Performance Database

The bass Georg Zeppenfeld, who comes from the Westphalian town of Attendorn, first completed a teaching degree with the subjects of music and German studies. At the conservatories in Detmold and Cologne he received parallel training in concert and opera singing, concluding with Hans Sotin.

After first permanent engagements in Münster and Bonn, he was hired in 2001 by the Saxon State Opera in Dresden, which has remained his artistic home to this day. He also gives guest performances at almost every major opera house in Europe and the United States, as well as at the world's most important concert venues.
His repertoire includes Figaro and Bartolo (Le nozze di Figaro), Don Alfonso (Così fan tutte), Rocco (Fidelio), Kaspar (Freischütz), König Karl (Schubert: Fierrabras), Raimondo (Lucia di Lammermoor), Zaccaria (Nabucco), Banco (Macbeth), Sparafucile (Rigoletto), Padre Guardiano (Forza del destino), Filippo II (Don Carlo), Daland (Holländer), Landgraf Herrmann (Tannhäuser), König Heinrich (Lohengrin), König Marke (Tristan), Fasolt (Rheingold), Hunding (Walküre), Gurnemanz (Parsifal), Veit Pogner and Hans Sachs (Meistersinger), as well as Baculus (Wildschütz), Gremin (Onegin), Wassermann (Rusalka), Arkel (Pelléas et Mélisande), Pimen (Boris Godunow), Peneios (Strauss: Daphne) and La Roche (Capriccio).

A key role is Sarastro (Die Zauberflöte), which he sang under Claudio Abbado in Baden-Baden. He has enjoyed success with this role not only at the Dresden Semperoper, but also at the San Francisco Opera, the New York MET, the Wiener Staatsoper, the Salzburger Festspiele (under Harnoncourt), the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, Oper Zürich and Bayerische Staatsoper. 

He has already been a regular guest at the Bayreuth Festival since 2010 with the major bass roles in his repertoire. With his highly acclaimed role debut as Hans Sachs in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, he achieved a milestone in this summit role of the bass repertoire at the 2019 Salzburger Osterfestspiele under the baton of Christian Thielemann.

In the current season, he has been entrusted with roles including Sarastro (Die Zauberflöte), Rocco (Fidelio), Raimondo (Lucia di Lammermoor), Zaccaria (Nabucco) and Hans Sachs (Meistersinger) at the Semperoper in Dresden. At Oper Zürich he will once again take on the bass part in the staged performance of the Verdi Requiem. In Munich he can be heard as Gurnemanz (Parsifal) and at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in a new production of Fidelio under Antonio Pappano as Rocco.

Georg Zeppenfeld devotes himself with special preference to concert singing. Oratorios from the Baroque to the late Romantic period have already given him the opportunity to work with Pierre Boulez, Riccardo Chailly, Sir Colin Davis, Gustavo Dudamel, Daniele Gatti, Daniel Harding, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Thomas Hengelbrock, Marek Janowski, Fabio Luisi, Lorin Maazel, Andris Nelsons, Marc Minkowski, Antonio Pappano, Kirill Petrenko, Christian Thielemann and Franz Welser-Möst.

The singer's diverse and extensive oeuvre is documented on numerous CD and DVD releases as well as in radio and television productions by European broadcasters.

Georg Zeppenfeld was appointed "Kammersänger der Sächsischen Staatsoper Dresden" in 2015.