Bass René Pape laid the foundations for his singing career early on as a member of the traditional Kreuzchor in his native Dresden. He graduated from the Carl Maria von Weber Academy of Music in Dresden; in 1988, at the age of 24, he joined the ensemble of the Berlin Staatsoper, where he remains a regular member. Here he primarily performs the great roles for his voice type in the German repertoire, especially the works of Richard Wagner. In 2010 he sang Wotan in Das Rheingold at La Scala in Milan, making his first foray into the heldenbaritone repertoire, and in 2011 he undertook the Walküre Wotan. Pape is additionally a sought-after performer of Italian, French, and Russian operas, including such roles as Filippo II in Verdi’s Don Carlo, Escamillo in Bizet’s Carmen, Méphistophélès in Gounod’s Faust, Prince Gremin in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, and the title role in Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov. He made his Salzburg Festival debut in 1990 as a Mozart singer and has appeared as such characters as Sarastro, Figaro, Leporello, and Don Giovanni. Pape has performed at the Bayreuth and Glyndebourne Festivals, the Royal Opera House in London, Vienna Staatsoper, and Paris National Opera and is regularly engaged by the Metropolitan Opera in New York. He enjoys a close collaboration with Daniel Barenboim and has also partnered with Claudio Abbado, Valery Gergiev, Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, Christian Thielemann, and Franz Welser-Möst. Pape was appointed a Kammersänger in Berlin in 2000, and in 2002 and 2006, respectively, the magazines Musical America and Opernwelt named him Singer of the Year; in 2009 and 2011 his recordings won the Echo Klassik Award.
LUCERNE FESTIVAL (IMF) debut on 3 September 1992 in Joseph Haydn’s The Creation with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra under Peter Schreier.
April 2012