Motti Kastón

Motti Kastón was born Mordechai Kastón in Tel Aviv on 14 November 1961. He began his musical education at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, then continued at the Manhattan School of Music in New York. Conductor James Levine selected him for the Metropolitan Opera's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. After three years in the programme he moved into solo work. In 1988 he won the Luciano Pavarotti International Voice Competition in Philadelphia, listed in competition records under his birth name Mordechai Kaston.

Kastón made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 1989 as Fiorello in Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia. He went on to appear with the company 33 times, including Germont in Verdi's La traviata and Marcello in Puccini's La bohème, and later returned as Wolfram in Wagner's Tannhäuser.

From 1991 he was a member of the Staatsoper Stuttgart soloists ensemble. The house appointed him Württembergischer Kammersänger in 2006. His Stuttgart repertoire included Ottone in Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea, Rodrigo in Verdi's Don Carlo, Lubino in Martín y Soler's Una cosa rara, Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Germont in La traviata, Donner in Wagner's Das Rheingold and Sharpless in Madama Butterfly. At the Junge Oper Stuttgart he sang Cipolla in Stephen Oliver's Mario und der Zauberer and received a 2004 Singer of the Year nomination.

As a guest he sang the title role in L'Orfeo in Montpellier, Rossini's Figaro in Frankfurt, Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor in Houston, and Marcello and Wolfram in Dresden. He also appeared at the Opéra Comique in Paris and in Berlin. In May 2018 he performed Yiddish and Sephardic songs at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam with Eva-Maria Westbroek, Helene Schneiderman and pianist Eytan Pessen.

Kastón made his home in Frankfurt while remaining closely tied to Stuttgart's ensemble life. Public reporting on his family and private life is limited. Colleagues at the Staatsoper Stuttgart, especially Helene Schneiderman, spoke of his humour and warmth as vividly as of his singing. He recorded and performed programmes of Yiddish and Ladino song with Schneiderman and Eytan Pessen.

Motti Kastón died on 30 September 2026 in Frankfurt at the age of 64. The Staatsoper Stuttgart announced his death on 2 October 2026 and published a house tribute remembering him as both artist and colleague. Opera Nederland and Slipped Disc reported that Frankfurt was his place of residence. No cause of death was made public. The company's thoughts were with his relatives.

Kastón's legacy rests on a rare combination of Met training, a Pavarotti Competition win, and 35 years as a Stuttgart ensemble mainstay who became a Württembergischer Kammersänger. He linked Israeli conservatory roots to the German repertory house tradition and kept Yiddish and Sephardic song in his concert work. Helene Schneiderman's farewell, speaking of a beautiful voice and a beautiful soul, captured how colleagues remember him.