Opera Singer. A tenor, he is remembered for his long career with the Vienna State Opera (VSO). Raised in New York from age two, he took American citizenship as a child and originally trained as an electrical engineer. Showing a talent for music he entered the Metropolitan School of Opera in 1905 then in 1907 departed for Prague where he studied with Ludmilla Prochazha-Neumann and where he made his professional bow at the German Theater on September 9th. of that year in Otto Nicolai's "The Merry Wives of Windsor". Over the next years he refined his craft in Prague and with baritone Mattia Battistini's touring company before bowing with the VSO on September 6, 1912. Piccaver was to remain in the Austrian Capital until 1937 though a money dispute ended his tenure with the State Opera in 1931, was to turn down an opportunity to sing at the Metropolitan Opera, and was to appear with the Royal Opera Covent Garden in 1924 and for three seasons in Chicago between 1923 and 1925. Over his time onstage he was to earn praise in a number of roles including Rodolfo in Puccini's "La Boheme", the painter Mario Cavaradossi from the same composer's "Tosca", the bullfighter Don Jose of Bizet's "Carmen", Florestan from Beethoven's "Fidelio", Radames of Verdi's "Aida", the tragic clown Canio in Leoncavallo's "I Pagliacci", and the title leads of Wagner's "Lohengrin" and Umberto Giordano's "Andrea Chenier"; lazy though both popular and talented he was to lose the chance to sing Calaf in the Vienna premiere of Puccini's "Turandot" when he did not bother to learn the role in time. Though he lived in Vienna and considered himself American Piccaver reclaimed the British citizenship that was his by birthright in 1923 and in 1937 with war clouds approaching was to return to England. He was to give recitals for some years and was to join with the BBC in early experimental television broadcasts but was to return to Vienna in 1955 and there live out his days. He left a significant recorded legacy cut over a long period much of which has been preserved.