Johannes Martin Kränzle - Baritone/Bass
Biography
Before concentrating on singing, the Augsburg born baritone Johannes Martin Kränzle completed his studies in violin and composition (his chamber opera Der Wurm premiered with the Neuköllner Opera in Berlin). As a student of Martin Gründler at the Music Conservatory in Frankfurt am Main, he successfully took part in various singing competitions, before accepting his first engagements in Dortmund and Hanover.
In 1998 he became a member of the Frankfurt Opera, where he first sang Wolfram (Tannhäuser), Don Alfonso (Così fan tutte), Don Pizarro (Fidelio), Tomsky (Pique Dame), Grjaznoi (Die Zarenbraut), Paolo (Simon Boccanegra) and the leading role of Don Giovanni. Here he worked together with directors such as Keith Warner (Death in Venice), Christoph Nel (Meistersinger) and Nicolas Brieger (Henze’s Boulevard Solitude and Das verratene Meer). Other parts of his Frankfurter repertoire are Heerrufer (Lohengrin), Giovanni Morone (Palestrina) and Papageno.
For the 2009/10 season the Cologne Opera has engaged Kränzle for various parts, including the Meistersinger (Beckmesser), Das schlaue Füchslein (Forester) and Duke Bluebeard’s Castle (Bluebeard).
Among his guest performances are the San Francisco Opera (Zauberflöte and Messiaen’s Saint François d’Assise), the Hamburg State Opera (the Count in Figaro), the Bavarian State Opera (Guglielmo, Papageno, the Secretary in Henze’s The Young Lord), Hanover (Billy Budd), Vienna (Menotti’s Consul), Geneva (Korngold’s Tote Stadt and Eisenstein in Strauss’ Fledermaus) and the Salzburg Festival (Valens in Theodora). In numerous productions (Bern, Cologne, Leipzig) the many sided performing artist sang the title role in Offenbach’s Orpheus in der Unterwelt and also played the violin solo.
In addition to opera, Kränzle is devoted to Lieder and oratory singing. He has given concerts at the Schleswig-Holstein Festival, the Dresden Music Festival, the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Paris’ Nôtre Dame, the Cologne Cathedral, the Festival of Vilnius, the Budapest Spring Festival and the Expo 2000 in Hanover. Under the direction of Udo Samels, in 2004 he gave a staged performance of Schubert’s Winterreise in Frankfurt. On the side he regularly teaches as guest professor at Brazilian universities.
Among the roles on his appointment calendar for the coming season are Alberich (Rheingold and Siegfried) with Daniel Barenboim at the Scala in Milan, Alberich (Rheingold) at the Berlin State Opera, Count Danilo (The Merry Widow) and Gunther (Götterdämmerung) at Geneva’s Grand Théâtre, as well as Beckmesser at the Glyndebourne Festival.
Last updated: 01.11.2009© We kindly ask you to seek our approval for any alteration or abbreviation of the biography. Thank you for your kind understanding.