The bass-baritone Samuel Youn began his vocal studies in Seoul, later completing them in Milan and Cologne.

He launched his career in 1999 at Cologne Opera, where he quickly established himself as one of the leading dramatic bass-baritones of his generation. His roles there included Amonasro (Aida), Tonio (Pagliacci), Kurwenal (Tristan und Isolde), Gunther (Götterdämmerung), Kaspar (Der Freischütz), Don Pizarro (Fidelio), Wanderer (Siegfried), Water Goblin (Rusalka), Leporello (Don Giovanni), Escamillo (Carmen), Méphistophélès (Faust), and the title roles in Der fliegende Holländer and Herzog Blaubarts Burg.

Beyond his engagements in Cologne, he has appeared at many renowned opera houses, including the Paris Opéra (Donner in Das Rheingold), Opéra de Marseille (King Heinrich in Lohengrin, Scarpia in Tosca), Royal Opera House Covent Garden (Scarpia, Créon in Oedipe and Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermoor), Lyric Opera of Chicago (Alberich in Das Rheingold and Siegfried, Tomsky in Pique Dame), Semperoper Dresden (Iago in Otello), Deutsche Oper Berlin (Wanderer, Holländer, Kurwenal, Jochanaan in Salome, Scarpia and Méphistophélès in Damnation de Faust), La Scala in Milan (Spirit Messenger in Die Frau ohne Schatten), Theater an der Wien, Baden-Baden (Alberich), Bavarian State Opera (Spirit Messenger), Teatro Real Madrid (Alberich, Holländer, Orest in Elektra), Teatro La Fenice (Holländer, Don Pizarro), Gran Teatre del Liceu (Gunther, Herald), Teatro di San Carlo Naples (Scarpia), Théâtre du Capitole Toulouse (Four Villains in Les Contes d’Hofmann, Spirit Messenger), Teatro Massimo Palermo (Escamillo), Teatro São Carlo Lisbon (Wanderer), Staatstheater Wiesbaden (Orest, Scarpia, Wotan, Wanderer), and the festivals in Bayreuth (Holländer, Herald) and Edinburgh (Alberich).

Current engagements take him to Dortmund (Hagen) and to the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris (Alberich).