Franz-Josef Selig
The internationally renowned bass, Franz-Josef Selig, has performed at all of the major opera houses in the world, including the Bavarian State Opera, Vienna State Opera, La Scala, Teatro Real Madrid, Paris Opera, and the Metropolitan Opera New York, as well as at renowned festivals such as the Bayreuth, Baden Baden, and Salzburg Festivals, and the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence. His vast repertoire includes the roles of Gurnemanz, König Marke, Sarastro, Rocco, Osmin, Daland, Fiesco, and Fasolt. He has worked with numerous eminent orchestras under the batons of esteemed conductors including Christian Thielemann, Sir Simon Rattle, Marek Janowski, Zubin Mehta, Semyon Bychkov, Riccardo Muti, Yannick Nezét-Séguin, Antonio Pappano, Philippe Jordan, Daniel Harding, and many others. The artist completed his studies in sacred music at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Cologne before making the move to the singing class of Claudio Nicolai. His start in the profession came in the form of a contract as an ensemble member of the Aalto-Theater in Essen, a position he held for six years, before embarking on his freelance career.
He recorded the role of Gurnemanz in Wagner's Parsifal both under Christian Thielemann (Vienna State Opera, released by Deutsche Grammophon) and with Marek Janowski and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin (Pentatone). The DVD of the production Der Ring des Nibelungen (DG production of the Metropolitan Opera New York, 2010) with Franz-Josef Selig as Fasolt received the Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording in 2013. A DVD Der Fliegende Holländer from the Bayreuth Festival from 2013 has also been released (Thielemann/Gloger). Under the title Prometheus (AVI), he unites songs by Schubert, Wolf and Strauss. In July 2015, Deutsche Grammophon released a new recording of Mozart's Entführung aus dem Serail conducted by Yannick Nezét-Séguin (production summer 2014 at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden) and just recently Die Zauberflöte(production spring 2018 at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden) on CD.
