Christof Fischesser
Christof Fischesser grew up in a musical family, received instrumental lessons in early childhood and was a member of several choirs and ensembles. He studied singing with Prof. Martin Gründler at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Frankfurt am Main and won first prize at the national singing competition in Berlin in 2000. As a result, the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe engaged him as a permanent ensemble member and gave him the opportunity to sing great roles in his field such as Mephisto (Mefistofele / Boito) or Figaro (Le nozze di Figaro). In 2004 he moved to the Staatsoper Berlin as a member of the ensemble, and from 2012 to 2015 he was a member of the ensemble at the Zurich Opera House, with which he has enjoyed a particularly close collaboration ever since.
Among the highlights of the 2020/21 season, which was severely limited by Corona, were a new production of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra at Zurich Opera House directed by Andreas Homoki, in which Christof Fischesser appeared as Jacopo Fiesco, or a new production of Der Rosenkavalier by Barrie Kosky at the Bavarian State Opera. Other engagements have taken Christof Fischesser to the Vienna State Opera, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, the Opéra National de Paris, the Teatro Real in Madrid, the Munich State Opera, the Komische Oper Berlin, the Semperoper Dresden, the Opéra de Lyon, the Lyric Opera Chicago and the opera houses of Antwerp, Copenhagen and Gothenburg. He has also appeared at the Salzburg Festival and the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, as well as at the Theater an der Wien.
In the 2021/22 season, Christof Fischesser is looking forward to returning to the Bavarian State Opera as Daland and Ochs, King Heinrich at the Hamburg State Opera and Fiesco at the Zurich Opera House, among others.
His broad repertoire also includes roles such as King Marke (Tristan und Isolde), Veit Pogner (Meistersinger), Orest (Elektra), Landgrave (Tannhäuser), Gurnemanz (Parsifal), Sarastro (Magic Flute), Figaro (Le Nozze di Figaro), Sir Giorgio (Puritani), Rocco (Fidelio), Banco (Macbeth), Conte di Walter (Luisa Miller), Kaspar (Freischütz) or Mephisto (Faust /Gounod).
Christof Fischesser is also in demand internationally as a concert singer and has appeared in Janacek's Glagolitic Mass in Paris under Jukka-Pekka Saraste, with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under Fabio Luisi at the Tonhalle Zurich and the Vienna Konzerthaus, with Daniel Barenboim and his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in Madrid, Seville and Valencia and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra under Claudio Abbado at the Lucerne Festival. Key works such as Beethoven's Missa solemnis, Verdi's Messa da Requiem or Mendelssohn's Elijah are as much part of his repertoire as Brahms' Four Serious Songs. He has also worked with conductors such as Bernard Haitink, Kent Nagano, Antonio Pappano, Philippe Jordan, Yannick-Nézet-Séguin and Kirill Petrenko.
Christof Fischesser's artistic work is documented on numerous CD and DVD releases, including Beethoven's Fidelio conducted by Claudio Abbado, Massenet's Manon under Daniel Barenboim or Wagner's Lohengrin under Kent Nagano.