Christof Fischesser grew up in a musical family, received instrumental training in early childhood and was a member of several choirs and ensembles. He studied singing with Prof. Martin Gründler at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Frankfurt am Main and won the first prize at the national singing competition in Berlin in 2000. As a result, the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe engaged him as a permanent ensemble member and gave him the opportunity to sing leading roles in his field such as Mefistofele (Mefistofele / Boito) or Figaro (Le nozze di Figaro). In 2004 he joined the Berlin State Opera as an ensemble member, and from 2012 to 2015 he was an ensemble member at the Zurich Opera House, with which he has enjoyed a particularly close collaboration ever since.
Among the highlights of the passed seasons, which were severely limited by the pandemic, were a new production of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra at Zurich Opera House directed by Andreas Homoki, in which Christof Fischesser appeared as Jacopo Fiesco, or a new production of Der Rosenkavalier by Barrie Kosky at the Bavarian State Opera where Ochs turned to become a true signature role for him. Other engagements have taken Christof Fischesser to the Vienna State Opera, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, the Opéra National de Paris, the Teatro Real in Madrid, the Munich State Opera, the Komische Oper Berlin, the Semperoper Dresden, the Opéra de Lyon, the Lyric Opera Chicago and the opera houses of Antwerp, Copenhagen and Stockholm. He has also appeared at the Salzburg Festival and the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence.
In the 2022/23 season, Christof Fischesser is looking forward to his role debut as Bluebeard in Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle at the Theater Basel (D: Christof Loy) as well as to his debut as Hunding (Walküre) at the Zurich Opera (D: Andreas Homoki). Also on the programme is a return to the Vienna State Opera as Orest, King Marke and Rocco, before Christoph Fischesser will be seen again as Ochs at the Opera in Amsterdam.
His broad repertoire also includes roles such as Veit Pogner (Meistersinger), Landgraf (Tannhäuser), Gurnemanz (Parsifal), Sarastro (Zauberflöte), Sir Giorgio (I Puritani), Rocco (Fidelio), Conte di Walter (Luisa Miller), Kaspar (Freischütz) or Mephisto (Faust /Gounod).
Christof Fischesser is also highly in demand internationally as a concert singer and has appeared in Janacek's Glagolitic Mass in Paris under Jukka-Pekka Saraste, with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under Fabio Luisi at the Tonhalle Zurich and the Vienna Konzerthaus, with Daniel Barenboim and his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in Madrid, Seville and Valencia and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra under Claudio Abbado at the Lucerne Festival. Key works such as Beethoven's Missa solemnis, Verdi's Messa da Requiem or Mendelssohn's Elijah are as much part of his repertoire as Brahms' Vier ernste Gesänge. He has also worked with conductors such as Bernard Haitink, Kent Nagano, Antonio Pappano, Philippe Jordan, Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Kirill Petrenko.
Christof Fischesser's artistic work is documented on numerous CD and DVD releases, including Beethoven's Fidelio conducted by Claudio Abbado, Massenet's Manon under Daniel Barenboim or Wagner's Lohengrin under Kent Nagano.
16. June 2023 - 19:30 Tonhalle und Kongresshaus Ludwig van Beethoven: Fidelio, Oper in zwei Aufzügen op. 72 |
18. June 2023 - 17:00 Tonhalle und Kongresshaus Ludwig van Beethoven: Fidelio, Oper in zwei Aufzügen op. 72 |
30. June 2023 - 19:30 Madrid, Auditorio Nacional de la Musica Gustav Mahler: Symphonie Nr. 8 Es-Dur |