Performance Database

The German bass Rainer Zaun was born in Wiesbaden, where he began his professional career in 1988, moving to Aachen in 1992 and to Braunschweig in 1998.

Since 2000 he has pursued a freelance career that has taken him to the Hamburg State Opera, the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Leipzig Opera, the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, the Staatsoper Unter den Linden and the houses in Essen, Mannheim, Karlsruhe, Cottbus, Gelsenkirchen, Straßburg, Hanover, Halle, Bielefeld, Wuppertal, Darmstadt and Detmold. His wide-ranging repertory features more than ninety roles, including Boris Godunov, Gurnemanz, Filippo II, Don Pizarro (for which he received the Bad Hersfeld Opera Prize), Méphistophélès, Don Pasquale, Escamillo, Caspar, Alberich, Donner, the Animal Tamer and Athlete in Lulu, Colline, Wurm in Luisa Miller, Mozart's Figaro, Leporello, Don Alfonso and Papageno, Rossini's Dr Bartolo and Don Magnifico, Baculus in Lortzing's Der Wildschütz and van Bett in Zar und Zimmermann, Ollendorf in Millöcker's Der Bettelstudent and Frank in Die Fledermaus.

Guest appearances have taken Rainer Zaun to Athens, Barcelona, Lisbon, Vienna, Paris, Grenoble, Poitiers, Klagenfurt, Seville, Catania, Antwerp, Palma, Granada, San Francisco and Sapporo as well as the Erl Festival and the Wels Wagner Festival.