Urban Malmberg, bass baritone

After studies with Helge Brilioth, Hugo Hasslo and Erik Saedén, Swedish bass-baritone Urban Malmberg spent two years in the chorus at the Royal Opera house of his native Stockholm, where he also sang several solo parts. At Hamburg Opera from 1983 until 1997, he performed an extensive repertoire including the parts of Masetto, Leporello, Guglielmo, Papageno, Figaro (Rossini), Malatesta, Kothner, Schaunard, Marcello, Ping, Harlekin, in Luigi Nono’s Intolleranza, Aribert Reimann’s Ghost Sonata, Henze’s Bassariden and a performance in the musical On the Town.

Guest engagements and concerts have taken him to numerous places, including San Francisco, Vancouver, London, Barcelona, Valencia, Paris, Montpellier, Lyon, Turin, Genoa, Palermo, Rome, Brussels, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Bonn, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Munich, Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden, Stockholm, Goteborg, Basel, Zurich, Salzburg, Vienna, Jerusalem and Tokyo.

He has worked with conductors such as Giuseppe Patané, Silvio Varviso, Hans Wallat, Sir Colin Davis, James Levine, Herbert Blomstedt, Sylvain Cambreling, Seiji Ozawa, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Kent Nagano, Stefan Soltesz, Donald Runnicles and Christian Thielemann as well as with film directors such as Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, Ingmar Bergman (as First Boy In the screen version of The Magic Flute), Kurt Horres, Günther Krämer, Ruth Berghaus, Peter Mussbach, Marco Arturo Marelli, Peter Konwitschny, Peter Sellars, Christoph Marthaler, Guy Joosten, Claus Guth, Robert Carsen and François Girard.

Numerous recordings exist of Urban Malmberg’s singing, amongst others of  Ariadne, Hoffmann, Saint François/DGG, Samson et Dalila/Philips, Peer Gynt (Grieg)/DECCA, Barbiere/Teldec, Die Schatzgräber/Capriccio, Soldiers (Gurlitt)/Orfeo, Music from Thomas Chatterton/Kairos and The Dictator (Krenek)/Capriccio. In concerts, he performed the part of Christ in the Bachpassionen, as well as parts in Brahms’ Requiem, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, in Des Knaben Wunderhorn in Mahler’s 8^th Symphony, and in several recitals.

Urban Malmberg is also active as conductor. He has been a student and assistant of Hans Wallat and Ivan Törzs. He conducted concerts with Mecklenburgische Staatskapelle in Schwerin, a Guy Joosten production of Albert Herring in Belgium, Bach’s Passion of St. John in Helsingborg and Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice in Goteborg.

Since 1999 Urban Malmberg is singing the repertoire of a dramatic bass-baritone at venues such as  Deutsche Oper Berlin, Staatsoper Berlin, Oper Leipzig, Opéra du Rhin, De Nederlandse Opera,  Semperoper Dresden including roles such as Don Pizarro, Alberich, Amonasro, Escamillo, Golaud, Wozzeck, Death in Ullmann’s The Emperor of Atlantis, Dutchman, Méphistophélès in Gounod’s Faust, Kaspar, the Hero in Venus and Adonis, Pentheus in Henze’s Bassariden and Simone in A Florentine Tragedy.

Recent and Future Engagements 2009-2012: 

DRESDEN Semperoper                  LA grande Magia (2008)

LEIPZIG Opera                             Tristan/Kurwenal (2009)

STRASBOURG                                Richard III (2009)

GOTEBORG                                   Katya Kabanova (2009)

TORINO                                        A survivor from Warsaw (2009)

AMSTERDAM                                 Eisenhardt/ Soldaten (2010)

BERGEN/WARSAW                       Hamlet (2009/10)

GENEVA                                       Richard III. (2012)

 

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