Biography

Simon Bode

Current as of July 2022

Lyric tenor Simon Bode appears regularly at major international festivals, including the Heidelberg Spring Festival, the Bad Kissingen Summer Festival, the Beethoven Festival in Bonn, the Rheingau and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festivals, the International Handel Festival in Göttingen and the Bregenz and Salzburg Festivals. Other engagements have taken him to the Norwegian National Opera in Oslo, the Opéra National de Bordeaux, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, the Basel Theatre, the Pierre Boulez Hall in Berlin and London’s Wigmore Hall.

Simon Bode has been an ensemble member of both the Frankfurt Opera and the Hanover State Opera, where he took part in numerous world and local premieres as well as singing all the major lyric tenor roles, including multiple roles in Peter Eötvös’s Der goldene Drache, Tamino (Die Zauberflöte), Belmonte (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni), Fenton (Falstaff), the Steersman (Der fliegende Holländer) and Orsino in Manfred Trojahn’s Was ihr wollt. In 2017 he performed Hans Zender’s Schuberts ‘Winterreise’ at the Wiesbaden State Theatre, returning the following year as Don Ottavio and in 2019 as Narraboth (Salome).

As a song recitalist he has worked closely with Igor Levit, Graham Johnson and Simon Lepper, with all three of whom he has given many world premieres and worked on projects exploring out-of-the-way areas of the repertoire. As a concert artist he has appeared with the Vienna Philharmonic, the Bochum Symphony Orchestra, the Munich Radio Orchestra, the NDR Radio Philharmonic, Ensemble Modern and Les Talens Lyriques, while the conductors with whom he has worked include Kent Nagano, Andrew Manze, Andrea Marcon, Constantinos Carydis, HK Gruber, Peter Eötvös and Sebastian Weigle.

Simon Bode scored a great personal success as Freddy Eynsford-Hill in a semi-staged production of My Fair Lady under Alain Gilbert at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. In 2020 he made his United States debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra under Esa-Pekka Salonen in English-language performances of Hindemith’s Murderer, Hope of Women and Weill’s Seven Deadly Sins.

Simon Bode began the 2021/22 season by appearing in three concerts at the Festival of Early Music in Knechtsteden before giving song recitals with Simon Lepper at the Oxford Lieder Festival and with Igor Levit at the Alte Oper in Frankfurt and at London’s Wigmore Hall. Levit also accompanied him in a performance of Schubert’s Winterreise at the Vienna Musikverein.

Simon Bode may be heard in numerous CDs and DVDs, including his debut CD featuring Brahms song with Graham Johnson, recordings of Wagner’s Die Feen and Das Liebesverbot, Schubert songs with Ulrich Eisenlohr and Schumann songs with Stefan Irmer.

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Simon Bode
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Simon Bode
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