Michael Leibundgut – bass

Michael Leibundgut has established himself as a specialist in contemporary music, as well as music of the 20th Century. He begins the season 2011-12 with his debut at the Lucerne Festival in Georg Friedrich Haas’ opera Nacht, a production which will later be presented at Gare du Nord in Basel, and he will debut at the Festival Musica in Strasbourg in Benedict Mason’s ChaplinOperas with the Ensemble Modern under Franck Ollu.

His 2010-11 season included a solo recital of songs by Wolfgang Rihm and Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini at Theater Basel, his return to Teatro La Fenice in Venice for Luigi Nono’s Intolleranza 1960 under the baton of Lothar Zagrosek, and his acclaimed debut with Oper Köln in the world premiere of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Sonntag (the final opera of his cycle Licht). Over the past years, world premieres of operas by Gregory Vajda (Zauberberg – Davos Festival), Luca Mosca (Signor Goldoni – Teatro La Fenice),  Aureliano Cattaneo (La philosophie dans le labyrinthe – with the Klangforum Wien at the Biennale München and in the Museumsquartier Wien) and Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini (Wut – Theater Erfurt) have formed the core of his artistic endeavors. In addition, he covered the role of Herr Winkelmann in Haas’ world premiere performance of Melancholia at the Opéra National de Paris and he sang Oberlin in Rihm’s Jakob Lenz in Salzburg and Freiburg. Additional performances have brought him to Teatro lirico Cagliari, the Festival Aix-en-Provence, the Opéra National de Bordeaux and the Opéra de Monte Carlo. He has also interpreted numerous contemporary chamber compositions, most recently triumphing in Stockhausen’s Havona (14th hour of Klang) at the Musiktriennale Köln.

Michael Leibundgut has recorded a CD of Lieder by 20th Century Swiss composers with pianist Ute Stoecklin (“Hesperos”, Guild Music), which was named “CD of the Month” by the British Internet-magazine “MusicWeb”.

Michael Leibundgut studied choral conducting under Hans-Martin Linde at the Music Academy of Basel after completing his Matura. He went on to study voice with Yvonne Prinz (Vienna), Margreet Honig (Amsterdam), Stefan Haselhoff (Basel) and Dennis Heath (Munich). He was a member of the International Opera Studio of the Zurich Opera, after which he was engaged at the Theater St. Gallen, where he sang numerous roles in the classical repertoire.  He participated in master classes and workshops by Samuel Ramey, Peter Konwitschny, Mikael Eliasen, Christa Ludwig and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, and worked with conductors such as Emilio Pomarico, Lucas Vis, Andrea Molino, Roberto Abbado, Peter Kuhn, Kenneth Weiss, Hans-Martin Linde and Joachim Krause.