Piotr Beczala

Following his highly acclaimed last year's role debuts as Riccardo in Verdi's "Un ballo in maschera" with the Berlin State Opera and as Prince in Dvorák's "Rusalka" with Salzburg Festival 2008, Piotr Beczala made guest appearances at the New York Metropolitan Opera within the current season singing three different roles: Lensky in Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin", the Duke of Mantua in Verdi's "Rigoletto" and Edgardo in Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor" (the last one also joining the worldwide movie… Show more broadcast with Anna Netrebko singing the title-role). Due to his debuts with leading opera houses of the world (Metropolitan Opera, Teatro alla Scala di Milan, Bavarian State Opera Munich, Teatr Wielki Warsaw, a. o.) and his frequent presence at numerous further musical venues (Vienna State Opera, Salzburg Festival, Berlin Deutsche Oper, Zurich Opera, Royal Opera House Covent Garden London, San Francisco Opera as well as Bilbao and Tokyo), Piotr Beczala has established himself as one of the most outstanding lyric tenors of our time. In addition to the already mentioned operatic parts Massenet's "Werther" and Gounod's "Faust", Alfredo in Verdi's "La Traviata" and Rodolfo in Puccini's "La Bohème" are his most brilliant roles. As Rodolfo he will be heard this year in Munich and London, as Alfredo in Zurich, as Riccardo in Berlin again, as Faust in Vienna, Chicago and Bilbao and as Vaudémont in Tchaikovsky's "Iolanta" with Baden-Baden Festival. He also performs Verdi's "Requiem" in London and Birmingham, Berlioz' "Damnation de Faust" in Madrid and Rachmaninoff's "Bell"-Symphony with the Saint Denis Festival.

Piotr Beczala has been performing with the following theatres: De Nederlandse Opera Amsterdam, Théâtre Royal La Monnaie in Brussels, Opéra National de Paris, Bilbao Opera, Cologne Opera, Hamburg State Opera, Frankfurt Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Berlin State Opera Unter den Linden, Vienna State Opera, Zurich Opera, Grand Théâtre in Geneva, Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Megaron in Athens, Teatr Wielki Warsaw, Royal Opera House Covent Garden London and the San Francisco Opera and Metropolitan Opera New York. Furthermore guest appearances led him regularly to the most important international festivals: Salzburg Festival, Vienna Festival Weeks, Vienna Klangbogen Festival, Styriarte Graz, Bad Kissingen Festival, Zurich Festival, Lucerne Festival, Montpellier Festival, a. o. Concert engagements made him appear at the Berlin Philharmonic Hall, Munich Philharmonic Hall, the Munich Herkulessaal, the Vienna Musikverein, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Zurich Tonhalle, the KKL Lucerne, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Moscow Tchaikovsky-Conservatory and at the Severance Hall in Cleveland.

Piotr Beczala's stage repertoire consists mostly of the lyric tenor roles of the canonic operatic repertoire: Alfredo ("La Traviata"/Verdi), Duca di Mantova ("Rigoletto"/Verdi), Riccardo ("Un ballo in maschera"/Verdi), Edgardo ("Lucia di Lammermoor"/Donizetti), Rodolfo ("La Bohème"/Puccini), "Werther" (Massenet), "Faust" (Gounod), Prince ("Rusalka"/Dvorák), Lensky ("Eugene Onegin"/Tchaikovsky), Vaudémont ("Iolanta"/ Tchaikovsky), Jenik ("The Bartered Bride"/Smetana), Shepard ("Krol Roger"/Szymanowski), Tamino ("The Magic Flute"/Mozart), Don Ottavio ("Don Giovanni"/Mozart), Orombello ("Beatrice di Tenda"/Bellini), Italian Singer ("Der Rosenkavalier"/R. Strauss) and Camille de Rosillon ("The Merry Widow"/Lehár). Upcoming new challenges include title-roles in "Roméo et Juliette" (Gounod) and "Les contes d'Hoffmann" (Offenbach) a. o.

Born in Southern Poland Piotr Beczala received his first vocal education in Kattowice. Among his vocal teachers one will find names like Jan Ballarin, Pavel Lisizian, Sena Jurinac and Dale Fundling. After his first engagement at the Landestheater Linz (Austria) he switched to the Zurich Opera in 1997 where he sang - besides the already mentioned parts - numerous further roles: Tristan ("Le Vin Herbé"/Martin), Steva ("Jenufa"/Janácek), Synodal ("The Demon"/Rubinstein), Walther von der Vogelweide ("Tannhäuser"/Wagner), Arnim von Grübben ("Simplicius"/Joh. Strauß), Matteo ("Arabella"/R. Strauss), Elvino ("La Sonnambula"/Bellini) and Belmonte ("The Abduction from the Seraglio"/Mozart). After being a permanent member of the Zurich Opera for some years Piotr Beczala remained closely associated to this company.

His wide concert repertoire ranges from Mozart's, Cherubini's and Schubert's sacred music, Haydn's oratorios, Beethoven's "Missa Solemnis", Schumann's "Paradies und die Peri", Rossini's "Stabat Mater" and "Petite Messe Solennelle", Berlioz’s "Roméo et Juliette" and "Requiem", Bruckner's "Te Deum", Dvorák's "Stabat Mater" and "Requiem" and Brahms's "Rinaldo" to Verdi's "Messa da Requiem" as well as Mahler's "Das Lied von der Erde" and "Das klagende Lied".

In concert and opera Piotr Beczala has worked closely with numerous renown conductors: Gerd Albrecht, Marco Armiliato, Jirí Belohlávek, Maurizio Benini, Bertrand de Billy, Michael Boder, Ivor Bolton, Richard Bonynge, Frans Brüggen, Semyon Bychkov, Sylvain Cambreling, Paolo Carignani, Sir Andrew Davis, Edo de Waart, Plácido Domingo, Vladimir Fedosejev, Ivan Fischer, Patrick Fournillier, Michael Gielen, Carlo Mario Giulini, Hartmut Haenchen, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Philippe Herreweghe, Marek Janowski, Mariss Jansons, Philippe Jordan, Michail Jurowski, Vladimir Jurowski, Ton Koopman, Nicola Luisotti, Zubin Mehta, Ingo Metzmacher, Riccardo Muti, Kent Nagano, Renato Palumbo, Antonio Pappano, Trevor Pinnock, Donald Runnicles, Nello Santi, Peter Schneider, Martin Sieghart, Christian Thielemann, Marcello Viotti, Franz Welser Möst and Alberto Zedda.

On CD the artist can be heard on the following recordings: Mozart's "The Abduction from the Seraglio" ('Oehms Classics'), Dvorák's "Svatá Ludmila" ('Orfeo'), "Simplicius" ('Emi'), Offenbach's "Die Rheinnixen" and Szymanowski's "Krol Roger" ('Accord'), Tchaikovsky's "Iolanta" ('Relief'), Verdi's "La Traviata" ('Farao Classics'), Berlioz’s "Roméo et Juliette" (Edition ‘Hänssler'), Lehár's "The Land of Smiles" ('CPO') as well as Songs by Karol Szymanowski ('Channel Classics'). Piotr Beczala's first recital named "Salut" and containing French and Italian arias was released by 'Orfeo' in 2008 being highly appreciated by the international press.

The following DVD-productions are available: From the Zurich Opera "Simplicius", "The Merry Widow", "La Traviata" and "Rigoletto" (all on 'Arthaus') "The Magic Flute" ('TDK'), "The Abduction from the Seraglio" ('Bel Air Media') and "Don Giovanni" ('EMI'), from Salzburg Festival 2004 resp. 2006 "Der Rosenkavalier" ('TDK') and "Don Giovanni" ('Decca'), from the Opéra National de Paris "The Magic Flute" ('TDK') as well as from Berlin's Deutsche Oper the Aids-Gala-Concert 2007 ('Arthaus').

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