German bass-baritone Markus Marquardt has established himself in recent years as a sought-after interpreter of both the Italian repertoire and the German Helden-Fach.

A longstanding ensemble member of the Semperoper Dresden, his roles for this house have included Dr. Schön in Lulu, Jochanaan in Salome, Figaro in Le Nozze di Figaro, Leporello in Don Giovanni, Giorgio Germont in La Traviata, Colline in La boheme, Scarpia in Tosca, Orest in Elektra, Peter in Hänsel und Gretel and the title roles in Cardillac, Macbeth and Der Fliegende Holländer.

Elsewhere, he has performed Don Fernando in Fidelio and Doktor in Wozzeck, both at Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Jochanaan in Salome at Vienna State Opera and the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, Wotan in Die Walküre and Nabucco, both at Oper Leipzig, Amonasro in Aida and the title role in Hindemith’s Cardillac at Vienna State Opera, Holländer, the title role in Rigoletto and Wanderer in Siegfried, all at Oper Stuttgart, the title role in Gianni Schicchi at Deutsche Oper am Rhein, the Bauer in Schönberg’s Gurrelieder at the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam and Count Adorno in Schrecker’s Die Gezeichneten at the Opéra de Lyon.

Most recently, Mr Marquardt returned to the Vienna State Opera as Jaroslav Prus in the Makropulos Case, conducted by Jakob Hrůša, to Stuttgart as Rigoletto and Jochanaan and to Leipzig and Dresden as Wotan, where he also gave his debut in the title role in Mathis der Maler.

Highlights in ²⁰¹⁶⁄₁₇ include his house debut at Canadian Opera Company in Toronto as Scarpia, a return to Oper Stuttgart as Rigoletto and Nabucco, and to the Semperoper as Wotan/Rheingold, Wanderer/Siegfried and for role debuts as Alfio in Cavalleria rusticana and Tonio in I Pagliacci.

Markus Marquardt has worked with conductors such as Christian Thielemann, Fabio Luisi, Franz Welser-Möst, Tomas Netopil, Cornelius Meister, Alexander Joel, Sebastian Weigle, Markus Poschner, Ulf Schirmer, Asher Fisch, Peter Schneider, Massimo Zanetti, Michael Boder and stage directors such as Peter Stein, Nikolaus Lehnhoff, Stefan Herheim, Philipp Himmelmann, Peter Mussbach, Richard Jones, Johannes Schaaf, Tatjana Gürbaca, Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito and Achim Freyer.

A native of Düsseldorf, he studied at the Musikhochschule in his home town before joining the ensemble at Oper Stuttgart in 1996.