He studied with professors Erika Margraf and Aldo Baldin at the State Conservatory in Karlsruhe and also took private lessons from Harald Stamm. Following many successeful performances in international competitions for singers, he began his professional career in the Dortmund Theatre. Since 1994, he has been a regular member of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, where he has appeared in such roles as Titurel in Wagner's Parsifal, the Commendatore in Mozart's Don Giovanni, Sarastro in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, Gremin in Eugene Onegin Hermann in Wagner's Tannhäuser, Banco in Verdi's Macbeth, Pogner in Wagner's Die Meistersinger, Ramfis in Verdi's Aida and Judas in J.S. Bach's Passion According to St. Matthew, etc. In the period 1998-2000, he appeared in the U.S. at the San Francisco Opera as Monk (Don Carlos/Don Carlos), Raimondo (Lucia di Lammermoor), Fasolt and Hunding (the Ring of Nibelung/Der Ring des Nibelungen). He has sung a braod repertory at major European and American opera houses, including the Munich State Opera, and the operas of San Diego, Dallas, Los Angeles, the Royal Opera House in London, the Grand Lycee Opera in Barcelona, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, as well as in international festivals (Glyndebourne, Salzburg, Bayreuth). He worked with leading orchestras and ensembles such as the Boston Ssymphony Orchestra, the Symphony Orchestra of the Bavarian Broadcast Company, the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Academy of Saint Martin in the Fields, the Orchestra of Santa Cecilia in Rome and the Philharmonic Orchestras of Munich, Vienna, New York and Berlin. He has worked under such leading conductors as Maazel, Chailly, Sinopoli. Rattle, Abbado. Masur, Ozawa and Levine. He recorded the opera The magic flute (Erato) and Bach-Kantaten under Gardiner (Deutsche Grammophon). He has been honored with numerous awards. At the GNO he appeared once, as King Marco [Tristan And Isolde] (Athens Concert Hall, 2014-15). // Last update: February 2015