Bo Skovhus

A rising baritone star in the operatic scene of the 1990s, Boje Skovhus studied at the Aarhus Music College and the Royal Academy for Opera of Copenhagen and then went to New York for further training. After acquiring some professional experience on various stages, he had a breakout appearance at the Vienna Volksoper when he substituted at the last minute as Mozart's Don Giovanni. Since then he has enjoyed a rapidly developing career on the world's greatest opera stages. He has been virtually adopted by the Viennese, who saw him rocket to fame on one of their stages, and regularly sings at the Volksoper and the Vienna State Opera. He regularly sings the other Mozart-Da Ponte baritone roles besides Don Giovanni, namely, the Count in Le nozze di Figaro and Guglielmo in Così fan tutte. His good looks and a star quality make him an ideal choice for that minority of operas where the baritone part is the main or title role. Thus, he has spurred a revival of Ambroise Thomas' Hamlet at the Vienna Konzerthaus, Vienna Volksoper, and Royal Opera Copenhagen, as well as the little known baritone version of Massenet's Werther. He also has made a specialty of Britten's Billy Budd and Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, including arias or scenes from them on his first opera disc under his exclusive artist contract with the Sony Classics label. Other leading baritone parts in his repertory are Berg's Wozzeck, Dallapiccola's Il Prigioniero, Peter I in Zar und Zimmerman, Tarquinius in Britten's The Rape of Lucretia, and Raimond in Othmar Schoeck's Venus. Skovhus also frequently appears on the recital stage and has recorded creatively chosen recital discs. These include selections of lied settings by Hugo Wolf and Erich Wolfgang Korngold of poems by Eichendorff, a selection of songs by Robert and Clara Schumann called The Heart of the Poet, and the two great Schubert song cycles Schwanengesang and Die schöne Müllerin. His favored accompanist is pianist Helmut Deutsch. After his 1997 New York recital at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center he was acclaimed as one of the great lieder singers of his generation. He has appeared on many of the world's great opera stages, including the Metropolitan in New York (debuting in the 1998-1999 season in Die Fledermaus), the Hamburg State Opera, the Houston Grand Opera, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Opéra de Paris, Royal Opera Copenhagen, and the Bavarian State Opera. He appears at major music festivals. Among them are Ravinia, Tanglewood, Edinburgh, the Vienna Festwochen, and the Feldkirch Schubertiade. On the orchestral concert stage, he has sung in Orff's Carmina Burana, Britten's War Requiem, Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Brahms' Ein deutsche Requiem, and Schumann's Scenes from Faust.