The Swiss tenor Rolf Romei has been singing the great tenor roles in his field for many years: LOHENGRIN, PARSIFAL, HOFFMANN, FAUST, IDOMENEO, PETER GRIMES, Lenski in EUGEN ONEGIN, Prince in RUSALKA, Leukippos in DAPHNE, most recently Michael in Stockhausen’s DONNERDSTAG AUS LICHT or Paul in Korngold’s DIE TOTE STADT. In addition, Rolf Romei also appeared as Jimmy / Young Man / AMERICAN LULU at the Theater an der Wien, in Wagner’s RHEINGOLD at the Ruhrtriennale, or, by invitation from Calixto Bieito, the solo tenor in the staged version of Britten’s WAR REQUIEM in Bilbao. For his guest appearance as Manolios at the Graz Opera House in Martinus THE GREEK PASSION, he was widely acclaimed by the audience and in the press and the recording, which was released by Oehms Classic, received the German Record Critics’ Prize and appeared on their best list in March 2017.
Rolf made his debut in spring 2018 as part of the international music festival in Kampnagel Hamburg with Stockhausen’s THURSDAY FROM LIGHT under the direction of Peter Eötvös. Recent engagements at his parent company, the Theater Basel, include his role debuts as Aegisth in ELEKTRA, Marquis in THE GAMBLER, Pelléas in PELLÉAS ET MÉLISANDE, Percy Shelley in DIOTATI.UNEDNLICH by Michael Wertmüller and the sea witch in ANDERSENS ERZÄHLUNGEN, two world premieres that were celebrated internationally.
Future assignments include Le Lépreux in Messiaens ST. FRANÇOIS D’ASSISE, Giove, Pisandro and Fortuna in Monteverdi’s IL RITORNO D’ULISSE IN PATRIA and the MOZART REQUIEM in Basel as well as Paul in DIE TOTE STADT at the Enescu Festival 2021 in Bucharest.In addition to the stage, Rolf Romei has a lively concert activity. Thanks to his wide-ranging repertoire, he is in demand as an interpreter of new music as well as as a soloist in great oratorios and with chamber music. For example, he stepped at the Lucerne Festival in Mozart’s DAVIDE PENITENTE and as an evangelist in Bach’s JOHANNESPASSION, in the Zurich Tonhalle in Britten’s WAR REQUIEM, in the Berlin Philharmonie with Martins GOLGOTHA and in Lisbon with Dvorak’s STABAT MATER. Under Helmuth Rilling he sang Penderecki’s CREDO, Schubert’s MESSE IN AS-DUR, Bach’s B-MOLL-MESSE and Haydn’s CREATION and recorded Mozart’s C-MOLL-MESSE for Swiss radio with Michel Corboz. Since the spring of 2016 he has also been able to count Mahler’s LIED VON DER ERDE in his repertoire.
Rolf Romei studied in Winterthur and Karlsruhe and has won several national and international competitions and sponsorship awards. In 1999 he was awarded the Swiss Culture Prize. He received important singing impulses as a private student from Nicolai Gedda. At the beginning of his career he was firmly engaged as a lyric tenor in St.Gallen and Augsburg as well as at the State Theater Oldenburg, guest contracts took him to the opera houses of Stuttgart, Darmstadt, Bern, Aachen, Wuppertal, Würzburg, Düsseldorf, Graz and the Komische Oper Berlin , the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, the Teatro Real in Madrid, as well as the Edinburgh Festival and the Ruhrtriennale.
