19 Facts About Matthias Goerne

Matthias Goerne was born on 31 March 1967 and is a German baritone.

Matthias Goerne has performed and recorded extensively, both on the opera stage and in Lieder settings.

Prominent opera stages on which Matthias Goerne has appeared include the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Teatro Real, Madrid; Paris National Opera; Vienna State Opera; and the Metropolitan Opera, New York.

Matthias Goerne's carefully chosen roles range from Wolfram, Amfortas, Kurwenal and Orest right up to the title roles in Alban Berg's Wozzeck, Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle, Hindemith's Mathis der Maler and Reimann's Lear.

Matthias Goerne grew up in a musical environment, his father being a dramaturgist and director of several acting theaters in Dresden.

Matthias Goerne sang in the children's choirs of several of his father's theater productions, including Carmen and La Boheme.

The head of the jury, composer and pianist Aribert Reimann, introduced him to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, whom Matthias Goerne considered his idol and the greatest artist he knew.

Matthias Goerne was to receive singing lessons from Fischer-Dieskau for 3 years.

Matthias Goerne made his professional debut in Leipzig in 1990 after being invited by Kurt Masur to sing in Johann Sebastian Bach's St Matthew Passion.

From 2001 through 2005, Matthias Goerne taught as an honorary professor of song interpretation at the Robert Schumann Hochschule in Dusseldorf.

Matthias Goerne's recording of Hanns Eisler lieder was awarded a Diapason d'Or de l'Annee the same year.

From 2012 to 2013, Matthias Goerne sang Wolfram at the Bavarian State Opera and Amfortas in concert with the Teatro Real in Madrid.

In 2020, Matthias Goerne signed with Deutsche Grammophon for a trilogy of Lieder albums released in 2020,2021 and 2022 with pianists Jan Lisiecki, Seong-Jin Cho and Daniil Trifonov, respectively.

Matthias Goerne has an adopted son born in 1989, and a daughter born in 2000.

Matthias Goerne smoked cigarettes "a lot" early in life, but stopped after noting the detrimental effects on his voice.

Matthias Goerne has criticized the modern day relevance of opera productions, going so far as to state that most popular operas should not be performed at all anymore because they have become outdated, no longer having "enough substance for the questions posed by our society".

Matthias Goerne has expressed a distaste for most contemporary art music from a vocal perspective, claiming that its focus on using the extremes of the voice, "singing very high or very low, very loud or very quietly", is not conducive to the expression of thoughts and feelings.

Matthias Goerne has expressed a preference for working with solo pianists over pianists who specialize in accompaniment, citing the former's superior artistic vision and the latter's relative lack of technical proficiency.

Matthias Goerne is a recipient of the Wigmore Hall, London, medal.