Soloist

Ralf Lukas

Bass baritone Ralf Lukas, a native of Bayreuth, studied at Hochschule der Künste in Berlin and worked with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Aribert Reimann and Hans Hotter. In 1991 he won first prize at the international singing competition in 's-Hertogenbosch. After his first experiences at Deutsche Oper in Berlin, including as Papageno in »Die Zauberflöte«, Leporello in »Don Giovanni«, Schaunard in »La Bohème« or Paolo Albiani in »Simon Boccanegra« he developed with the aid of roles like Heerrufer in »Lohengrin«, Wolfram in »Tannhäuser« and Amfortas in »Parsifal« and ultimately including the title role in »Der fliegende Holländer« directed by Katharina Wagner.

This was followed by Wotan and the wanderer in »Der Ring des Nibelungen« in venues like Münster, the Staatstheater in Wiesbaden and Darmstadt as well as in Cologne, Rome, Riga and Macau. He was regularly heard at the Bayreuth Festival from 2006 to 2012 as Donner, Gunther and Melot. Finally he debuted in 2008 at Staatstheater Darmstadt as Hans Sachs in »Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg«. He performed as Barak in »Die Frau ohne Schatten« at the New National Theatre in Tokyo and made a guest appearance as Donner in »Rheingold« at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona. At Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf he played the Dutchman and at Staatsoper in Hamburg he played Hans Sachs. Debuts in the title role in »Wozzeck« and as Kurwenal in »Tristan und Isolde« followed in the 2012/2013 season.

Ralf Lukas worked with conductors like Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Chailly, Sir Colin Davis, Heinrich Hollreiser, Armin Jordan, Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, Zubin Mehta, Sir Roger Norrington, Seiji Ozawa, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Giuseppe Sinopoli and Christian Thielemann.

As a concert performer with an extensive repertoire he had made guest appearances, among other venues, in Berlin, Brussels, Hamburg, Madrid, Munich, Paris, Rome, São Paulo and Vienna as well as at festivals in Montpellier, the London Proms, Salzburg, Lucerne, Rheingau and Schleswig-Holstein. He collaborated in various radio and television recordings (ZDF, SFB, MDR, BR, Radio France, RAI, RTE).