Opera
Tosca
Baron Scarpia
The State Opera
Biography
Polish baritone Krzysztof Szumański studied at the Fryderyk Chopin Academy of Music, Warsaw and the National Opera Studio, London. He was a member of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Following his graduation, he sang Abner in Handel’s Athalia with the European Baroque Academy under Paul McCreesh. From 2006 to 2008 he performed at Covent Garden as Zuniga in Carmen, Narumov in The Queen of Spades, Sciarrone in Tosca, and collaborated with such conductors as Sir Antonio Pappano, Semyon Bychkov, Ivor Bolton, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Bernard Haitink, or Mikko Franck. Between 2008 and 2013 he was a member of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, where his roles included Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro, Alidoro in La Cenerentola, and Paolo Orsini in Rienzi. From 2016 to 2018 he was the leading baritone at Staatstheater Darmstadt. He often appears at the Wexford Festival Opera. Highlights of the last seasons include the title role in Der fliegende Holländer, Scarpia in Tosca, Paolo in Simon Boccanegra, Bluebeard in The Bluebeard’s Castle and Escamillo in Carmen for the Staatstheater Darmstadt; Escamillo for the Poznań Opera House; Nick Shadow in The Rake’s Progress at the Beethoven Festival in Warsaw; Figaro for the Kraków Opera; and Scarpia, Flint in Billy Budd, Jagu in Manru, Escamillo and Stolnik in Halka at the Polish National Opera, Warsaw.
2020/21 Season