Baritone
Italy, various Countries
“Quite simply, the world’s greatest living lieder singer… One of the greatest things I’ve ever heard in my life.”
(Tim Ashley on The Guardian about Schubertʼs Schwanengesang and other lieder at Edinburgh Festival)
Baritone Dietrich Henschel captivates audiences as a regular guest of world leading opera houses and concert halls, as an esteemed interpreter of operas, lieder and oratorios and with his varied multimedia projects. His repertoire stretches from Monteverdi to the avant-garde.
Born in Berlin and raised in Nuremberg, the breakthrough of his international career was in 1997 when he took the title role in Hans Werner Henze’s Prinz von Homburg at Deutsche Oper Berlin and most of all when he gave an outstanding lead performance in Busoni’s Doktor Faust under the baton of Kent Nagano at Opéra de Lyon and at Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, which won the Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording in 2001.
Amon his major roles Wolfram in Tannhäuser, Don Giovanni, Alban Berg’s Wozzeck and Dr. Schön in Lulu, Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo and Ulisse in Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Golaud in Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, Faninal in Der Rosenkavalier Nick Shadow in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, Frank in Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt, The mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland by Unsuk Chin, just to name a few.
Many contemporary composers such as Péter Eötvös, Detlev Glanert, Manfred Trojahn, Unsuk Chin, Peter Ruzicka, and José-Maria Sanchez-Verdu have dedicated leading roles in their operas to him.
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, Semyon Bychkov and Sir Simon Rattle. His collaborations with John Eliot Gardiner, Philippe Herreweghe, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and Sir 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, Norske Opera Oslo and Komische Oper Berlin, among others. In the project IRRSAL – Triptychon einer verbotenen Liebe, featuring the orchestral songs of Hugo Wolf and conceived together with director Clara Pons, he combined film and live music. WUNDERHORN, featuring songs by Gustav Mahler, which was also created in collaboration with Clara Pons, was co-produced by European partners including De Doelen, La Monnaie, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra London. Dietrich Henschel has also launched his project X-Mas Contemporary at Konzerthaus Berlin in December 2019 with the ensemble UnitedBerlin under the musical direction of Vladimir Jurowski. Twelve composers contributed works to the extraordinary program, which was hailed by critics and released as a CD.
LATEST PERFORMANCES: Schönberg’s Gurre-Lieder with Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Zubin Mehta; Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis in Liegi and Namur; Schönberg’s Ode an Napoleon in Leuven; Gluck’s Iphigénie en Aulide in Rheinsberg; John Blow’s Venus and Adonis at Schloß Herrenhausen in Hannover; Telemann’s Der Sieg der Schönheit in Magdeburg; Schönberg’s Moses und Aron in Bonn; Hanns Eisler’s Deutsche Sinfonie and Winterrise in Tokyo; Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Jordi Savall and Le Concert des Nations at Elbphilharmonie Hamburg; Haydn’s The creation with Brussels Philharmonic and Kazushi Ono; Das Liede von der Erde in Palma de Mallorca.
FORTHCOMING PROJECTS: Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana; Britten’s War Requiem with Maggio Musicale Fiorentino; Ronnefeld’s Die Ameise in Bonn.
