Sabrina Avantario is an Italian pianist and opera vocal coach, currently based in Antwerp (Belgium), with vast experience in Italian repertoire. She has worked in numerous international opera productions and extensively in Lieder recitals. Her international resume includes working in Belgium (regularly at Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, but also at de Munt | la Monnaie), Greece (Greek National Opera), Switzerland (Luzern and Bern Opera House), Ireland (Wexford Festival Opera), Germany (Staatstheater Kassel), Japan (Otsu and Tokyo Bunkamura Hall), Lebanon (Al Bustan Festival, Beirut) and many theatres in Italy (Teatro Comunale of Bologna, Festival dei due mondi of Spoleto, Ferrara Musica, a.o.). Conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Ottavio Dantone, Vladimir and Dmitri Jurowsky, Umberto Benedetti Michelangeli, Alberto Zedda, the composer Giancarlo Menotti, directors such as Michael Hampe, Luca Ronconi, Graham Vick, are some of the personalities she has worked with throughout her 25 years of activity.

Sabrina Avantario worked from 1995 to 2015 at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro as repetiteur and more specifically as ‘chef de chant’ during the last ten years. She is guest professor for Italian coaching at the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp and often ‘conferencier’ at the Royal Conservatory of Wallonia in Liège.

She has a broad experience in Mozart operas, having collaborated as chief repetiteur and coach in almost twenty different productions of his opera’s, starting from Così fan Tutte with Claudio Abbado. In particular she has worked as a conductor in the three Da Ponte’s and Zauberflöte.

Korneel Bernolet made his debut at age 19 as a continuo player for Sigiswald Kuijken’s Bach recording cycle, followed by a Young Musician of the Year award from the Belgian Music Press Association in 2014. Since then, he performs worldwide as a harpsichord and fortepiano recital soloist. As a conductor, he leads his own period-instrument orchestra, Apotheosis, and acts a.o. as an assistant conductor and continuo player to Christophe Rousset (Les Talens Lyriques) and Philippe Herreweghe respectively.

Korneel has recently gained international acclaim for his highly praised guest-conductorships with Anima Eterna Brugge (replacing Jos van Immerseel) and Collegium Vocale Ghent in 2018, performing Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and Chorfantasie in Bruges and Frankfurt; and as festival star of the 2019 Canberra International Music Festival, playing and guest conducting 7 different Bach concerts in only 10 days. His 2019 CD with Rameau’s Pygmalion is considered a new reference recording.

In 2016 he was appointed as Professor of Harpsichord at the Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp, where he teaches on the famous Dulcken 1747 harpsichord at Museum Vleeshuis. Korneel is a PhD researcher at Antwerp University, an instructor and conductor at the International Opera Academy Ghent, and a passionate recording engineer. He has recorded several CDs with Apotheosis for Et’cetera Records and Ramée and, following reviews, is considered a leading expert on French baroque style.

Hein Boterberg is Head of Music and vocal coach at the IOA and works as a visiting vocal coach at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. He is also freelance accompanist for recitals.

He studied at the Conservatoire in his birth city of Ghent. At the Royal Scottish Academy and the London Guildhall School of Music and Drama he specialised in singing accompaniment. He was also holder of the Geoffrey Parsons Junior fellowship at the Royal College of Music.

In la Monnaie in Brussels, he assisted Antonio Pappano and Renato Balsadonna and worked in productions with singers such as Susan Graham, José van Dam, Jonas Kaufmann and Joseph Calleja. He has also played for conductors such as Kazushi Ono and Alessandro de Marchi. In addition to this, he has worked with singers for the Filharmonie, the Flemish Radio Choir, the Flemish Opera, Covent Garden, the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel and the Collegium Vocale, Gent.

In song recitals he has played in Europe, Asia and Australia in venues such as the Wigmore Hall and the Purcell Room in London, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels and many more. 2006 he started the Vocal Journey recital series, for which he devised and played concerts with young singers from all over the world.

He was coach and pianist for singing courses in the UK, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Portugal and France. He was official accompanist for vocal masterclasses by Sir Thomas Allen, Robin Bowman, Emma Kirkby, Ann Murray, Loh Siew-Tuan, Graham Johnson and Dame Margaret Price.

Muriel Corradini completed her vocal and musical studies at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris and at the New England Conservatory of Boston (USA), where she graduated as a Master in vocal performance in 1989.

Since 1992, she has been in great demand as a language coach for French and Italian repertoire and as a vocal coach. She has worked for the Opéra National de Paris, the Royal Opera House of Covent Garden, the Amsterdam and Brussels Opera Houses, as well as the festivals of Glyndebourne and Salzburg.

For the last 15 years, Muriel has been guest coach at the opera studios of L’Académie de l’Opéra de Paris, the Young Artist Program of the Royal Opera House in London, the International Opera Academy in Ghent, the International Academy of Voice in Cardiff and the Young Singers Project of the Salzburg Festival.

At the same time, Muriel has kept studying vocal technique with Michelle Wegwart, and over the last years, she has developed her activity as a voice teacher in a private studio in Paris.

Sára was born in Budapest. She studied German literature and linguistics at the Universität Wien in Vienna, Austria and later classical singing at the Conservatory of Amsterdam as a student of Pierre Mak.

Sára is a mezzo-soprano, she mainly performs chamber music, German Lied and oratorio. She has been singing with Collegium Vocale Gent since 2014.

Sára is as passionate about teaching as she is about singing. She currently teaches German as second language and the course Performing Arts – Music at the Amsterdam University College.

Since 2013, Sára has been successfully combining her two studies and specialties as a German teacher and coach for singers. She teaches German for singers at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, at the International Opera Academy in Ghent as well as at the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel. During the past years she has been working as a language coach at the Nederlandse Reisopera.

Sára lives in Amsterdam and has a son.

Rachel Harland studied music as an undergraduate at The University of Manchester. As a postgraduate she trained at Central School of Speech and Drama and Flanders Operastudio. She also has an LRSM in vocal teaching. She has sung with opera companies including La Monnaie, Opera Holland Park and Carl Rosa Opera, working in Belgium, UK, Canada and the U.S. and has given solo recitals in Europe and Australia including for The International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival and Flanders Music Festival. In addition to teaching at the International Opera Academy, Rachel is the director of Sing Salon, which organises singing events, groups and team building in Belgium and the U.K. Other educational work includes working as an English coach at the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp, teaching singing at Liverpool University and leading music and vocal workshops for Music in Prisons, Manchester International Festival and Aldeburgh Music.

Wim Henderickx works as a composer, conductor, percussionist and professor of composition. His compositions are often inspired by other cultures. The Tantric Cycle is a seven-part composition series based on Oriental philosophy and Buddhism and his work Groove! for percussion and orchestra was inspired by African, Arabic and Indian music and cultures. The works of Wim Henderickx are performed by renowned orchestras, soloists and ensembles. Electronics are often an important feature in his oeuvre.

Wim Henderickx has been Composer-In-Residence at Muziektheater Transparant since 1996. He joined the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra as an Artist-In-Residence in 2013. The full double CD (2016) with four of his works recorded by this orchestra, received international acclaim including five stars in BBC Music Magazine.

Symphony N°2 (Aquarius’ Dream) for orchestra, soprano, electronics and lighting design premiered with the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra at the Queen Elisabeth Hall in Antwerp. Revelations for music theatre, commissioned by Muziektheater Transparant, premiered at the Opera21 Festival at de Singel in Antwerp and the ballet production Requiem, commissioned by Opera Ballet Vlaanderen and in collaboration with choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, was performed twelve times. Blossomings for choir, trumpet and electronics premiered at LSO St Luke’s in London with the BBC Singers, Marco Blaauw (trumpet) and Martyn Brabbins (conductor). In 2019 the International Opera Academy and SPECTRA performed A Matter of Triumph and Void, a compilation of two of Henderickx’s operas.

Wim Henderickx was awarded both nationally and internationally for his work. His scores are published by Norsk Musikforlag in Oslo.

He is a professor of composition at the conservatories of Antwerp and Amsterdam. Finally, he is the main coach of the annual SoundMine summer composition course for young composers at Musica, Impulse Centre for Music.

Baritone Dietrich Henschel captivates audiences as a regular guest at major opera houses, an esteemed interpreter of lieder and oratorios as well as with his multimedia projects. His repertoire stretches from Monteverdi to the avant-garde. Born in Berlin and having grown up in Nuremberg, he made his debut in 1990 at the Munich Biennale for New Music and first became known internationally from 1997, following a period as an ensemble member of the Opera Kiel. At the Deutsche Oper Berlin he took the title role in Hans Werner Henze’s Prinz von Homburg, staged by Götz Friedrich, and gave an outstanding lead performance in Busoni’s Doktor Faust at the Opéra de Lyon and the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, for which he won a Grammy.

The singer’s major roles include Rossini’s Figaro, Wolfram in Wagner’s Tannhäuser, Monteverdi’s Ulisse and Orfeo, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Beckmesser in Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Alban Berg’s Wozzeck and Dr. Schön in Lulu, Golaud in Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande and Nick Shadow in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, with which he makes regular appearances at the major European opera houses. Contemporary composers such as Péter Eötvös, Detlev Glanert, Manfred Trojahn, Unsuk Chin, Peter Ruzicka and José-Maria Sanchez-Verdu have all dedicated leading roles in their operas to the baritone.
In addition to his operatic work, Dietrich Henschel is committed to the performance of lieder and concert works for voice. In orchestral concerts he has worked with conductors such as Riccardo Chailly, Kent Nagano, Cornelius Meister, Sylvain Cambreling and Semyon Bychkov. His collaborations with John Eliot Gardiner, Philippe Herreweghe, Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Colin Davis are documented on numerous oratorio recordings. Dietrich Henschel is particularly interested in theatrical and multimedia presentations of vocal music. He has performed staged versions of Schubert lieder cycles at La Monnaie, Theater an der Wien, Den Norske Opera Oslo and the Komische Oper Berlin, among others. In the project IRRSAL – Triptychon einer verbotenen Liebe, featuring the orchestral songs of Hugo Wolf, he combined film and live concert; his project featuring songs by Gustav Mahler, WUNDERHORN, was a collaboration with director Clara Pons, and was developed as a co-production between several European partners including De Doelen, La Monnaie and the BBC Symphony Orchestra London.

Last season, Dietrich Henschel presented a varied repertoire: in addition to taking on the lead male role in Chaya Czernowin’s world premiere Heart Chamber at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, he toured Japan with the Sapporo Symphony in promotion of his new recording of Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin, he performed at the Schubert Festival with the Orchester Symphonique Montréal in Canada, and he also premiered his new Christmas project X-mas Contemporary, created in collaboration with Vladimir Jurowski and the ensemble United, and featuring songs written for him in the spirit of the Christmas season, in the Konzerthaus Berlin and in Düsseldorf. His performances as Faninal in Michieletto’s new production of Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier at La Monnaie/De Munt in Brussels, planned for June 2020, were unfortunately cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

To kick off the 2020-21 season, Henschel is producing and performing in Così.20, a re-envisioned, contact-free and pandemic-friendly version of Mozart’s Così fan tutte as the premiere of his new opera company, Art House Opera, which he founded with Thomas Höft and their mutual artist collective during this time. The first performances took place in Lockenhaus, Austria, in the beginning of August. Throughout the rest of the year, audiences can look forward to hearing him singing Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with the New Orchestra Basel as part of the reopening of the Stadtcasino Basel, Schubert’s 3rd Mass with the Orquesta Sinfónica y Coro de Radio Televisión Espanola, a Liederabend at Tonhalle Zurich.

Guy Joosten started his career as a stage director and the artistic head of the Blauwe Maandag Compagnie theatre collective. He also directed plays at the NTG in Ghent, the KVS in Brussels and the Brussels Kamertoneel, as well as for various companies in the Netherlands (Amsterdam, Eindhoven and Groningen). At the age of 28 he made his debut at the Burgtheater in Vienna, and a year later he became the head director at the Thaliatheater in Hamburg. In 1989 he was awarded the Theatre Festival Prize in Rotterdam for his directing of Lars Noren’s play Nachtwake and received the Belgian Thalia Prize for his work with the Blauwe Maandag Compagnie. In 1999 the Flemish authorities honoured him by awarding him with the title of Cultural Ambassador of Flanders for his opera directing. In 2010 he received the Prix de L’Europe Francophone/Grand prix de la critique in Paris. In 2015 he was awarded the famous Italian Premio Abbiati. He received the award for ‘best director’.

In 1991, Joosten directed his first opera at the Opera Ballet Vlaanderen (Antwerp/Ghent). He has also directed works at the opera houses of Amsterdam, Barcelona, Bern, Bologna, Brussels, Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Essen, Genève, Göteborg, Hamburg, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Leipzig, Lisbon, London (English National Opera), Liège, Madrid, Maribor, Marseille, Monte Carlo, Montpellier, Oviedo, Sankt Gallen, Rouen, Saint-Étienne, Seoul, Sofia, Vienna (Volksoper & Theater a/d Wien) and Zürich. In 2005 he made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York with Gounod’s Roméo & Juliette. In 2018 Guy Joosten made his debut in Asia with two new productions: one for the Korean National Opera (Seoul) and one for the Japanese National Opera in Tokyo.

In addition to his work as a director he was also professor at the University of Hamburg and lecturer at university colleges in Amsterdam, Saarbrücken, Eindhoven, Maastricht and Barcelona. He teaches opera courses at the Royal Flemish Conservatoire in Antwerp and founded the International Opera Academy. He gives regular masterclasses, e.g. in Sofia and Tel Aviv.

Wilko Jordens was trained as a pianist and conductor at the Conservatory in Utrecht, the Netherlands, and studied with Thom Bollen, David Porcelijn and Kenneth Montgomery. He attended masterclasses Lied given by Udo Reinemann and by Hartmut Höll and Mitsuki Shirai.

As an opera repetiteur he worked at The National Opera in Amsterdam, Opera Zuid Maastricht, Reisopera Enschede and Opera Ballet Vlaanderen and was freelance repetiteur in numerous other productions. He worked with many conductors, including Hans Vonk, Ed Spanjaard, Hartmut Haenchen, Ingo Metzmacher, Friedemann Layer und Stefan Klingele. He conducted performances of Nozze di Figaro, Zauberflöte and Lustigen Weiber von Windsor at Zomeropera Alden Biesen, Belgium. From 2014 to 2020, Jordens worked as Korrepetitor mit Dirigierverpflichtung at Theater Bielefeld, Germany, where he conducted concerts for children and performances of La scala di seta and Amadis des Gaules. Jordens currently works as a freelance pianist, repetiteur and composer.

Manuela Kursidem was born in Salzburg and studied law and theatre science at the university of Vienna, Austria. During her studies, she worked as assistant for Prof. Dr. Marcel Prawy, chief dramaturge at the Staatsoper Vienna, and concluded an internship as assistant for production at Theater an der Wien. She cooperated on the Erstes Internationales Clowns-Festival at the Wiener Festwochen in 1981.

During the 1980s decade, Kursidem worked as artistic administrator for theatre agencies Ioan Holender (Vienna) and Dr. Germinal Hilbert (Munich). In 1991, she founded an independent artistic management in Munich (licensed by Bundesanstalt Arbeit Nürnberg). A year later, Kursidem obtained the license for an independent agency for opera and concert in Vienna, Austria. As an agent, she cooperated with Michael Lewin at International Artists’ Management between 1992 and 2009. In 2020, Kursidem re-organised the Association of German-speaking opera agents.

Kursidem taught at the Musikhochschule Lübeck, Jugendfestspieltreffen Bayreuth, Flanders Operastudio Ghent (currently IOA), and Queensland Conservatory Griffith University, Brisbane (Australia).

It all started at the Conservatory of Arnhem, where Charlotte was more or less ‘discovered’ by Aafje Heynis, with whom she completed her studies as a Performing Artist in 1982. Later, after two years at the Opera Studio in Amsterdam, Charlotte left for Berlin where she continued to learn under the passionate guidance of director Harry Kupfer.

Back in the Netherlands, Charlotte met her manager and good friend Pieter Alferink, who, from that moment on, took care of all of her artistic engagements – and still does to this day. The first engagement she obtained through him was a series of concerts, in 1986, in Rotterdam with James Conlon, where she sang as a soloist in Mahler’s Symphony #2, together with contralto Jard van Nes.

A variety of different roles in various international opera houses quickly followed. The highlights of Charlotte’s career include: Berlin, where she sang Mimì in La Bohème under Rolf Ruiter and Harry Kupfer in 1984; Amsterdam, where she performed Fiordiligi in Così Fan Tutte under the baton Nikolaus Harnoncourt, directed by Jürgen Flimm; London, where she recorded Beethoven’s concert aria “Ah, perfido!” with Sir John Eliot Gardiner in 1991, and Salzburg that same year: Vitellia in La Clemenza di Tito with Sir Colin Davies and director Peter Brenner. In 1993, she sang the soprano solo in Haydn’s Die Schöpfung with Frans Brüggen. In 1994, she performed Desdemona in Verdi’s Otello with Antonio Pappano, Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni) in Parma, conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner and directed by Lorenzo Mariani, and the Contessa in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro in Tokyo with Claudio Abbado and Jonathan Miller. In London, 1995, she performed Strauss’ Vier Letzte Lieder with Bernard Haitink. A little later came a stretch of especially fond memories in her home country: the title role in Dvorak’s Rusalka with Leos Svarovsky in Utrecht and a lied recital in Rotterdam with conductor Ed Spanjaard (1998), Marguerite in Berlioz’ La Damnation de Faust with Bernard Haitink (1999). In 2001 she sang in Beethoven’s Fidelio as Leonore with Simon Rattle, conducted by Deborah Warner. After that came Elsa in Wagner’s Lohengrin with Edo de Waart and Pierre Audi (2002), Szymanowsky’s Stabat Mater with Jaap van Zweden and Wagner’s Die Walküre as Sieglinde with Hartmut Hänchen and Pierre Audi (2004), all in Amsterdam. Then in 2005 came Der Freischütz in New York City, where she sang Agatha under Eve Queler. In 2011 Simone Young and Charlotte Margiono performed a selection of Alma Mahler songs in Hamburg, Germany.

Another immensely important part of her career is her musical partner and the other half of her Lied duo: Peter Nilsson, with whom she has done many beautiful and exciting recitals.

The CD recording and concerts in collaboration with pianist and composer Frans Ehlhart – singing his own compositions with texts by Ingrid Jonker – is also a highlight in her musical life.

Charlotte Margiono has been teaching for quite a while. From May 2008 until June 2015, she was a main subject teacher at the classical voice department of the HKU Utrecht Conservatory. For the past ten years, teaching has been a very important part of her life. She teaches privately in her studio, and guides a number of young singers, all working at different levels as singers and performing artists. For her, this work is equally fulfilling as singing herself, only in a completely different way. The stage now plays a small but joyous part in her life, as a role here and there, a recital, or a concert with an orchestra – but passing on the craft and artistry of music and singing is now her main passion.

Born in Manchester, England, Darren Ross studied at the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance in London. In 1988 he moved to France to dance in many creations with the ‘Compagnie de Brigitte Farges’. From 1992 he dances with the ‘Compagnie Larsen’, directed by Stéphanie Aubin, on different contemporary dance pieces and opera (Armide by Luly, Orphée et Eurydice by Glück).
In 1998 he choreographed his first opera La Traviata (Nancy, Rennes, Montpellier). This started a long collaboration as movement director and choreographer with director Jean-Claude Berutti. Together they worked on La Bague Magique by Giovanna Marini (Opéra de Nancy, Théâtre du Peuple Bussang), Faust (Lyon), Rusalka (Lyon, Tel Aviv, Bilbao), La Bohème, Wiener Blut and Othello (Nancy), Le Roi Candaule (Nancy and Liège) and Tannhaüser (Bordeaux).

He also collaborated with Jean-Claude Berutti for theatre: L’île des Esclaves — Marivaux (Brussels); Le Mariage de Figaro — Beaumarchais (Liège); Beaucoup de bruit pour rien — Shakespeare, La Cantatrice Chauve — Ionesco, L’Envolée -Granouillet, Family Art — Sales (Saint-Etienne); A tu et à toi, a ‘tour de chant’ with Yvette Théraulaz (Saint-Etienne, Genève, Lausanne)…

Together with director Caroline Petrick he worked on Weisse Rose — Zimmermann (La Monnaie Brussels) and The Golden Vanity, opera for children, by Benjamin Britten (La Monnaie Brussels, Royal Opera Stockholm).

With theatre company NUNC and Benjamin Van Torhout, he worked on Raisonnez (Ghent, Antwerp) and Het geslacht Borgia (Ghent, Antwerp, Leuven, Bruges). Together with Axel De Booseré and the Compagnie Arsenic, he worked on Le Dragon and Le Géant de Kaillass (Liège, Brussels, Paris). In January 2006, he directed Mozart onvoltooid/Mozart inachevé, a co-production of Pantalone, La Monnaie (Brussels) and Dschungel (Vienna).

Darren Ross also teaches movement and dance to singers (at the Chapelle Musicale de la Reine Elisabeth of Brussels, since 2004; Musikhochschule Frankfurt; Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et danse de Paris) and actors (amongst others, students of the Ecole d’Art Dramatique du CDN of Saint-Etienne).

With director Marguerite Borie he worked on Salome by Richard Strauss (Monte-Carlo, Liège, Vienna) and Reigen by Philippe Boesmans (Paris, CNSMDP). He also signed the choreography for Requiem for the Gods, a creation by Joachim Brackx with Nabla Muziektheater, co-produced by Concertgebouw Bruges. With Ivan Fisher, he collaborated on Le Nozze di Figaro — Mozart (Budapest, New York and Berlin).

Martin Wölfel was born in Potsdam, and studied singing at the Carl Maria von Weber College of Music in Dresden. At first, he concentrated on becoming a tenor before he found his true calling as a countertenor after visiting a recital given by Axel Köhler. After changing course, he studied with Margret Trappe-Wiel until 1999, finally as a master student. He furthered his studies by taking master classes with such distinguished musicians as Paul Esswood, Axel Köhler, Jessica Cash and Brigitte Fassbaender. At the same time, he undertook a lively series of concert activities.

The young singer has been engaged by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Stuttgart Chamber Choir, the Virtuosi Saxoniae, the Berlin Lautten Compagney, the Dresden Chamber Choir, the Rheinische Philharmonie, the Gürzenich Orchestra, the Cairo Symphony Orchestra, the Stockholm Drottningholms Baroque Ensemble, the Britten-Pears Orchestra and the ‘Rheinische Kantorei’. In addition he has worked with other renowned orchestras and ensembles including the Stuttgart Baroque Orchestra, the Dresden Baroque Orchestra, the Berlin Oriol Ensemble, the Cologne Chamber Orchestra, the Dresden ‘Kreuzchor’, la Grande Écurie et la Chambre du Roy from Tourcoing, the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, the Vienna ‘Klangforum’, the chamber choir ‘les éléments’, and the Jacques Moderne and Café Zimmermann ensembles.

Martin Wölfel is a popular guest singer at international festivals such as the Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts, the Settimana Musicale Senese, the MDR Music Summer and the ‘Festival van Vlaanderen Brugge’. The list of prominent festivals can be continued with the Mosel ‘Festwochen’, the Stuttgart European Festival of Music, the Utrecht Festival of Early Music, the Dresden Music Festival and the ‘Septembre Musical – Festival de Musique Montreux-Vevey’.

Martin Wölfel has not only conquered the concert world but also the stage: he appeared as Arsace /”Berenice” at the Staatstheater Karlsruhe (Händel Festival), as Claire in the German premiere of John Lunn’s “The Maids” at the Dresden Semper Opera, as Oberon /”A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at the National Theater Mannheim, as Pisandro /”Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria” at German Opera on the Rhine, and was a guest in Bernhard Lang’s “The Theatre of Repetitions” at the Steirische Herbst Festival in Graz and at the Opéra National de Paris in 2006.
Furthermore Martin Wölfel sang Ottone /”L’Incoronazione die Poppea” at the Opera of the Rhine, Orpheus /”Orpheus and Euridice” in Rostock, he appeared in the German premiere of Philip Glass’s opera “Galileo Galilei” at the Staatstheater Braunschweig, and sang the role of Helicon in the world premiere production of Detlef Glanert’s “Caligula”, a co-production by the opera houses in Frankfurt and Cologne, as well as the midwife Delfa /”Giasone” at the Frankfurt Opera House.
His other roles include: Guido /”Flavio”, Orlowsky /”Die Fledermaus”, Andronico /”Tamerlano”, the Devil in Detlev Glanert’s “Scherz, Satire, Ironie und tiefere Bedeutung”, and he sang Tolomeo /”Giulio Cesare”, amongst others in Karoline Gruber’s production at the Hamburg State Opera House and the Cologne Opera House.

Wölfel has earned much praise from the critics for his appearances as Tolomeo during the Händel Festival in Karlsruhe in a production by Peer Boysen, conducted by Michael Hofstetter, as Edgar /”Lear” at the Frankfurt Opera House, as Fjodor in a new production of “Boris Godunow” at Semperoper in Dresden, and as Edgar /”Lear” at the Komische Oper Berlin in a production by Hans Neuenfels, Socceress /”Dido” and especially as both Orlowsky and Frosch in a new production of “Die Fledermaus” in Frankfurt (recorded for TV, stage director: Christoph Loy). In July 2011 he made his successful debut at Berlin Staatsoper – Artemis in Henze’s “Phaedra”.

Martin Wölfel is regular guest at Oper Frankfurt and returned to Berlin Deutsche Oper in 2017 for the world premiere of Aribert Reimann’s opera “L’Invisible”, in 2016/17 he also made his debut at Cardiff Welsh National Opera and Covent Garden London – “The Merchant of Venice”. Furthermore, he made his debuts in Oslo in 2017 and Seoul in 2018.
Future plans include among other engagements his return to Oper Frankfurt.

Wölfel has worked with such well-known conductors as Andreas Spering, Jane Glover, Ludwig Güttler, Sir Neville Marriner, Markus Stenz, Christopher Moulds, Sebastian Weigle and Michael Hofstetter. Amongst the directors who have had the pleasure of working with him as a singer and performer are David Mouchtar-Samourai, Christof Loy, Georges Delnon, Alexander Paeffgen, Anouk Nicklisch, Ullrich Peters, Vera Nemirowa, Andreas Baesler, Thilo Reinhardt, Arila Siegert and Christian Pade.

He has taken part in countless radio and CD recordings. The MDR Kultur channel broadcast a portrait of him in its series ‘MDR Profile’ – and nowadays his name is always mentioned when specialists are talking about the small group of prominent altos and countertenors.

Since 2007 Martin Wölfel has also been a teacher at the Folkwang Academy in Essen and the Robert Schumann Hochschule in Düsseldorf, he also established his own masterclass festival (www.kronenburg-classes.de). Since 2017 he is Professor for life-time in Essen.

www.martin-woelfel.de