Michael Gniffke
Biography
Michael Gniffke makes his National Theatre debut as Oedipus in Stravinsky's opera-oratorio Oedipus rex.
Gniffke specialises mainly in contemporary works and character roles of the German repertoire, such as the Witch in Humperdinck‘s Hänsel und Gretel, the Cavalier in Hindemith‘s Cardillac, the Captain in Berg‘s Wozzeck, the tenor part in Detlev Glanert‘s Drei Wasserspiele, Herodes in Strauss‘s Salome, Loge and Mime in Wagner‘s Das Rheingold and Aegisth in Strauss‘s Elektra.
He performed as Christobald in Schreker‘s Irrelohe at the Opéra National de Lyon, and sang Mime in Das Rheingold in Bern and at the Vienna State Opera. His guest appearances also include Elektra at Theater Magdeburg and Staatstheater Kassel, Hänsel und Gretel in Lübeck and Wozzeck in Dijon in a highly acclaimed production with the SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden and Freiburg. In 2018 he participated in the staging of Alexander Raskatov‘s opera GerMANIA, which was performed in Lyon Opera and broadcast by Radio France Musique. The French composer Brice Pauset dedicated to him the roles of Father, Mr. Samsa and Traveller in his opera Strafen, based on Franz Kafka’s short stories, which premiered in Dijon in 2020. In the 2022/23 season, Gniffke will appear in the Dutch National Opera‘s production of Raskatov‘s Animal Farm, as Mime at the Staatstheater Kassel, and will make his debut with Kirill Petrenko and the Berlin Philharmonic in Schoenberg‘s oratorio Die Jakobsleiter. He is also a concert artist, appearing in Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s Requiem, Verdi‘s Requiem and Hermann Suter‘s Le Laudi.