The German baritone, Jochen Kupfer, has been studying voice regularly since the age of ten. He began his conservatory studies in 1989 with Prof. Helga Forner at the Musikhochschule in Leipzig. Studies with Elio Battaglia, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf completed his training.
Jochen Kupfer has sung with such distinguished conductors as René Jacobs, Krzysztof Penderecki, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Mark Soustrot, Hartmut Hähnchen, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Helmuth Rilling, Masaaki Suzuki and Trevor Pinnock. Concert tours have taken him to various European cities and to Japan. He has also worked at many international music festivals, most notably Nuits Romantiques in Aix-les-Bains, lle de France Paris, Festival International de Musique et d'Art Lyrique Montreux, the Rossini Festival and the Salzburg Festival. Among his operatic repertoire are such roles as Wolfram in Wagner's Tannhäuser, Olivier in Strauss´ Capriccio and Harlekin in Ariadne auf Naxos.
Jochen Kupfer is currently engaged at the Semper Oper in Dresden, where he sings roles such as the Count in W.A. Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, Papageno in W.A. Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, and Guglielmo in W.A. Mozart's Così fan tutte. A recent guest engagement has taken him to the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin.
In addition to his work in the fields of opera and concert singing, Jochen Kupfer has a special preference for the art of Lieder singing. In 1996 he sang Gustav Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen for the first time with the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig, under the baton of Kurt Masur.
Jochen Kupfer's discography includes Konstabel in Strauss´ Friedenstag for Deutsche Grammophon and a CD of Robert Schumann songs for Channel Classics as well as the complete songs of Franz Schreker. |