Rainer Trost
Rainer Trost has been regularly invited to the Munich Opera Festival for several years and is returning this summer to sing Ferrando in “Cosi fan tutte”. He begins his opera season 2010/11 with his debut at Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre as Don Ottavio. An important role debut will be the title role in “Idomeneo” at Komische Oper Berlin. He furthermore continues his close connection to Dresden’s Semperoper by singing Belmonte and Tamino and concludes his season as Leukippos in concert performances of “Daphne” at the Gran Teatre del Liceu Barcelona. His concert calendar includes rarely performed works by Simon Mayr and Weill’s “Berlin Requiem” with the Orchestre National de France, as well as Marienvesper and Christmas Oratorio at the Musikverein in Vienna. At the Edinburgh Festival 2010 he will be singing Arbace in a concert performance of “Idomeneo” and a tour with the Cercle d’Harmonie will take him to Paris, Strasbourg, Poissy and London.
Rainer Trost was born in Stuttgart and studied voice in Munich with Adalbert Kraus. At the age of 26 he made his first international breakthrough, courtesy of John Eliot Gardiner, singing Ferrando in “Cosi fan tutte” in Paris and on tour with the maestro and subsequently recording the role with him for Polydor. This launched him as an internationally sought after Mozart tenor, singing in all important opera houses (Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Opéra Bastille, Palais Garnier and Metropolitan Opera New York, as well as the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the Salzburg Festival).
Among his most important past engagements are Alfonso (in Schubert’s “Alfonso und Estrella“) in Cagliari, Fenton in Munich and at the Vienna State Opera, Flamand (“Capriccio“) in Paris, Tamino in Tokyo, Athens, San Diego and Dresden, David (“Meistersinger“) in Toulouse, Dionysos (“Die Bassariden“) at the Châtelet in Paris, Jaquino with Zubin Mehta at the opening of the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia in October 2006, Leukippos (“Daphne“) in Amsterdam and “La clemenza di Tito“ in Leipzig. In his service to contemporary opera, he created the role of Calogero in the world premiere of Manfred Trojahn’s “La grande magia“ in Dresden and, likewise, created the role of Orsino in the same composer's "Was ihr wollt" in Munich.
On the concert podium Rainer Trost belongs to the most sought after Evangelists of his generation. Highlights of his activity as a concert singer were appearances with the Concertgebouw Orchestra, at the Musikhalle Hamburg, Tonhalle Zürich, Tonhalle Düsseldorf, Musikverein Vienna, Munich Gasteig, Prinzregententheater Munich and Gulbenkian Lisbon. He worked with conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Carlo Maria Giulini, Frans Bruggen, Ton Koopman, Helmut Rilling, Seiji Osawa and Trevor Pinnock.
Besides the afore-mentioned "Cosi fan tutte" with J.E. Gardiner, he has recorded the following CDs: “La clemenza di Tito“ under Sir Charles Mackerras, “The Merry Widow“ under J.E. Gardiner, Mendelssohn’s "Paulus", Beethoven’s "Missa Solemnis" and "Fidelio" (under Sir Simon Rattle) and Schubert’s "Die schöne Müllerin". In September 2008 his newest CD was released in the “Schubert‘s Friends“- series for Naxos Records. Accompanied by Ulrich Eisenlohr he is singing songs by Franz Schubert. MusicWeb International has written of this all-Schubert recording: “The tenor sings with a glow and a plangent tone that recalls Fritz Wunderlich“.
