Jacobs School of Music

Phone:

812-856-7049

Email:

wbrendel@indiana.edu

Department:

Voice

Campus:

IU Bloomington

Biography

Before his appointment to the Jacobs School of Music, baritone Wolfgang Brendel was a professor of voice at the Munich Hochschule für Musik und Theater. His artistic home for the greater part of his career was the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich. Brendel established his primacy as the star Munich baritone of his era across an extraordinary range of roles, from Mozart to Verdi to Wagner and beyond. In 1973, he achieved acclaim as Pelléas in a new production by Jean-Pierre Ponelle of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande. He made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 1975 at the age of 27. Brendel has performed on all the major opera stages in Germany and Europe, in Tokyo and in the United States. In 1997, he was awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz (The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany).