Kristinn Sigmundsson

Among Kristinn Sigmundsson’s engagements in the 2010/11 season is a new production of “Nabucco” at the Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen in which he is singing Zaccaria, immediately followed by König Heinrich in Los Angeles, a role he will also be singing at the Munich Opera Festival in 2011. At Deutsche Oper Berlin he is involved in their new production of “Tristan und Isolde” as König Marke, and he concludes the season singing Kecal in “The Bartered Bride” at the Teatro Lirico in Cagliari. In concert he will appear in Florence, Glasgow, Budapest, Denver and New York.

Among his future plans are “Fidelio“ in Houston, “Tristan“ in Dallas, “Zauberflöte“ and “Lohengrin“ in San Francisco, as well as “Tannhäuser“ in Tokyo.

He regularly sings at the world's greatest opera houses: The MET, Covent Garden, L'Opéra National de Paris, where he has very nearly sung his entire repertoire, Vienna State Opera, Munich State Opera and the Semperoper Dresden. His broad repertoire extends from Don Basilio over Zaccaria to Gurnemanz. Recent engagements include: Il Commendatore in Munich, Berlin and New York; Baron Ochs and Vodnik in “Rusalka“ at the MET; Gurnemanz in Cologne and Florence; King Heinrich in Madrid; Hunding at the MET, in Naples, Venice and Cologne; Landgraf in Geneva and Amsterdam; Méphistophélès, King Marke, Sparafucile, Il Commendatore and Baron Ochs in San Francisco; Raimondo (“Lucia di Lammermoor”) in Munich; Sarastro in Houston and Chile.

His concert repertoire is extensive, as is his international concert experience. He has worked with many of the world's best known conductors: James Levine, Riccardo Muti, Sir Colin Davis, Bernard Haitink, Sir Charles Mackerras, Christoph von Dohnányi, Jeffrey Tate, Christoph Eschenbach, Ivor Bolton and Marc Minkowski.

Recordings include: “Don Giovanni” (Il Commendatore) and “Die Zauberflöte” (Sarastro) with Arnold Östman for DECCA and Schreker's “Die Gezeichneten” for Deutsche Grammophon. With Frans Brueggen, for Phillips, he has recorded both the Johannespassion and the Matthäuspassion; Schumann’s Faustszenen for Harmonia Mundi with Philippe Herreweghe; and Rocco with the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Colin Davis.

In the early part of his career he performed principally in his native Iceland, before joining the Hessische Staatstheater in Wiesbaden. His initial training was as a biologist and he taught for a few years before becoming a singer, studying first at the Reykjavik Academy of Singing and then at the Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna, Austria.