just made his sensational role debut as Riccardo in Verdi's "Un ballo in maschera" with the Berlin State Opera in January of this years where he was enthusiastically celebrated by both audience and press. Already the last two years contained a series of outstandingly successful appearances with leading opera houses of the world for this artist: He performed as Alfredo in Verdi's "La Traviata" for the very first time with both the Bavarian State Opera in Munich as well as with Berlin's Deutsche Oper and in Tokyo. He sang the role of Duca di Manotova in Verdi's "Rigoletto" when appearing for the first time at Milan's Teatro alla Scala, at the Teatr Wielki in Warsaw and when making his brilliant debut with the New York Metropolitan Opera. He had already made his US-stage debut in 2004 as Lensky in Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin" with the San Francisco Opera where he returned as Tamino last year. At the Frankfurt Opera and in Munich he was frenetically acclaimed for his portrayal of the title role of Massenet's "Werther", he sang the role of Don Ottavio in Mozart's "Don Giovanni" within a new production at the Zurich Opera as well as with Salzburg Festival. He returned to London's Royal Opera House Covent Garden singing Gounod's "Faust" (after having caused much furore at this opera house already previously with this role and as Duca). Zurich, Bilbao and Munich heard him sing in Verdi's "Rigoletto" recently too. In 2007 he added Edgardo in Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor" to his repertoire in Zurich; singing this role he will return to the New York Met in autumn 2008. Piotr Beczala has established himself as one of the most outstanding lyric tenors of our time giving numerous most successful performances at leading musical venues during the last years.

Piotr Beczala has been mostly performing with the following theatres: De Nederlandse Opera Amsterdam, Théâtre Royal La Monnaie in Brussels, Opéra National de Paris, Bilbao Opera, Cologne Opera, Hamburg State Opera, Frankfurt Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Berlin State Opera Unter den Linden, Vienna State Opera, Zurich Opera, Grand Théâtre in Geneva, Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Megaron in Athens, Teatr Wielki Warsaw, Royal Opera House Covent Garden London and the San Francisco Opera and Metropplitan Opera New York. Furthermore guest appearances led him regularly to the most important international festivals: Salzburg Festival, Vienna Festival Weeks, Vienna Klangbogen Festival, Styriarte Graz, Bad Kissingen Festival, Zurich Festival, Lucerne Festival, Montpellier Festival, a. o. Concert engagements made him appear at the Berlin Philharmonic Hall, Munich Philharmonic Hall, the Munich Herkulessaal, the Vienna Musikverein, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Zurich Tonhalle, the KKL Lucerne, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Moscow Tchaikovsky-Conservatory and at the Severance Hall in Cleveland.

Piotr Beczala's stage repertoire consists mostly of the lyric tenor roles of the canonic operatic repertoire: Alfredo ("La Traviata"/Verdi), Duca di Mantova ("Rigoletto"/Verdi), Edgardo ("Lucia di Lammermoor"/Donizetti), Rodolfo ("La Bohème"/Puccini), "Werther" (Massenet), "Faust" (Gounod), Lensky ("Jevgeny Onegin"/Tchaikovsky), Vaudémont ("Iolanta"/ Tchaikovsky), Jenik ("The Bartered Bride"/Smetana), Shepard ("Krol Roger"/Szymanowski), Tamino ("The Magic Flute"/Mozart), Belmonte ("The Abduction from the Seraglio"/Mozart), Don Ottavio ("Don Giovanni"/Mozart), Orombello ("Beatrice di Tenda"/Bellini), Italian Singer ("Der Rosenkavalier"/R. Strauss) and Camille de Rosillon ("The Merry Widow"/Lehár). Upcoming new challenges include the Prince ("Rusalka"/Dvorak), Faust ("Damnation de Faust"/Berlioz), Roméo ("Roméo et Juliette"/Gounod) as well as Verdi's "Don Carlo".

Born in Southern Poland Piotr Beczala received his first vocal education in Kattowice. Among his vocal teachers one will find names like Jan Ballarin, Pavel Lisizian, Sena Jurinac and Dale Fundling. After his first engagement at the Landestheater Linz (Austria) he switched to the Zurich Opera in 1997 where he sang - besides the already mentioned parts - numerous further roles: Tristan ("Le Vin Herbé"/Martin), Steva ("Jenufa"/Janácek), Synodal ("The Demon"/Rubinstein), Walther von der Vogelweide ("Tannhäuser"/Wagner), Arnim von Grübben ("Simplicius"/Joh. Strauß), Matteo ("Arabella"/ Richard Strauss) and Elvino ("La Sonnambula"/Bellini). After being a permanent member of the Zurich Opera for some years Piotr Beczala remained closely associated to this company.

His wide concert repertoire ranges from Mozart's, Cherubini's and Schubert's sacred music, Haydn's oratorios, Beethoven's "Missa Solemnis", Schumann's "Paradies und die Peri", Rossini's "Stabat Mater" and "Petite Messe Solennelle", Berlioz’s "Roméo et Juliette" and "Requiem", Bruckner's "Te Deum", Dvorák's "Stabat Mater" and "Requiem" and Brahms's "Rinaldo" to Verdi's "Messa da Requiem" as well as Mahler's "Das Lied von der Erde" and "Das klagende Lied".

In concert and opera Piotr Beczala has worked closely with numerous renown conductors: Gerd Albrecht, Maurizio Benini, Bertrand de Billy, Michael Boder, Ivor Bolton, Richard Bonynge, Frans Brüggen, Semyon Bychkov, Sylvain Cambreling, Paolo Carignani, Sir Andrew Davis, Edo de Waart, Plácido Domingo, Vladimir Fedosejev, Ivan Fischer, Michael Gielen, Carlo Mario Giulini, Hartmut Haenchen, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Philippe Herreweghe, Marek Janowski, Mariss Jansons, Philippe Jordan, Michail Jurowski, Vladimir Jurowski, Ton Koopman, Zubin Mehta, Ingo Metzmacher, Riccardo Muti, Kent Nagano, Renato Palumbo, Antonio Pappano, Trevor Pinnock, Donald Runnicles, Nello Santi, Peter Schneider, Martin Sieghart, Christian Thielemann, Marcello Viotti, Franz Welser Möst and Alberto Zedda. In the future he will also be working with James Levine and Nicola Luisotti.

On CD the artist can be heard on the following recordings: Mozart's "The Abduction from the Seraglio" ('Oehms Classics'), Dvorák's "Svatá Ludmila" ('Orfeo'), "Simplicius" ('Emi'), Offenbach's "Die Rheinnixen" and Szymanowski's "Krol Roger" ('Accord'), Tchaikovsky's "Iolanta" ('Relief'), Verdi's "La Traviata" ('Farao Classics'), Berlioz’s "Roméo et Juliette" (Edition ‘Hänssler') , Lehár's "The Land of Smiles" ('CPO') as well as on a recital CD with songs by Karol Szymanowski ('Channel Classics'). Piotr Beczala recorded his first aria recital with excerpts from French and Italian most recently which will be released by 'Orfeo'.

The following DVD-productions are available: From the Zurich Opera "Simplicius", "The Merry Widow", "La Traviata" and "Rigoletto" (all on 'Arthaus') "The Magic Flute" ('TDK'), "The Abduction from the Seraglio" ('Bel Air Media') and "Don Giovanni" ('EMI'), from Salzburg Festival 2004 resp. 2006 "Der Rosenkavalier" ('TDK') and "Don Giovanni" ('Decca') as well as from the Opéra National de Paris "The Magic Flute" ('TDK').

February 2008