville", Count di Luna from Verdi's "Il Trovatore", Tonio in Leoncavallo's "I Pagliacci", the bullfighter Escamillo of Bizet's "Carmen", Renato from Verdi's "Un Ballo in Maschera", Count Almaviva of Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro", and Marcello in Puccini's "La Boheme". Wixell represented his native land in the 1965 Eurovision Song Contest then in 1967 moved to the Deutsche Oper Berlin where he was to be a mainstay for 30 years. Designated with the now honrorary title of Kammersanger in 1970 he bowed at Wagner's Bayreuth Festspielhaus in 1971 as the Herald from "Lohengrin". Having first appeared at London's Covent Garden as part of a 1960 Royal Swedish Opera tour he made his 'official' debut there in 1972 as Simon Boccanegra; American audiences first heard him in 1972 at San Francisco as Sergeant Belcore of Donizetti's comic masterpiece "L'Elisir d'Amore" while his 1973 bow at New York's Metropolitan Opera came as the tragic court jester Rigoletto. Following his 1997 retirement from Deutsche Oper he returned home and continued to sing occasionally before giving his final public performance in 2003 at Malmo as the Music Teacher in Richard Strauss' "Ariadne auf Naxos". At his death much of his vast recorded legacy, encompassing most of his repertoire and including 'live' and studio CDs as well as performance DVDs, remained available.