Aria's Artists Management

Olaf Bär - Baritone

Olaf Bär lives in his hometown of Dresden where he continues to guest regularly at the city’s historic Semperoper. As winner of the inaugural Walther Grüner Lieder Competition, Olaf Bär was launched on an international career and has long been regarded as one of the foremost Lieder interpreters of his generation.

In 1985 Olaf Bär began his long association with EMI which produced a discography encompassing most of the core Lieder repertoire: Schumann's Dichterliebe, op 48 and Liederkreis, op 39, Schubert's Die Schöne Müllerin (Gramophone Award winner), Die Winterreise and Schwanengesang, Wolf's Mörike Lieder, Schumann's Kernerlieder op 35 and Liederkreis op 24, all with the late Geoffrey Parsons. His Lieder collections also include Mozart, Brahms and Beethoven, Wolf’s Spanisches and Italienisches Liederbuch, Brahms' Liebeslieder Walzer, Schumann's Spanische Liebeslieder, Lieder, Romanzen und Balladen and Myrthen Lieder.

Other recordings in this artist's extensive discography include Papageno/Die Zauberflöte (Philips), Falke/Die Fledermaus (Philips), Bach's Christmas Oratorio (Gardiner/DG Archiv) and St Matthew Passion (Christus - Solti/Decca and the Arias - Gardiner/DG Archiv), Olivier/Capriccio (Schirmer/Decca), Haydn's Creation (Adam - Muti/Sony), Brahms Requiem (Norrington/EMI), Fauré and Duruflé Requiems (EMI), Speaker/Die Zauberflöte (Norrington/EMI), Bach Cantatas with the SCO (Schreier/Philips), Guglielmo/Cosi fan tutte (Solti/Decca) and Allazim/Zaide (Goodwin/Harmonia Mundi USA).Olaf Bär appears worldwide in recital and has made numerous tours of Australia, Israel, Japan and America.

He made his Covent Garden recital debut in 1992 and is one of the most frequent guests in London's esteemed Wigmore Hall. Equally at home in concert, Bär’s repertoire ranges from the baroque to the contemporary including Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Bach St Matthew Passion, Britten’s War Requiem and Haydn’s Creation and he appears with many of the world's finest orchestras and conductors. Recent highlights including Bach’s Weihnachtsoratorium with the New York Philharmonic, Haydn’s Creation with the Vienna Philharmonic/Muti and Britten’s War Requiem in Munich with Maazel.

Although Olaf Bär’s reputation was originally established as a concert and Lieder singer, he has a large and varied operatic repertoire that includes roles by Wagner (Wolfram, Gunther, Donner, Kurwenal), Weber (Lysiart), Mozart (Count, Don Alfonso, Allazim, Sprecher), Richard Strauss (Count/Olivier, Faninal, Musikmeister) and Korngold (Fritz/Franz). Olaf Bär has performed at Covent Garden (Harlekin, Papageno), La Scala (Papageno), De Nederlands Opera (Count/Capriccio), Vienna State Opera (Harlekin, Olivier), Lyric Opera of Chicago (Papageno), Opera National de Paris (Musikmeister, Sprecher, Faninal) and at the Festivals of Salzburg (Dr Falke), Bayreuth (Gunther, Donner) Aix-en-Provence (Harlekin , Guglielmo), Vienna (Dr Falke, Schubert’s Alfonso und Estrella, Janacek’s From the House of the Dead) and Glyndebourne (Harlekin, Don Giovanni).

His portrayal of Mozart’s Count has been seen in Rome and Zürich, with Sir Colin Davis in Dresden, with Harnoncourt in Amsterdam as well as at Ongaku-Juku Opera Project in Japan, conducted by Seiji Ozawa. Future projects see Olaf Baer return to the opera stages of Paris, Vienna, Dresden, Amsterdam and Tokyo in a repertoire including Capriccio, Hänsel und Gretel, Medée, Tannhäuser, Fledermaus, Ariadne auf Naxos and Euryanthe. In concert and recital, Olaf Baer performs throughout Europe and for the first time with the Sao Paolo Symphony Orchestra and John Neschling in concert performances of Die tote Stadt.
Olaf Baer features as Kurwenal in the current EMI release of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, conducted by Antonio Pappano, with Placido Domingo in the title role.

Artists Management
phone / fax +39 0473 200 200

e-mail: info@arias.it