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Tomasz Konieczny

Tomasz Konieczny

Guest of the Opera

Biography

Bass-baritone Tomasz Konieczny was born in Łodz, Poland. He studied acting at the Film, TV and Theatre Academy in Łodz and made his debut in a film directed by Oscar prize winning director Andrzej Wajda The Ring with the Eagle, following which he worked as actor / director in many TV film and theatre productions in Poland. He studied voice at the Fryderyk Chopin Academy in Warsaw and finished his studies at the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber in Dresden, under the guidance of Christian Elsner. In 1998, he was awarded the second prize in the Antonín Dvořák International Singing Competition in Karlovy Vary. A year earlier, he made his stage debut as Mozart’s Figaro at the Poznan Opera in Poland. Abroad, he debuted at the Leipzig Opera as Kecal (Smetana: The Bartered Bride) in 1999/2000 season. He was a member of the opera ensemble at the Lübeck Theatre (2000–2002), at the Nationaltheater in Mannheim (2002–2006), and at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf (2006–2014). Today, he is is a sought-after singer at many other prestigious opera houses including La Scala in Milan, Paris National Opera and Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Semperoper in Dresden, Teatro Real in Madrid, Bavarian State Opera in Munich, Deutsche Oper in Berlín or Salzburg Festival. Since his Viennese debut as Alberich (Das Rheingold) in 2008, he has regularly perfomed at the Vienna State Opera, where he has created Kurwenal, Jack Rance, Don Pizarro, Wotan; in 2014/2015 season, he will also add Strauss‘ Mandryka (Arabella) and Hindemith‘s Cardillac. In March 2014, he sang Jochanaan in a concert performance of Strauss‘ Salome under the baton of Andris Nelsons and with the Vienna State Opera Orchestra at the Carnegie Hall in New York. His extremely rich repertoire include Rossini‘s Selim (Il Turco in Italia), Mozart‘s Osmin (Die Entführing aus dem Serail) and Commendatore (Don Giovanni), Beethoven’s Don Pizzaro (Fidelio), Verdi‘s Procida (I vespri siciliani), Ramfis (Aida) and Grand Inquisitor (Don Carlos), Puccini‘s Jack Rance (La fanciulla del West), Musorgsky’s Pimen (Boris Godunov), Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer, König Marke (Tristan und Isolde), Amfortas (Parsifal), Alberich (Das Rheingold, Siegfried, Götterdämmerung) and Wotan (Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried), Strauss‘ Barak (Die Frau ohne Schatten), Orest (Elektra) and Jochanaan (Salome), Debussy‘s Golaud (Pelléas et Mélisande), Smetana‘s Kecal (The Bartered Bride) and Janáček‘s Dr Kolenatý (The Makropulos Affair). In Prague, he has created unforgettable roles of Procida (I vespri siciliani) and Kurwenal (Tristan and Isolde ) at the State Opera Prague (2005 and 2009) and Offenbach’s four villains (Les contes d‘Hoffmann) and Amfortas (Parsifal) at the National Theatre (2010 and 2011).

Update: June 2014