Tannhäuser

Christof Fischesser studied singing in Frankfurt am Main. In 2000, he won first prize at the Federal Singing Competition in Berlin, after which he was engaged at the Staatstheater Karlsruhe. In 2004, he moved to the Berlin State Opera, and from 2012 to 2015, he was a member of the ensemble at the Zurich Opera House, with which he has maintained a close collaboration ever since. He has also appeared as a guest at the Vienna State Opera, the Royal Opera House London, the Opéra Bastille Paris, Teatro Real Madrid, the Munich State Opera, Komische Oper Berlin, Semperoper Dresden, Opéra de Lyon, Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse, Houston Grand Opera, Lyric Opera Chicago, as well as the opera houses of Antwerp, Copenhagen, and Gothenburg.

His wide-ranging repertoire includes roles such as King Marke (“Tristan und Isolde”), Landgrave (“Tannhäuser”), King Heinrich (“Lohengrin”), Gurnemanz (“Parsifal”), Sarastro (“Die Zauberflöte”), Figaro (“Le nozze di Figaro”), Rocco (“Fidelio”), Banquo (“Macbeth”), Mephisto (“Faust”), and Baron Ochs von Lerchenau (“Der Rosenkavalier”). Numerous CDs and DVDs document his artistic work, such as Beethoven’s “Fidelio” conducted by Claudio Abbado (with Nina Stemme and Jonas Kaufmann), Massenet’s “Manon” under Daniel Barenboim (with Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón), and Wagner’s “Lohengrin” conducted by Kent Nagano (with Anja Harteros and Jonas Kaufmann).

In Zurich, he has performed roles including King Heinrich, Orestes (“Elektra”), Kaspar, Daland, Gremin, Gurnemanz (“Parsifal”), Il Marchese di Calatrava, Padre Guardiano (“La forza del destino”), Hunding (“Die Walküre”), and Jacopo Fiesco (“Simon Boccanegra”).

Eric Cutler, born in Iowa, completed his studies at Luther College and the Lindemann Young Artists Development Program at the Met. In 2005, he won the Tucker Award. He appears at international opera houses including the New York Met, the Bavarian State Opera, the Royal Opera House in London, the Paris Opera, La Fenice in Venice, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome, the Canadian Opera Company, the Santa Fe Opera, as well as at the Salzburg and Glyndebourne festivals. After beginnings in the Mozart and Bel Canto repertoire as well as lyrical roles by Bellini, Donizetti, Bizet, and Gounod at, among others, the New York Met, the Bavarian State Opera Munich, the Royal Opera House, the Paris Opera, and the Salzburg and Glyndebourne festivals, he now especially sings roles of the youthful heroic fach. Recent highlights include the Emperor in Richard Strauss’s “Die Frau ohne Schatten” (Semperoper Dresden), Florestan in “Fidelio” (Dutch National Opera & Ballet), Max in Weber’s “Der Freischütz,” and Erik in “Der fliegende Holländer” (Bavarian State Opera). The latter he also sang in 2023 in New York in a co-production of the Met with the Abu Dhabi Festival and the Opéra de Québec. Earlier highlights included the title role in Offenbach’s “Les Contes d’Hoffmann” (Brussels and Dresden) and Bacchus in “Ariadne auf Naxos” (Festival d’Aix-en-Provence). At the Zurich Opera House, he was most recently seen as Siegmund in “Die Walküre” and returned in 2025 as Paul in Korngold’s “Die tote Stadt.”

Recent engagements led Christina Nilsson to her debuts at the Bayreuth Festival as Freia (“Das Rheingold”) and Third Norn (“Götterdämmerung”), as Elisabeth (“Tannhäuser”) and Aida at the opera houses in Frankfurt (Main) and Berlin. She also made her role debut as Chrysothemis (“Elektra”) at the Royal Opera Stockholm and debuted as Aida at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Other important engagements include Rosalinde (“Die Fledermaus”) at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich as well as Aida at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London and the Semperoper Dresden. The Swedish soprano achieved her international breakthrough in the 2017/18 season as Aida at the Royal Opera Stockholm, where she subsequently performed numerous major roles such as Tosca, Ariadne, and Countess Almaviva (“Le nozze di Figaro”). On the concert stage, Christina Nilsson recently sang Schoenberg’s “Gurre-Lieder” under Alan Gilbert with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, Verdi’s Requiem under Andres Orozco-Estrada with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, and Beethoven’s 9th Symphony under Alan Gilbert with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. The multiple award-winning soprano completed her vocal studies at the University College of Opera in Stockholm. In summer 2025, she will sing Eva in “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” for the first time at the Bayreuth Festival under the musical direction of Daniele Gatti.

Rachael Wilson, an American mezzo-soprano, studied at the Juilliard School and was a member of the opera studio at the Bavarian State Opera, where she joined the ensemble in 2015. She made her professional debut in 2012 at Carnegie Hall as a soloist in Vivaldi’s Gloria. Since 2019, she has been a member of the Stuttgart State Opera ensemble. In the 2021/22 season, she made her role debut as Fricka (Das Rheingold) there and sang, among others, the title role in Vivaldi’s Juditha Triumphans as well as Charlotte (Werther). In the same season, she debuted at Teatro Real in Madrid as Cherubino (Le nozze di Figaro) and also performed this role at the Bavarian State Opera. Furthermore, she portrayed Kay in The Snow Queen at the Opéra national du Rhin and sang the role in a concert performance with the Dutch Radio Orchestra under Kent Nagano at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam. Her repertoire also includes the title role in Bizet’s Carmen, Hänsel (Hänsel und Gretel), Dorabella (Così fan tutte), and Fatime (Weber’s Oberon), for which she won the Bavarian Festival Prize. Her concert activities have taken her to the Philadelphia Kimmel Center with Rossini’s Petite Messe solennelle and to Avery Fisher Hall with Handel’s Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno. In the 2022/23 season, she has performed Charlotte in Stuttgart, given a song recital at the Ruhrtriennale, appeared as Bianca in a concert performance of Zemlinsky’s Eine florentinische Tragödie with the Munich Radio Orchestra, and performed as Balkis (Barkouf) at the Zurich Opera House.

Christian Gerhaher studied medicine and singing and completed his training with masterclasses by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, and Inge Borkh. During his studies, he formed a close partnership with pianist Gerold Huber. For more than 30 years, the duo has set standards in song interpretation. Collaborations with conductors such as Daniel Barenboim, Herbert Blomstedt, Bernard Haitink, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Mariss Jansons, Andris Nelsons, Antonio Pappano, Kirill Petrenko, Simon Rattle, and Christian Thielemann have taken him to orchestras including the London Symphony Orchestra and the Vienna Philharmonic. He is a regular guest at festivals in Edinburgh, Lucerne, Salzburg, the Rheingau Music Festival, and the BBC Proms. His most important opera roles include Wolfram (Tannhäuser), Posa (Don Carlo), Germont (La traviata), Il Conte di Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro), Orfeo, Don Giovanni, Simon Boccanegra, Pelléas, Henze’s Prinz von Homburg, and Lenau in Holliger’s Lunea. His portrayal of Wozzeck at the Zurich Opera House is considered a milestone. Together with Gerold Huber, he has released song cycles by Schubert and Mahler. Their recording Robert Schumann: Alle Lieder was awarded an OPUS Klassik in 2022. Most recently, he released Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde in the piano version as well as his first book, Lyrisches Tagebuch, a compendium on song interpretation. Christian Gerhaher is a professor of song interpretation at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich and teaches at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

Andrew Moore, bass-baritone, is from New Jersey. He studied at Rutgers University and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. In 2017, he was a finalist in the New Jersey State Opera Alfredo Silipigni Competition and in the same year sang the baritone part in Fauré’s Requiem with the New Jersey Chamber Singers. In 2018, he participated in the Merola Opera Program in San Francisco, where he sang in the Schwabacher Summer Concert and The Rake’s Progress. In 2019, he was a participant in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and reached the New England Regional Finals, where he was awarded the Susan Eastman Encouragement Award. That same year, he appeared at Santa Fe Opera in productions of La Bohème, Così fan tutte, and Jenůfa. Further appearances included Vicar (Albert Herring), Fiorello (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Talpa (Il tabarro), Figaro (Le nozze di Figaro), Guglielmo (Così fan tutte), Rocco (Fidelio), L’Arbre (L’Enfant et les sortilèges), and Adonis (Venus und Adonis). From 2020 to 2022, he was a member of the International Opera Studio, where he sang Mamma Agata in Viva la mamma, Gouverneur (Le Comte Ory), Masetto in Don Giovanni, and the title role in Die Odyssee. Since the 2022/23 season, he has been part of the ensemble at the Opernhaus Zürich. In the 2024/25 season, he will perform as Paolo Albiani (Simon Boccanegra), Max (In 80 Tagen um die Welt), Don Fernando (Fidelio), Paqui / Vertreter (Das grosse Feuer), and Marullo (Rigoletto) in Zürich.

Johan Krogius began his musical training in the boys’ choir of the Cathedral Choir Cantores Minores in Helsinki. He later studied at the Conservatory and at the Metropolia University of Applied Sciences in Helsinki, as well as at the Stockholm University of the Arts. In 2021, he won the Timo Mustakallio Singing Competition and was also awarded first prize at the Helsinki Lied Competition. On the opera stage, he has appeared in roles such as Jaquino (Fidelio), Pong (Turandot) in Helsinki, First Man in Joonas Kokkonen’s The Last Temptations at the Jyväskylä Opera, Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni) at the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki, and as Tamino (Die Zauberflöte) at Tampere Opera, as well as recently at the Savonlinna Opera Festival, where in 2024 he also sang Don Ottavio and Ismaele (Nabucco). During the 2022/23 and 2023/24 seasons, he was a member of the International Opera Studio of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, where he appeared in roles including Leukippos in Strauss’s Daphne, Streshnev in Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina, Tamino, First Armored Man and First Priest (Die Zauberflöte), as well as the Innkeeper and the Major-Domo (Der Rosenkavalier), Trojan (Idomeneo), Parpignol (La bohème) and Borsa (Rigoletto). In the summer of 2024, he also performed as Kuzka (Khovanshchina) with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Esa-Pekka Salonen in Helsinki and Stockholm. In the 2024/25 season, he made his debut as Tybalt (Roméo et Juliette), the Young Man’s Apparition (Die Frau ohne Schatten) and First Knight of the Grail (Parsifal) at the Staatsoper Berlin.

Nathan Haller is from Canada and studied voice at the Juilliard School in New York. In 2013, he participated in the International Meistersinger Academy. From 2015 to 2017, he was a member of the OperAvenir studio at Theater Basel, where he appeared as Tamino (Die Zauberflöte), Romeo in Blacher’s Romeo und Julia, in the world premiere of Melancholia by Sebastian Nübling and Ives Thuwis, as Enoch Snow (Carousel), and as Oronte in Alcina. In 2016, he sang Belmonte (Die Entführung aus dem Serail) at the Akko Opera Festival in Israel. On the concert stage, he has performed at the New York Festival of Song in Carnegie Hall, with the Russian Chamber Philharmonic St. Petersburg, in La Resurrezione under William Christie, and with Masaaki Suzuki in Boston, New York, Leipzig, and London. In the 2017/18 season, he appeared at Neue Oper Wien as François in Leonard Bernstein’s A Quiet Place; in 2018/19, he sang Count Albert (Die tote Stadt) with the Nederlandse Reisopera and appeared in Die Gezeichneten and as Albazar in Il turco in Italia at Zurich Opera, where in the 2020/21 season he also performed the title role in Mitterer’s Das tapfere Schneiderlein. Since the 2021/22 season, Nathan Haller has been a member of the ensemble at Zurich Opera House and has appeared there as Telemachos in the world premiere of Die Odyssee, Sir Hervey (Anna Bolena), Count Elemer (Arabella), Bardolfo (Falstaff), Pedrillo (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), First Jew (Salome), Triquet (Eugene Onegin), and Gobin / Adolfo (La rondine). He also sang Lysander (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) at Malmö Opera in 2021 and Pong (Turandot) at Deutsche Oper am Rhein in 2023.

Brent Michael Smith is from the USA. He studied voice at the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia and the University of Northern Iowa, as well as piano at Hope College. In 2021, he won 3rd prize at the Concorso Lirico Internazionale di Portofino, was a finalist at the Queen Sonja International Music Competition, and received the Zachary L. Loren Society scholarship. In 2020, he was a semifinalist at the Metropolitan Opera Council Auditions; in 2018, he won prizes at the Opera Index Competition and the Opera Birmingham International Competition, as well as awards at the Giargiari Bel Canto Competition. In the 2016/17 season, he sang Zuniga (Carmen), the British Major (Silent Night by Kevin Puts), Friedrich Bhaer (Little Women), and Ashby (La fanciulla del West) at the Michigan Opera Theatre. In the same season, he made his debut at the Toledo Opera as Antonio (Le nozze di Figaro) and at the Glimmerglass Festival as Ariodante (Xerxes). At the Santa Fe Opera, he appeared as a Lackey (Ariadne auf Naxos). At Opera Philadelphia, he sang Celio (The Love for Three Oranges) and Peter Quince (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) in 2019. After a season at the International Opera Studio, he has been a member of the Opernhaus Zürich ensemble since 2020/21, where he has performed roles in Boris Godunow, Simon Boccanegra, I Capuleti e i Montecchi, in the ballet Monteverdi, as Sparafucile (Rigoletto), Count Lamoral (Arabella), Raimondo Bidebent (Lucia di Lammermoor), Pistola (Falstaff), Angelotti (Tosca), Gualtiero Raleigh (Roberto Devereux), Gremin (Eugene Onegin), Friar Laurence (Roméo et Juliette), and Fafner (Das Rheingold).

Sylwia Salamońska, soprano, studied with Wojciech Maciejowski in Poznań. During her studies, she performed roles such as Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro), Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), Lauretta (Gianni Schicchi), and Zosia (Stanisław Moniuszko’s The Spectres). In the 2023/24 season, she was part of the Opera Academy Young Talent Development Programme at the Polish National Opera in Warsaw, where she made her debut as First Companion of Dirce in Luigi Cherubini’s Medea. She also sang Frasquita (Carmen) at the Baltic Opera in Gdańsk. In 2024, she appeared alongside Luca Pisaroni at the “Stars and Rising Stars” Festival in Munich. She is a prizewinner of numerous international competitions, including the Halina Słonicka International Singing Competition in Poland (1st prize), the 21st Juventus Canti International Singing Competition in Vráble, Slovakia (3rd prize and special award), the Riccardo Zandonai International Singing Competition in Riva del Garda (finalist), and the Mikuláš Schneider-Trnavský International Singing Competition in Trnava, Slovakia (finalist). From the 2024/25 season, Sylwia Salamońska will be a member of the International Opera Studio at the Zurich Opera House.