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Ivan Rebroff, born as Hans-Rolf Rippert, (31 July 1931 - 27 February 2008), was a German singer, allegedly of Russian ancestry, with an extraordinary vocal range of four and a half octaves, ranging from the soprano to impressive bass registers. Rebroff was born in Berlin and was famous for singing Russian folk songs, but also performed opera, light classics and folk songs from many other countries. He was known on stage for his gusto. Rebroff described himself as international, the “connection between East and West“. He lived on the Sporade Island of Skopelos, Greece. He performed over 6,000 concerts in his career, including a two-year run, beginning in 1968, singing Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof at Paris' Théâtre Marigny. Being well into his seventies in a recent Australian tour, Rebroff still performed 12 shows in 14 days. Ivan Rebroff, who never married and was in the end a citizen of Greece, died in Frankfurt after a long illness. Four days after his death, and two days after his passing was reported, his brother Horst Rippert, who is nine years his senior (and by his own accounts shot down Antoine de Saint-Exupéry), has emerged to claim part of Ivan's vast fortune, to which he is entitled under German law, reported the German Bild-Zeitung
