Soloists

Werner Güra

German tenor Werner Güra, born in Munich, received his musical training at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and comple­ted his vocal studies with Profes­sor Kurt Widmer. Furthermore, he was coached by Nicolai Gedda, Professor­ Margreet Honig in Amsterdam and Professor Wessela Zlateva in Vienna.

After guesting at the opera houses of Frankfurt and Basel, he joined the ensemble of the Semperoper Dresden in 1995, where he sang the important Mozart and Rossini parts of his ‘Fach’. Daniel Barenboim invited Werner Güra for various productions at the Staatsoper Berlin. He continued as a guest in Dresden and also sang his highly acclaimed Mozart roles Tamino, Ferrando and Don Ottavio at Teatro Carlo Felice in Genova, Opéra de Lille, La Monnaie in Brussels and the Opéra National de Paris, at the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music and in Baden-Baden. After a long period appearing in concerts only, Werner Güra decided to take part in a new production of Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria at the Zurich Opera in May/June 2014.

At this stage of his career, Werner Güra concentrates his activities on the vocal-symphonic and Oratorio repertoire. He sang on the most prestigious European concert stages such as Konzerthaus and Musikverein Wien, Royal Festival Hall London, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Philharmonie Berlin, Philharmonie Paris and worked with many orchestras including Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Wiener Symphoniker, BBC Symphony Orchestra, the German, Dutch, Spanish, Danish Radio Symphony Orchestras, the Gulbenkian Orchestra Lisbon, with conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Chailly, Michel Corboz, Sir Colin Davis, Ádám Fischer, Bernard Haitink, Daniel Harding, Thomas Hengelbrock, Philippe Herreweghe, René Jacobs, Marek Janowski, Philippe Jordan, Ton Koopman, Fabio Luisi, Kurt Masur, John Nelson, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Sir Roger Norrington, Trevor Pinnock, Helmuth Rilling, Sir András Schiff, Thomas Zehetmair and David Zinman. The tenor enjoyed close collaboration with Nikolaus Harnoncourt under whose baton he appeared at the Vienna Musikverein, Styriarte Festival, Philharmonie München, Concertgebouw Amsterdam and on tour in Japan.

Werner Güra is also much appreciated as a Lied interpreter, regularly giving recitals at the Wigmore Hall London, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Lincoln Center New York and the Schubertiades Schwarzenberg and Barcelona. Upcoming recitals will lead him to the Wigmore Hall London, the Vienna Musikverein, to Zurich and Stuttgart.

For Harmonia Mundi France he recorded an impressive number of solo-CDs which all received the Diapason d’or and were elected ‘Editor’s Choice’ in Gramophone. For his Winterreise recording he received the BBC Music Magazine Award “Vocal” 2011 and his latest Schubert-recording Willkommen und Abschied was awarded the prestigious German ECHO-Klassik prize 2012. Werner Güra has been teaching at the Zurich University of the Arts since 2009.