Tomasz Konieczny

The Polish bass-baritone Tomasz Konieczny, who was born in 1972 in Lódz, began his career as an actor onstage as well as in various film and television productions before studying voice at the Chopin Academy in Warsaw and at the Carl Maria von Weber Academy of Music in Dresden with Christian Elssner. Konieczny made his opera debut in 1997 in Posen as Mozart’s Figaro. In 2002 he was engaged by the ensemble of the Nationaltheater in Mannheim, where he received the Arnold Petersen Award for emerging artists two years later; in 2006 he then moved to the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, where he remains as part of the permanent ensemble. Konieczny has also long been a regular guest artist at many internationally renowned companies, such as the Semperoper in Dresden, the Bavarian Staatsoper, and Deutsche Oper Berlin – at all of which he has performed Alberich in Wagner’s Ring – at the Teatro Real in Madrid, where he has sung in Janácek’s The Makropulos Affair, and at the Opéra National de Paris, which engaged him for a Tannhäuser production. In the current season Konieczny will sing Wotan and the Wanderer in the Ring at the Vienna Staatsoper; he also sings Italian repertoire there and opened the 2013-14 season as Jack Rance in Puccini’s La fanciulla del West. The summer of 2014 will also find Tomasz Konieczny at the Salzburg Festival, where he appeared in 2012 in Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten: he will sing the role of the Commendatore in Don Giovanni. He has also given numerous performances at the Budapest Wagner Festival and at Prague National Opera. As a concert singer Konieczny commands a repertoire ranging from the Bach Passions through Mendelssohn’s Elijah and the Requiems Mozart, Verdi, and Dvorák to the great oratorios of Krzysztof Penderecki.

February 2014