Kenneth Riegel was born in West Hamburg, Pennsylvania and first came to the attention of the international music world with his performance in the New York premiere of Henze's The Young Lord. Since then, he has sung at the Metropolitan Opera, the San Francisco Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Vienna State Opera, the Salzbug Festival, La Scala, the Rome Opera, the Teatro Communale in Florence, the Teatro Communale in Bologna, the Royal Opera House (Covent Garden) in London, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Hamburg State Opera, the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, the Bonn Opera, the Geneva Opera and the Brussels Opera. A frequent guest of the Paris Opera, Mr. Riegel was the first American tenor to portray the title roles of Faust and Les Contes d'Hoffmann there. Also at the Paris Opera he created the role of Alwa in the world premiere of Berg's complete three-act version of Lulu, a role he later repeated at the Met for a live nation-wide telecast. In 1983 again at the Paris Opera, Mr. Riegel created the role of the Leper in the world-premiere of Messiaen's only opera St. Francois d'Assise.

In the cinema, Kenneth Riegel has appeared as Don Ottavio in Joseph Losey's film of Don Giovanni (sound track on Columbia Records) and as Prince Shuisky in the movie-version of Boris Godunov, directed by Andrzej Zulawski (sound track on Erato Records). Mr. Riegel can also be heard on numerous other records, among them: the Grammy award-winning record of Orff's Carmina Burana with Michael Tilson Thomas conducting the Cleveland Orchestra; Liszt's Faust Symphony on Deutsche Grammophon with Leonard Bernstein and the Boston Symphony, which won the Grand Prix du Disque of 1978; the Paris production of Lulu conducted by Pierre Boulez on Deutsche Grammophon; Mahler's Symphony #8 on Deutsche Grammophon with Leonard Bernstein and the Vienna Philharmonic; on Philips records with Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony and on Denon records with Eliahu Inbal and the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra; Damnation de Faust on Decca Records with Sir Georg Solti conducting the Chicago Orchestra, which won the Grand Prix du Disque of 1982 as well as the Grammy; the first recording of Zemlinsky's Der Geburtstag der Infantin on Schwann-Koch Records with Gerd Albrecht conducting the Berlin Radio Symphony, which won the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik; the first recording of Arthur Lourie's song-cycle The Little Gidding with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie on Deutsche Grammophon; Salome with Christoph von Dohnanyi conducting the Vienna Philharmonic on Decca Records; and most recently Gurrelieder with Giuseppe Sinopoli conducting the Dresden Staatskapelle on Teldec.

His current and future engagements include a new production of Wozzeck at the Florence May Festival under Zubin Mehta; a revival of Salome at the Santa Fe Festival under John Crosby; concert performances of Salome at the Teatro del Liceu in Barcelona under Peter Schneider; a new production of Elektra at the Teatro Real in Madrid under Garcia Navarro; concert performances of Salome with the Philharmonia Orchestra of London at the Megaron in Athens under Michael Schoenwand; revivals of Elektra and of Wozzeck at the Metropolitan Opera both under James Levine; a new production of Henze's The Bassarides at the Teatro Real in Madrid under Arturo Tamayo; a concert performance of Wozzeck at the Aspen Festival under James Conlon; a new production of Wozzeck at the San Francisco Opera under Michael Boder; and concerts of Schoenberg's Gurrelieder with the Spanish National Orchestra in Madrid.