Vita
Benjamin Bruns began his singing career as an alto soloist with the boys’ choir in his
home city of Hanover. After four years of private singing lessons with Prof. Peter Sefcik,
he studied at the Academy of Music and Theatre in Hamburg under the Kammersängerin
Renate Behle. While still a student, he was offered a permanent contract by the Theater
Bremen, a position which allowed him to build up a broadly based repertoire at an early
stage. It was followed by a similar contract with the opera house in Cologne. His
professional journey then took him via the Dresden State Opera to the Vienna State
Opera, where he remained a member of the ensemble until July 2021.
His musical roster contains Mozart roles such as Belmonte (Die Entführung aus dem
Serail), Tamino (Die Zauberflöte) and Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni) but also other important
repertoire like Fenton (Falstaff), Camille de Rosillon (The merry Widow), Lysander (Britten:
A Midsummer Night's Dream), Don Ramiro (La Cenerentola), Boris Grigorievič (Janáček:
Kátia Kabanová) or the Italian Tenor in the Strauss operas Capriccio and Der
Rosenkavalier. With Wagner roles like Lohengrin, Loge (The Rhinegold) and Erik (The
flying Dutchman) or Matteo in Strauss’ Arabella he made his first steps into the light
dramatic repertoire. In spring 2021 he had his debut as Florestan in Beethoven’s Fidelio
(1804) at the Vienna State Opera.
The beginning of the season 2021/2021 is marked by his appearance as Tamino in
Mozart’s The magic Flute at the Bavarian State Opera. Furthermore he’ll be singing Erik
(The flying Dutchman) in Amsterdam and Max in the jubilee performance of Weber’s Der
Freischütz (The Freeshooter) at the Konzerthaus Berlin. In May 2021 he will return to the
Bavarian State Opera for his role debut as Bacchus in Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos. During
the Munich Opera Festival he can be heard as Loge (The Rhinegold) and David (The
Master-Singers of Nuremberg).
Oratorio and lieder form an important counterweight to Benjamin Bruns’s stage work. At
the heart of his extensive concert repertoire are the great sacred works by Bach, Handel,
Haydn, Mozart, Schubert and Mendelssohn. He has sung with such renowned ensembles
as the Berlin Philharmonics, the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, the Boston
Symphony Orchestra, the Munich Philharmonics, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the
Bach Collegium Japan, the WDR Symphony Orchestra as well as Choir and Orchestra of
the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome or the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin.
The upcoming season is still under the auspices of Beethoven: Benjamin Bruns will
perfom Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony under Masaaki Suzuki in Singapore, under
Laurence Equilbey in Paris/Boulogne-Billancourt as well as with the NHK Symphony
Orchestra under Pablo Heras-Casado in Tokyo. He will also appear at the Vienna
Musikverein with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra for Haydn’s The Creation under Andrès
Orozco-Estrada as well as Dvořak’s Stabat mater under Manfred Honeck. In the
Stravinsky Anniversary Year 2021 he is invited to sing his rarely performed work
Perséphone with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra in Hamburg.
Benjamin Bruns is an awardee of the Bundeswettbewerb Gesang (Federal Singing
Competition) in Berlin, the Mozart Competition in Hamburg and the international singing
competition of the Schloss Rheinsberg Chamber Opera.
The very special honours accorded to him include the 2008 Kurt Hübner Prize awarded
by the Theater Bremen and the 2009 Young Musicians’ Prize awarded by the Schleswig-
Holstein Music Festival.
His last CD "Dichterliebe", containing Schumann’s Dichterliebe and Der arme Peter,
Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte as well as Hugo Wolf’s Liederstrauß (piano: Karola
Theilll) was praised by the critics and nominated for both, the International Classical
Music Awards and the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis.