The baritone Johannes Martin Kränzle is one of the leading singers in his voice type. He has performed at major opera houses including La Scala, Milan, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the opera houses of London, Paris, Madrid, Vienna, Zurich, Geneva, Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, San Francisco, Cairo, Sofia, Tel Aviv, Tokyo and Toronto and at the Festivals of Bayreuth, Glyndebourne and Lucerne. In 2009 he made his debut at the Salzburg Festival as Valens in Handel’s Theodora, returning in 2010 in the lead role of Rihm’s Dionysos and in 2020 and 2021 as Don Alfonso (Così fan tutte). He has also made a name for himself as a composer with works such as the suite for string orchestra Mutationes (2022), the widely performed song cycle Lieder um Liebe (2016) and the chamber opera Der Wurm (1997).
In 2011 and 2018 he was named Singer of the Year in the critics’ poll of the magazine Opernwelt. In 2019 he received the German theatre prize Der Faust. He is also a prize-winner of numerous international competitions, among them the Gian Battista Viotti Singing Competition and Operalia. Since 1991 he has been an honorary professor in Natal (Brazil) and from 2013 to 2019 he was a visiting professor at the University of Music and Dance in Cologne.
His repertory comprises more than 130 roles, reaching from the Baroque to contemporary works, with particular focuses on Mozart, Wagner and Slavic repertory. He has worked with conductors such as Daniel Barenboim, Marek Janowski, Armin und Philippe Jordan, Michail and Vladimir Jurowski, James Levine, Fabio Luisi, Joana Mallwitz, Enrique Mazzola, Susanna Mälkki, Antonio Pappano, Kirill Petrenko, Lahav Shani und Christian Thielemann, and with directors including Nicolas Brieger, Barrie Kosky, Harry Kupfer, Christof Loy, David McVicar, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Keith Warner and Jossi Wieler.
He has recorded several CDs with the pianist Hilko Dumno, including the album Das ewige Rätsel (2018) which features Yiddish songs and works by Mahler, Frank Martin and Ravel and which was awarded the German Record Critics’ Award, and, most recently, Schubert’s Winterreise (2025).
In 2015 he was diagnosed with an aggressive progressive form of MDS and had to undergo a stem cell transplant. His brother Andreas was his live-saving donor. In September 2016 he celebrated his return to the stage with his acclaimed debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, as Don Alfonso.
Recent highlights have included the title role of Wozzeck at the Paris Opéra, Beckmesser (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg) at the Bayreuth Festival, the title role of Don Pasquale at the Zurich Opera House, Alberich (Der Ring des Nibelungen) at the Berlin State Opera, Duke Bluebeard (Bluebeard’s Castle) at the Puccini Festival in Torre del Lago and Peter Maxwell Davies’s Eight Songs for a Mad King at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence.
In January 2025 Johannes Martin Kränzle had to undergo another stem cell transplant and is now returning to the stage.
