He had an extraordinary vocal range of four and a half octaves, ranging from the soprano to bass registers.
His brother Horst Rippert, nine years his senior, confirmed that he had shot down the Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the famous French author of "The Little Prince", in 1944 (March 2008).
Lived in the small town Zell-Weierbach near Offenburg in Germany and
also on on the Sporade Island of Skopelos, Greece since the 1960s.
He has performed over 6,000 concerts in his career including a two year
six-days-a-week stint at the French Ppera singing, among other greats,
"The Fiddler on the Roof".