Georg Zeppenfeld



Georg Zeppenfeld (born 1970) is a German operatic bass.

Life
Born in Attendorn, Zeppenfeld studied first music and Germanistik at the Lehramt, then concert and opera singing at the music academies in Detmold and Köln, and then with Kammersänger Hans Sotin. About his voice training the singer said: "As a Westphalian one is not necessarily born for operatic singing. Where we speak, i.e. in the back of the throat, is not normally where one sings. It took a long time and a lot of patience from my voice teacher before I understood how to bring the voice forward."

Zeppenfeld was awarded the title Sächsischer Kammersänger (Staatsoper Dresden) in 2015. <!--

Opera
After his first stage years at the Theater Münster (1997-1999) and at the Opera Bonn (1999-2001) Zeppenfeld was engaged by the Semperoper in Dresden, which has been his artistic home ever since. Under the direction of conductors such as Myung-Whun Chung, Daniele Gatti, Fabio Luisi, Kent Nagano, Peter Schneider and Marcello Viotti, the singer was able to develop a broad repertoire of bass parts from different epochs and styles. These include the classical Mozart parts of Sarastro (The Magic Flute), Komtur (Don Giovanni), Figaro and Bartolo (Le nozze di Figaro) and Don Alfonso (Così fan tutte), the Verdi roles Father Guardiano (La forza del destino), Sparafucile (Rigoletto), Zaccaria (Nabucco), Banco (Macbeth) and Philipp II. (Don Carlos), Mussorgski's Pimen (Boris Godunov), and the Wagner parts Fasolt (Das Rheingold), Landgraf Herrmann (Tannhäuser), King Marke (Tristan und Isolde) and Gurnemanz (Parsifal).

In 2002 Zeppenfeld made his debut at the Salzburg Festival – as Philebos in Der König Kandaules by Alexander Zemlinsky, as Le Duc de Vérone in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, and as concert soloist. In 2003 he performed a concert performance of Egon Wellesz' Bakchantinnen as Teiresias at the Salzburg Festival. Guest performances led him to the Hamburgische Staatsoper and Bayerische Staatsoper, the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm, to Prague, to the Teatro alla Scala in Milan and the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, to Madrid, Barcelona and Paris.

Sarastro in Mozart's The Magic Flute, which he sang under Claudio Abbado in the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden in 2005 became his signature role. He played the part in 2007 at the San Francisco Opera, in 2008 at the Theater an der Wien, in 2009 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, in 2011 at the Vienna State Opera and the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, as well as in 2012 at the Teatro Liceu in Barcelona and at the Salzburg Festival.

Zeppenfeld made his debut at the Grand Théâtre de Genève in 2008 as King Heinrich in Lohengrin under the direction of Leif Segerstam. In August 2009 he played King Marke at the Glyndebourne Festival Opera in Tristan und Isolde. At the Bayreuth Festival in 2010 and 2011 Zeppenfeld played Heinrich in Lohengrin, in 2011 Veit Pogner in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, in 2015 and 2016 King Marke in Tristan und Isolde, in 2016 also, Hunding in Die Walküre and Gurnemanz in Parsifal. In December 2011 he took over Peneios in Richard Strauss' Daphne at the Vienna State Opera. In 2013 he sang Steffano Colonna in Wagner's Rienzi (at the Salzburg Festival) for the first time, as well as The Flying Dutchman (in Dresden) and Wassermann in Dvořák's Rusalka (in Munich). In 2013 he was cast as Veit Pogner in Stefan Herheim's enthusiastically received production of the Meistersinger von Nürnberg at the Salzburg Festival. 2014 followed his concertante role debuts as Old Duke in Strauss' Guntram (in Dresden) and as Tirésias in Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex, as well as King Karl in Schubert's Fierrabras – again at the Salzburg Festival. At the Salzburg Easter Festival 2019 he sang Hans Sachs in the Meistersingern von Nürnberg.

Concert
The focus of his international concert activities is on choral orchestral works by Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, as well as the great late romantic oratorios. Zeppenfeld sang with the Munich Philharmonic under Christian Thielemann, the Concentus Musicus Wien under Nikolaus Harnoncourt, the Orchestre National de France and the Teatro alla Scala conducted by Kurt Masur.

In 2003 Zeppenfeld sang in the Hugo Wolf marathon of the Salzburg Festival together with Barbara Bonney, Thomas Hampson, Angelika Kirchschlager and Michael Schade. In 2004 he participated there – again together with Bonney and Hampson, as well as with Michelle Breedt – in the Liederabend Antonín Dvořák und seine Zeit. -->

Discography
There are numerous recordings of Zeppenfeld's work, among them Verdi's Messa da Requiem, published live by Arte from the Dresden Semperoper and on DVD under the direction of Daniele Gatti on the 60th anniversary of the destruction of Dresden. CD recordings were made for Deutsche Grammophon, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, Oehms Classics and others, radio and television productions with Westdeutscher, Mitteldeutscher, Norddeutscher and Bayerischer Rundfunk, Deutschlandfunk, ORF, 3sat, arte, R.T. Svizzera Italiana, Radio France among others.