Born in Stuttgart, the baritone with Hungarian roots began his musical career with the Stuttgart Hymnus Chorknaben and studied singing, song composition and conducting with Rudolf Piernay, Irwin Gage and Klaus Arp in Mannheim and Saarbrücken. In master classes he received important impulses from Charles Spencer, Cornelius Reid and Rudolf Piernay, who still accompanies him vocally today.
He has continued to develop his professional skills on important stages around the world: from Wolfram in Tannhäuser(Bayreuth Festival) to Hans Heiling in H. Marschner’s opera of the same name at the Theater an der Wien, and Stolzius in Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten as well as Amfortas in Parsifal (under Kirill Petrenko) at the Bavarian State Opera, Kurwenal (Tristan und Isolde) in Baden-Baden and Berlin under Simon Rattle, to Dallapiccola’s Il Prigioniero in Hamburg and the world premiere of Scartazzini’s opera Edward II in Berlin. In the summer of 2021, he took over the role of Don Alfonso in a performance of Così fan tutte at the Salzburg Festival at short notice.
From autumn 2022, the artist will expand his professional repertoire, first as Beckmesser in a new production of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at Oper Frankfurt (Johannes Erath, director; Sebastian Weigle, music director), returning to the Vienna State Opera again as Amfortas (Parsifal) under Philippe Jordan and, for the first time, as Alberich in Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen under Franz Welser-Möst. In January, he can be seen as the Count (Le Nozze di Figaro) in Toulouse.
Michael Nagy is also in demand worldwide in concert and oratorio. Engagements have taken him to the most internationally renowned orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Concertgebouw Orchestra, the BR Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, the Orchestre de Paris, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and to various festivals, including Schleswig-Holstein and Rheingau, the Salzburg Festival, the Tanglewood Festival (USA), Grafenegg and San Sebastian.
The 2022/23 concert season again offers great repertoire depth, including a performance of Hans Huber’s little-known oratorio Weissagung und Erfüllung under Duncan Ward in Basel, Mahler’s 8th Symphony under Vasily Petrenko in London, Brahms’ Requiem and Schönberg’s A Survivor from Warsaw with the Copenhagen Philharmonic under Christoph Eschenbach, Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony with the Gulbenkian Orchestra under Alexander Liebreich, Schumann’s Faust Scenes under Axel Kober at the Audi Summer Concerts, and Mahler’s Wunderhorn Lieder with the RTVE Orchestra in Madrid.
