Biography

Kay Stiefermann graduated summa cum laude from the Cologne University of Music in the class of KS Kurt Moll. Master classes with Monserat Caballe and Hans Hotter, among others, completed his training.

Kay Stiefermann’s first engagement was at the Hamburg State Opera from 1997. His repertoire includes roles such as Don Giovanni, Guglielmo and Don Alfonso (“Così fan tutte”), Conte Almaviva (“Le nozze di Figaro”), Onegin (“Eugene Onegine”), Danilo (“The Merry Widow”), Eisenstein ( “Die Fledermaus”), or Marcello (“La Bohème”). In recent years the baritone has sung more and more roles from the German subject, such as the Dutchman, Amfortas and Klingsor (“Parsifal”), Kurwenal (“Tristan und Isolde”), Simone (“Florentine tragedy”), Gyges (“King Kandaules “), Johanaan (” Salome “), Mandryka (” Arabella “) and Don Pizarro (” Fidelio „).

In 2015 Kay Stiefermann made his debut at the Bayreuth Festival in the new production of Tristan and Isolde under the direction of Christian Thielemann. Since then he has sung every year at the festival and has also worked in the new production of Tannhäuser 2019 as Biterolf.

He was also a guest at the State Opera and the Komische Oper Berlin, the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, the Ruhrtriennale, the Lincoln Center Festival New York, the Teatro Regio Torino, the Teatro Massimo Palermo, the Volksoper Vienna, at the Opéra national du Rhin, or at the Nederlandse Opera Amsterdam, and has worked with conductors such as D. Barenboim, B. de Billy, M. Albrecht, U. Schirmer, K. Petrenko, K. Nagano and V. Gergiev.

Another focus of his artistic work is the concert and oratorio area. The baritone performed at the BBC Proms, the Oregon Bach Festival, the Musikfest Stuttgart, the Bruckner Festival Linz, the Dresden Music Festival, and the Handel Festival in Halle, where he sang under the direction of H. Rilling, M. Creed, R. Huber, E. zu Guttenberg, M. Haselböck, Pierre Cao or P. Herreweghe and Christopher Hogwood.

Numerous radio broadcasts by WDR and BR as well as CD productions document the broad repertoire of the baritone.