Rafał Pawnuk

The Polish bass Rafał Pawnuk made his Salzburg Festival debut in 2019 as Mars in Barrie Kosky’s production of Orphée aux enfers. Other important role and house debuts followed, including Sacristan and Sciarrone (Tosca) in Martin Kušej’s production at the Theater an der Wien, Hunding (Die Walküre) at the Stadttheater Klagenfurt, Nourabad (Les Pêcheurs de perles) at the Opéra de Lille, Cherea in Detlev Glanert’s Caligula at the National Theatre in Weimar and Ashby (La fanciulla del West) at the Opéra de Lyon in a production conducted by Daniele Rustioni and directed by Tatjana Gürbaca.

In the 2025/26 season, prior to his return to the Salzburg Festival in Il viaggio a Reims, Rafał Pawnuk’s appearance have included Mr Flint in Richard Brunel’s new production of Billy Budd under Finnegan Downie Dear in Lyon, the title role of Szymanowski’s Król Roger at the Opera Nova in Bydgoszcz and Colline (La bohème) and Zbigniew in Moniuszko’s The Haunted Manor at the Baltic Opera in Gdańsk.

His recent engagements have also included Marchese di Calatrava (La forza del destino) in Lyon, Fasolt (Das Rheingold) and Fafner (Siegfried) in Klagenfurt, Vodník (Rusalka) in Limoges, Colline and Gremin (Eugene Onegin) with the Nederlandse Reisopera and Antonio (Le nozze di Figaro) under Raphaël Pichon at the 2023 Salzburg Festival.

As a regular guest of Opera at the Castle in Szczecin, Rafał Pawnuk has sung roles including King Roger, Ferrando (Il trovatore), Escamillo (Carmen), Guglielmo (Così fan tutte) and the Priest in Philip Glass’s The Trial. He has appeared at the National Theatre in Brno as Vodník, King of Egypt (Aida), Marchese d’Obigny (La traviata) and Banco (Macbeth). He is a former member of the Opera Studio of the Bavarian State Opera, where he appeared in productions including Dialogues des Carmélites, Lohengrin and Henze’s Elegy for Young Lovers. The conductors with whom he has worked include Marc Albrecht, Ingo Metzmacher, Vasily Petrenko, Marco Armiliato, Massimo Zanetti, Lothar Koenigs, Paolo Carignani, Enrique Mazzola and Kent Nagano.

Rafał Pawnuk’s concert engagements have taken him to venues including the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the Philharmonie de Paris and the Anima Mundi festival in Pisa. He has collaborated with ensembles and orchestras such as the NDR Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre de Pau Pays de Béarn, the choir accentus, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Insula Orchestra.