The Italian-born German baritone, Armin Kolarczyk, grew up bilingual. In 1986 he completed his violin studies at the Conservatory of Trento, his hometown. A year later he began studying singing with Ada Zapperi in Munich, attended master-classes with Erik Werba, Giuseppe Taddei and others and studied law up to the first state examination at the University of Innsbruck.
Armin Kolarczyk's first engagement took him to the Südostbayerische Städtetheater. In 1997 he moved to the Theater Bremen, where he sang the major roles in his field, from W.A. Mozart's Count Almaviva, Don Giovanni and Papageno to Rossini's Barber of Seville and Verdi's Germont. He has been working at the Staatstheater Karlsruhe since 2007. Here he not only celebrated successes in the great roles of Verdi and Wagner, including Wolfram in Tannhäuser, Beckmesser in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Kurwenal in Tristan, Donner in Rheingold, Gunther in Götterdämmerung, Posa in Don Carlo, Francesco in den Räubern, Iago in Otello and with the title role in Simon Boccanegra, but also as Orest in Gluck's Iphigenie auf Tauris, Belcore in L'elisir d'amore, Obertal in Der Prophet, Escamillo in Georges Bizet's Carmen, the Black Violinist in Delius' Romeo and Juliet in the Village, Oppenheimer in Dr. Atomic, Wagner Demon in Wahnfried and Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady, Förster in Schlauen Füchslein, Ottokar in Freischütz and Duke of Nottingham in Roberto Devereux. In the 2022-2023 season he will be seen at the Staatstheater Karlsruhe as Danilo in Die Lustige Witwe, Marcello in La Bohème, Moralès in Carmen and Heger in Rusalka, among others.
Regular guest appearances took Armin Kolarczyk to theaters such as Essen, Cologne, Innsbruck, Copenhagen and Helsinki. In 2017 he celebrated his debut at the Bayreuth Festival in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, for which he is also engaged in 2018 and 2019. In addition to his performances in musical theater, he is passionate about singing Lieder. He regularly gives recitals with his pianists Jeannette LaDeur and Stefan Veselka. Various Lieder recitals have been released on CD.
With their Lieder program about the Karlsruhe composer Margarete Schweikert, Armin Kolarczyk and Jeannette LaDeur were invited to the Russian twin city of Krasnodar as Karlsruhe's cultural ambassadors on the occasion of the city's birthday in October 2015. In addition, he regularly performs as a soloist in opera and oratorio concerts as well as in contemporary music concerts. In November 2015 he was awarded the title Kammersänger by the state of Baden-Württemberg. |