Bernhard Landauer
Alto Bernhard Landauer was born in Innsbruck and lives in Salzburg.
Following his first concert and stage experience as soprano soloist with the Boys' Choir of Wilten Monastery (Innsbruck), he studied voice at the Vienna Academy of Music under Helene Karusso and Kurt Equiluz. He received further training from Karl-Heinz Jarius in Frankfurt.
In addition to early music performance, he is particularly interested in the interpretation of literature that is rather unusual for a countertenor. He has performed a number of such works, including Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise, Krämerspiegel by Richard Strauss, Mozart's Requiem, Bernstein's Chichester Psalms and the Three Latin Prayers by Giaccinto Scelsi. Performing world premieres of compositions by Giorgio Battistelli, René Clemencic, Richard Dünser, Alfred Schnittke, Simon Wills and others he has also made Contemporary Music an important part of his work.
Stagings by Philippe Arlaud, Nicolas Brieger, Nick Broadhurst, Brigitte Fassbaender, Achim Freyer, Harry Kupfer and David Pountney have taken him to the Berlin Staatsoper, the Bregenz Festival, Essen's Aalto-Theater, the Frankfurt Opera, the Handel Festival in Halle, the Innsbruck Festival, the Opéra National of Nancy and the Schwetzingen Festival as well as Vienna's Staatsoper and Volksoper.
Among the favourite roles he has sung are Fyodor in Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, Oberon in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Tolomeo in Handel's Giulio Cesare, the Sorceress in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and the Devil in Detlev Glanert's Jest, Satire, Irony.
Among his musical partners are the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra under Ton Koopman, René Clemencic, Laurence Cummings, Bertrand de Billy, Diego Fasolis, the Freiburger Barockorchester, Thomas Hengelbrock, René Jacobs, The King's Consort, Bernhard Kontarsky, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Mstislav Rostropovich.
From 1998 until 2004 Bernhard Landauer has been teaching at the Department of Early Music of Vienna Conservatoire, since 2005 he works for the Austrian Masterclasses.