German opera singer, bass. Born in Dresden, he sang as a child in the Dresden Kreuzchor, then graduated from the Carl Maria von Weber Dresden University of Music. He made his operatic debut in 1988 at the Berlin State Opera Unter den Linden. In 1994, he made his Bayreuth Festival debut as Fasolt ("Das Rheingold"); in 1995, he performed as Sarastro ("The Magic Flute") at the Salzburg Festival and made his Metropolitan Opera debut. Since that same year, he has been a guest soloist at the Met, where he has performed over 20 roles in more than 160 performances. He has also performed at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Lyric Opera of Chicago, the opera houses of San Francisco and Los Angeles, the Bavarian State Opera, and at festivals in Bayreuth, Glyndebourne, Lucerne, Salzburg, Verbier, the Feodor Chaliapin International Opera Festival in Kazan, and the White Nights Stars Festival. Among the singer's most renowned roles are King Marke ("Tristan und Isolde"), Rocco ("Fidelio"), King Heinrich ("Lohengrin"), Pogner ("Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg"), Gurnemanz ("Parsifal"), Fasolt, Hunding, and Wotan ("The Ring of the Nibelung"), Sarastro ("The Magic Flute"), Leporello and Don Giovanni ("Don Giovanni"), King Philip ("Don Carlos"), Boris Godunov (in the opera of the same name), and Mephistopheles ("Faust").
He is a recipient of two Grammy Awards for recordings of the operas "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg" (1997) and "Tannhäuser" (2002), as well as the German ECHO Award and the MET Meistersinger Prize. In 2018, the Austrian government awarded him the honorary title of Kammersänger.
He is a recipient of two Grammy Awards for recordings of the operas "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg" (1997) and "Tannhäuser" (2002), as well as the German ECHO Award and the MET Meistersinger Prize. In 2018, the Austrian government awarded him the honorary title of Kammersänger.
