Rolf Romei

In addition, Rolf Romei also appeared as Jimmy / Young Man / AMERICAN LULU at the Theater an der Wien, in Wagner’s The Rheingold at the Ruhrtriennale, or by invitation from Calixto Bieito as the solo tenor in the staged version of Britten’s War Requiem in Bilbao.

For his guest appearance as Manolios at the Graz Opera House in Martinu`s The Greek Passion, he was widely acclaimed by the audience and in the press and the recording, which was released by Oehms Classic, received the German Record Critics’ Prize and appeared on their best list in March 2017.

In spring 2018, Rolf Romei made his debut at the international music festival in Kampnagel Hamburg with Stockhausen’s DONNERSTAG AUS LICHT under the direction of Peter Eötvös.

Recent engagements at his home company in Basel include Aegisth in Elektra, Marquis in The Gambler, Pelléas in Pelléas et MÉLISANDE, Le Lépreux in Messiaen`s St Francois D’Assise as well as Percy Shelley in Diotati. Unendlich by Michael Wertmüller and the sea witch in Andersens Story, two world premieres that were celebrated internationally. Future assignments include Giove / Anfinomo in Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria in Basel and again Paul in The Dead City, Die Tote Stadt at the Enescu Festival 2021 in Bucharest and at the English National Opera in London.

In addition to the opera-stage, Rolf Romei has a lively concert activity. Thanks to his broad repertoire, he is in demand as an interpreter of new music as well as as a soloist in great oratorios and with chamber music. For example, he appeared at the Lucerne Festival in Mozart’s Davide Pentitente and as Evangelist in Bach’s Johannes Passion, in the Zurich Tonhalle in Britten’s War Requiem, in the Berlin Philharmonic with Martin`s Golgotha and in Lisbon with Dvorak’s Stabat Mater. Under Helmuth Rilling he sang Penderecki’s Credo, Schubert’s Messe in As-Dur, Bach’s B-Moll-Messe and Haydn’s Creation and recorded Mozart’s C-Moll-Messe for Swiss radio with Michel Corboz. Since spring 2016 he has also been able to count Mahler’s Lied von der erde in his repertoire.

Rolf Romei studied in Winterthur and Karlsruhe and is the winner of several national and international competitions and sponsorship awards. In 1999 he was awarded the Swiss Culture Prize. He received important singing impulses as a private student from Nicolai Gedda. At the beginning of his career he was firmly engaged as a lyric tenor in St.Gallen and Augsburg as well as at the State Theater in Oldenburg, guest contracts took him to the opera houses of Stuttgart, Darmstadt, Bern, Aachen, Wuppertal, Würzburg, Düsseldorf, Graz, the Komische Oper Berlin, the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, the Teatro Real in Madrid, as well as to the Edinburgh Festival and the Ruhrtriennale.