Bass
Born and educated in Korea, Kwangchul Youn joined the ensemble of the Staatsoper Berlin in 1993. He was a member of this prestigious opera house until to 2004, where he presented a large selection of his wide ranging repertoire. In 2018 he was named “Berliner Kammersänger”.
Mr. Youn’s engagements in the 2018/19 season include Trovatore (Ferrando) at the Bayerische Staatsoper München, Lohengrin (König Heinrich) and Simone Boccanegra at the Wiener Staatsoper, Zauberflöte (Sarastro) and Meistersinger (Pogner) at the Staatsoper Berlin as well as Parsifal (Gurnemanz) at the Staatsoper Hamburg. He will also sing Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 under the baton of Kirill Petrenko in Bregenz.
In recent years, Mr. Youn has been in demand at all the major opera houses across Europe and overseas, such as the Wiener Staatsoper (Faust, Zauberflöte, Parsifal, Don Carlo, Tristan, Tannhäuser), the Staatsoper Berlin (Simon Boccanegra, Lohengrin, Rheingold, Eugen Onegin, Tannhäuser), the Teatro alla Scala (Rheingold, Don Giovanni, Il Trovatore, Fidelio), the Metropolitan Opera (Lucia di Lammermoor, Les Troyens, Maria Stuarda, Don Giovanni, Guillaume Tell), the Bayerische Staatsoper München (Parsifal, Der fliegende Holländer, Tristan und Isolde, Il Trovatore), the Semperoper Dresden (Simon Boccanegra, Lohengrin), the Royal Opera House Covent Garden (Lohengrin, Lucia di Lammermoor), the Gran Teatre del Liceu Barcelona (Tristan und Isolde), the Opéra National de Paris (La Forza del Destino, Luisa Miller, Aida, Rigoletto), the Oper Frankfurt (Don Carlos), Lyric Opera Chicago (Parsifal) and the Teatro Regio Torino (Tannhäuser, Parsifal). He has also performed as a guest at many festivals, such as the Bayreuther Festspiele (Tristan, Parsifal, Die Walküre, Der fliegende Holländer), the Salzburger Festspiele, the Osterfestspiele Salzburg, the Dresdner Musikfestspiele, the Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele, the Ravinia Festival in Chicago, the Klangbogen Wien, and the Beethovenfest Bonn.
Alongside his opera engagements Mr. Youn also performs frequently in concert with well-known orchestras such as the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Wiener Symphoniker, the Radio Symphonie Orchester Berlin, the Accademia Santa Cecilia Roma, the VARA Radio Amsterdam, the Gulbenkian Foundation Lisbon, the Orquestra Sinfònica de Barcelona, the Monte Carlo Orchestre Philharmonie, the orchestra of La Scala Milano, the Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Köln, the NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, the RAI Torino, and at BBC Proms.
Mr. Youn can be heard on such recordings as the Bayreuth Festival’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, under the baton of Daniel Barenboim (Teldec), Croesus with Rene Jacobs (harmonia mundi), Fidelio (Teldec), Le nozze di Figaro, Cosi fan tutte, Don Giovanni and Tiefland under the baton of Bertrand de Billy (Arte Nova), and Daphne with the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln and Semyon Bychkov (Decca; nominated for a Grammy as best Opera Production of 2006).
