Biography
Making music came as naturally to Andrè Schuen as speech. The baritone, raised in a family of multilingual musicians, communicates as fluently with melody as he does in German, Italian and Ladin, the regional tongue of the part of the South Tyrol in which he was born. His repertoire embraces everything from Lieder and opera to traditional Ladin folk music and spans the spectrum of human emotions. Above all, it reflects the singer’s passion for words and his determination to convey their meaning in performance.
Critics have been inspired by Schuen’s combination of vocal authority, tonal warmth and expressive intelligence. “This dark, unstrained baritone is one of the most beautiful things you can hear at the moment; it is an unreservedly wonderful voice,” observed the Frankfurter Rundschau, while Gramophone has praised his enormous expressive range and ability to spin “long, quiet lines that flow with consummate ease”.
Andrè Schuen’s artistry, matured over time, has led to invitations to perform on the world’s leading stages and to an exclusive agreement with Deutsche Grammophon. For his DG debut album, released in March 2021, he recorded Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin with pianist Daniel Heide. Reviewing the album, The Sunday Times praised Schuen’s “emotional truthfulness”.
Schuen followed this success with a recording of Schubert’s final collection of songs, Schwanengesang, again with his regular duo partner Heide. Schwanengesang was released to great acclaim in November 2022, with Gramophone hailing the singer’s “fresh, beautifully contoured baritone, deployed with breath control that allows him to sail into long vocal lines with an illuminating sense of long-term musical direction, plus telling articulation of text”.
Highlights of Schuen’s 2022–23 season so far include Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen in Helsinki; Die schöne Müllerin with Heide at the Vienna Konzerthaus; a role debut as the King’s herald in Lohengrin at the Bayerische Staatsoper; Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 under Andris Nelsons at the Leipzig Gewandhaus; and appearances as Count Almaviva in Barrie Kosky’s new production of Le nozze di Figaro at the Wiener Staatsoper.
Andrè Schuen’s future plans include Brahms’s Die schöne Magelone in Valencia and Madrid (April 2023); his role debut as Wolfram von Eschenbach in Wagner’s Tannhäuser at Berlin’s Staatsoper Unter den Linden (April/May); Mahler’s Eighth Symphony conducted by Riccardo Chailly at La Scala, Milan (May); and further performances as Almaviva in Vienna (June) and in the new Martin Kušej production at this year’s Salzburg Festival (August), with the Wiener Philharmoniker conducted by Raphaël Pichon.
Born in 1984 in La Val, South Tyrol, Andrè Schuen studied cello as a child, as well as playing and singing Ladin folk music as part of a family ensemble that also included his mother, father, two sisters and a cousin. He later switched his focus to singing and won a place at the Salzburg Mozarteum where he studied with the Romanian soprano Horiana Brănişteanu and received lessons in Lieder and oratorio from fellow baritone Wolfgang Holzmair. His formative training also included masterclass sessions with, among others, Kurt Widmer, Sir Thomas Allen, Brigitte Fassbaender, Marjana Lipovšek and Olaf Bär.
In 2009 Schuen appeared as singer and actor at the Salzburg Festival in Luigi Nono’s Al gran sole carico d’amore and, the following year, joined the festival’s Young Singers Project. After graduating with distinction in 2010, he spent four years as a member of Graz Opera, and made his debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Sir Simon Rattle in 2011. He earned critical acclaim as one of the few performers to appear throughout Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s 2014 cycle of Mozart’s Da Ponte operas at the Theater an der Wien, for which he sang the roles of Figaro, Don Giovanni and Guglielmo. He made his US debut in 2017, giving recitals with Thomas Adès at the Tanglewood Festival and with Andreas Haefliger at the Aspen Music Festival. His partnership with Daniel Heide has flourished in concert as well as on disc, including regular appearances at the Schubertiade in Hohenems and Schwarzenberg.
3/2023