Franz-Josef Selig
The bass Franz-Josef Selig appears regularly in the roles of Gurnemanz, King Marke, Sarastro, Rocco, Osmin, Daland, Fiesco and Fasolt at all the world’s major opera houses (including the Bavarian State Opera, Vienna State Opera, La Scala Milan, Teatro Real Madrid, the Paris opera houses and the Metropolitan Opera New York) and at renowned festivals such as the Bayreuth and Salzburg Festivals and the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. Renowned orchestras and conductors are among his partners, including Sir Colin Davis, James Levine, Christian Thielemann, Sir Simon Rattle, Marek Janowski, Semyon Bychkov, Riccardo Muti, Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Antonio Pappano, Philippe Jordan, Zubin Mehta and many others.
Numerous audio and video recordings document his extraordinary artistic range from Bach’s Matthäuspassion to Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (Royal Opera London/Sir Colin Davis), Don Giovanni (Vienna State Opera/Riccardo Muti), Le nozze di Figaro (Salzburg Festival/Nikolaus Harnoncourt), Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Gran Teatre del Liceu/Ivor Bolton/Christoph Loy) to L’incoronazione di Poppea (Gran Teatre del Liceu/David Alden/Harry Bicket). He recorded the role of Gurnemanz both under Christian Thielemann (Vienna State Opera, released by Deutsche Grammophon) and with Marek Janowski and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin (Pentatone). The DVD Der Ring des Nibelungen (a production of the Metropolitan Opera New York, released 2010 by DG) with Franz-Josef Selig as Fasolt received the Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording in 2013. Der fliegende Holländer from the Bayreuth Festival (Thielemann/Gloger), was released also in 2013 as DVD.
