CHRISTIAN TSCHELEBIEW
bass
Christian Tschelebiew was born in Stuttgart where he studied voice at at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst.
With an extensive repertoire encompassing over 80 roles, he is one of the most sought-after singers in Germany. He began his career as an ensemble member of the Staatstheater Mainz, where he sang roles such as Crespel/Schlemihl in Les contes d’Hoffmann, Sprecher in Die Zauberflöte, Oroveso in Norma, Rocco and Pizarro in Beethoven’s Leonore, Tierbändiger in Lulu and Wurm in Luisa Miller. He subsequently joined the ensembles of theaters in Gießen, Augsburg and Erfurt as well as the Komische Oper Berlin, where he continues to perform on a regular basis.
Guest engagements have brought him to the Staatstheater Stuttgart, Staatstheater Wiesbaden, Staatstheater Darmstadt and Staatstheater Hannover, the Nationaltheater Mannheim, the Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern, theaters in Dortmund, Münster, Lübeck, Aachen, Pforzheim, Wuppertal, Hagen and Ulm, Oper Leipzig as well as Theater St.Gallen, Teatro Carlo Felice Genua, Teatro Massimo Bellini Catania, Teatro Verdi Trieste, National Opera Sofia, Gran Liceu Barcelona, National Theatre of Iceland in Reykjavik and the National Opera of Belarus Minsk. He is also a regular guest at the Schleswig-Holstein-Festival, the Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele, the Rossini Festival Rügen and the Tiroler Festspiele Erl. In 2010, he made his debut as 4. Edler in Lohengrin at the Bayreuther Festspiele, where he has frequently returned in following seasons, most recently as Gralsritter in Parsifal.
His signature roles include Papageno, Don Alfonso, Bartolo (Le nozze di Figaro and Il barbiere di Sivilglia), Basilio (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Rocco (Fidelio and Leonore) Baculus (Der Wildschütz), Van Bett (Zar und Zimmermann) and Ennis del Mar (Brokeback Mountain). He has collaborated with stage directors such as Willy Decker, Peter Konwitschny, Hans Neuenfels, John Dew, Andreas Homoki and Stefan Herheim, as well as conductors such as Kiril Petrenko, Michail Jurowski, Andris Nelsons, Jonathan Nott, Philippe Jordan, Sebastian Weigle and Ralf Weikert.
Most recently, Christian Tschelebiew triumphed as Teufel in Weinberg’s Schwanda der Dudelsackpfeifer, Collatinus in The Rape of Lucretia, and Sarmiento in der Der Schwätzer (n operetta-revue with music by Jacques Offenbach) at the Stadttheater Gießen, sang Truffaldin in Ariadne auf Naxos at the Staatstheater Darmstadt as well as several roles in Shostakovich’s The Nose, Ernst in Attila Kadri Şendil’s childern’s opera Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten, and Polizeikommissar in Der Rosenkavalier, all at the Komische Oper Berlin. In 2021-22, he garnered success as Don Magnifico in La Cenerentola at the Stadttheater Bremerhaven and made his debut at the Luzerner Theater in the roles of Banquo, Gremin, and Collatinus.
In 2022-23, he sings the title role in Bluebeard’s Castle and Baron Ochs in Der Rosenkavalier at the Luzerner Theater as well as Klingsor in Parsifal with the Schweizerische Richard Wagner Gesellschaft in Zurich and Basel.