PI0TR BECZALA, Tenor:

Singing the role of the Prince in Dvoraks "Rusalka" for the first time on stage with Salzburg Festival, Piotr Beczala is adding another important part to his repertoire. He already made his sensational role debut as Riccardo in Verdi's "Un ballo in maschera" with the Berlin State Opera at the beginning of this year being enthusiastically celebrated by both audience and press. Throughout the last few years he has made his debuts with some of the leading opera houses of the world with equal success (Metropolitan Opera New York, Teatro alla Scala di Milan, Bavarian State Opera Munich, Teatr Wielki Warszaw, a. o.) and appeared with guest-performances at numerous other venues (Vienna State Opera, Salzburg Festival, Berlin Deutsche Oper, Zurich Opera, Royal Opera House Covent Garden London, San Francisco Opera as well as Bilbao and Tokyo). With the title-roles of Massenet's "Werther" and Gounod's "Faust", as Alfredo in Verdi's "La Traviata", Duca di Mantova in "Rigoletto", Riccardo in "Un ballo in maschera", Edgardo in Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor", Don Ottavio in Mozart's "Don Giovanni" and Lensky in Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin" Piotr Beczala has established himself woldwide as one of the most outstanding lyric tenors of our time. Within season 2008-2009 he will return to the Met as Edgardo, Duca and Lensky, San Francisco and Munich will hear him sing Rodolfo in Puccini's "La Bohème", Vienna as Faust, Berlin as Riccardo, Zurich as Duca and Alfredo as well as London and Birmingham with Verdi's "Requiem". At Madrid's Teatro Real he will be heard for the first time with the title-part in Berlioz' "La damnation de Faust" when making his debut with this company.

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 Metropolitan 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), Riccardo ("Un ballo in maschera"/Verdi), Edgardo ("Lucia di Lammermoor"/Donizetti), Rodolfo ("La Bohème"/Puccini), "Werther" (Massenet), "Faust" (Gounod), Prince ("Rusalka"/Dvorak), Lensky ("Eugene Onegin"/Tchaikovsky), Vaudémont ("Iolanta"/ Tchaikovsky), Jenik ("The Bartered Bride"/Smetana), Shepard ("Krol Roger"/Szymanowski), Tamino ("The Magic Flute"/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 title-roles in "La damnation de Faust" (Berlioz), "Roméo et Juliette" (Gounod) and "Les contes d'Hoffmann" (Offenbach) a. o.

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"/Janacek), Synodal ("The Demon"/Rubinstein), Walther von der Vogelweide ("Tannhäuser"/Wagner), Arnim von Grübben ("Simplicius"/Joh. Strauß), Matteo ("Arabella"/R. Strauss), Elvino ("La Sonnambula"/Bellini) and Belmonte ("The Abduction from the Seraglio"/Mozart). 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", Dvorak'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, Ji?í B?lohlávek, 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, Patrick Fournillier, 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'), Dvorak'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 Songs by Karol Szymanowski ('Channel Classics'). Piotr Beczala's first recital named "Salut" and containing French and Italian arias was released by 'Orfeo' in 2008 being highly appreciated by the international press.

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'), from the Opéra National de Paris "The Magic Flute" ('TDK') as well as from Berlin's Deutsche Oper the Aids-Gala-Concert 2007 ('Arthaus').

August 2008