Torsten Kerl

Tenor

– Projects –

The German tenor is one of the world’s most sought-after singers in his field and has made guest appearances at important international opera houses such as the Vienna State Opera, Metropolitan Opera New York, Deutsche Oper Berlin, San Francisco Opera, Royal Opera Covent Garden
London, Semperoper Dresden, La Scala di Milano, New National Theatre Tokyo, Nederlandse Opera Amsterdam, Bavarian State Opera Munich, Gran Teatro del Liceo Barcelona, Palau de les Arts Valencia, Opéra National de Paris (Bastille), Châtelet Paris, Theatre des Champs-Elysées, Opéra du Lyon, Hamburg State Opera, Teatro Carlo Felice Genova, Den Norske Opera Oslo, Kungliga Operan Stockholm, Opera de Munt Brussels and Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Teatro di San Carlo Napoli.
Torsten Kerl began his musical career as an orchestral musician and instrumental soloistminstrumental soloist on the oboe, then switched to singing and quickly became the winner of several competitions and scholarships.
In 2000, he won a Grammy Award in the category “Best International Opera Recording of the Year”.
In the 2021/22 season, he appeared as Florestan (Fidelio) in Warsaw and returns as the Tambourmajor (Wozzeck) at the Liceu in Barcelona. In the recent past he performed Schönberg’s Gurrelieder at the Helsinki Festival under the direction of Susanna Mälkki, at the Kawasaki Symphony Hall with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra under conducted by Jonathan Nott and with the Essen Philharmonic Orchestra at the Philharmonie Essen. He has also appeared at the Philharmonie Berlin and the Sala a Palatului Bucharest as the Emperor in concert performances of Strauss’ Die Frau ohne Schatten, with the Berlin Radio Berlin Radio Orchestra under the direction of Vladimir Jurowski. Also under the baton of M° Jurowski, he also appeared as Siegfried at the Royal Festival Hall in London with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
In the 2018/19 season, Torsten Kerl’s roles included Paul in Die tote Stadt at the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse, as Tannhäuser at the New National Theatre Tokyo and as Rienzi at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. He appeared in concert as Siegmund with the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra under Edo de Waart. In the 2017/18 season, Torsten Kerl appeared as Max in Der Freischütz at the New National Theatre in Tokyo and at the Dresden Semperoper in Dresden. In Odense, he also performed the title hero in Wagner’s Siegfried and Götterdämmerung, which he also performed at the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe as part of an opera gala. at the Baden State Theatre in Karlsruhe. At the Enescu Festival, he sang Albrecht von Brandenburg in Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler under the direction of Lawrence Foster. As a concert singer in Mahler’s Lied von der Erde in Berlin and Breslau, as Waldemar in Schönberg’s Gurrelieder in Aarhus and Berlin and as Waldemar in Beethoven’s houses with Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.
Torsten Kerl’s repertoire is wide-ranging, making him one of the few tenors in the world tenors who regularly perform all the major Wagner roles (Erik, Parsifal, Stolzing, Lohengrin, Tannhäuser, Loge, Siegmund, Tristan, Rienzi and both Siegfrieds). In addition Max (Freischütz), Paul (Die Tote Stadt), Florestan (Fidelio), Pedro (Tiefland), Bacchus (Ariadne auf Naxos) and Kaiser (Die Frau ohne Schatten). He also appears regularly in the French repertoire with Don José (Carmen), Samson (Samson et Dalila) and Aeneas (Les Troyens), in the Russian repertoire with Grigori (Boris Godunov), Vladimir Igorevich (Knas Igor), Hermann (Queen of Spades), Egyptian Pharaoh and the Voice from Above (Moses) and Lensky (Eugene Onegin) and in the Italian repertoire with Otello (Otello) and Dick Johnson (La Fanciulla del West) and Turriddu (Cavalleria Rusticana), but also as Stewa in Janáček’s Jenůfa.
He has also performed at international opera festivals such as the Bayreuth Festival (Tannhäuser, The Flying Dutchman and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg), the Salzburg Festival (Mozart Requiem, The Love of Danae and Die tote Stadt), the Edinburgh Festival (Lohengrin), the Glyndebourne Festival (Fidelio & Tristan) and the Savonlinna Festival (Freischütz) in Finland. 
Torsten Kerl is also a guest in the world’s most important concert halls. He regularly performs regularly with orchestras such as the Vienna Philharmonic, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Symphonic Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Orchestre de Radio France, the Dresden Staatskapelle, the Accademia di Santa Cecilia di Roma, the radio orchestras of NDR, BR, HR, SWR, WDR, the Munich Philharmonic and the Orchestre des Champs-Elysées.
Torsten Kerl has worked with the following conductors, among others:
Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Leonard Bernstein, Bertrand de Billy, Semjon Bychkov, Sergiu Celebidache, Riccardo Chailly, Colin Davis, Christoph von Dohnányi, Placido Domingo, Marc Elder, Adam Fischer, Daniele Gatti, Leopold Hager, Hartmut Haenchen, Thomas Hengelbrock, Philippe Jordan, Wladimir Jurowski, Michail Jurowski, Marek Janowski, Julia Jones, James Levine, Fabio Luisi, Zubin Mehta, Ingo Metzmacher, Riccardo Muti, Kent Nagano, Jonathan Nott, Seiji Ozawa, Donald Runnicles, Christian Thielemann, Günter Wand, Alexander Wedernikow,
Simone Young, Lothar Zagrosek.
Torsten Kerl has worked with the following directors, among others:
Pierre Audi, Calixto Bieito, Willy Decker, Dieter Dorn, Achim Freyer, Peter Konwitschny, Günter Krämer, Harry Kupfer, Nikolaus Lehnhoff,
Marco Arturo Marelli, Hans Neuenfels, Otto Schenk, Roland Schwab, Philipp Stölzl, Wolfgang Wagner, Herbert Wernicke.