Reinhard Hagen

Reinhard Hagen is a German bass. After studies in Karlsruhe and winning several international competitions, he made his professional debut in Dortmund. In 1994, he was engaged by the Deutsche Oper Berlin, one of the leading houses of Europe. At the Deutsche Oper he sang roles, including Titurel in Wagner's Parsifal, Sarastro in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, Landgrave Hermann in Wagner's Tannhäuser, Rocco in Beethoven's Fidelio, Pogner in Wagner's Die Meistersinger, the Commendatore in Mozart's Don Giovanni, and Judas in the company's staging of J.S. Bach's Passion According to St. Matthew.
Non-German roles in which he has sung at the Deutsche Oper include Gremin in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, Heinrich in Wagner's Lohengrin, Ramfis in Verdi's Aida, the Watchman in Enescu's Oedipe, Banco in Verdi's Macbeth, and Count Walter in Massenet's Werther.
In 1998, Hagen made his U.S. debut at the San Francisco Opera in Verdi's Don Carlos, and in the 1999 - 2000 season returned as Raimondo Bidebent in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor in addition to singing the roles of Fasolt and Hunding in San Francisco's Festival production of Wagner's Der Ring der Nibelungen. Other operas in his repertory include Verdi's Il trovatore, Puccini's La bohème, and Previn's A Streetcar Named Desire.
He has sung at other major European and American opera houses, including the Hamburg State Opera, the Munich State Opera, and the operas of Seville, San Diego, Venice, Barcelona, Los Angeles, and Geneva. He has sung operatic roles at major festivals including those at Tanglewood, Glyndebourne, and Aix-en-Provence, and at the Promenade Concerts in London.
As a concert singer, Hagen has performed with the Bavarian Radio Symphony, the Gewandhaus Orchestra, and the Berlin Philharmonic, as well as with ensembles in Israel, Brazil, France, and Italy; he has worked with such leading conductors as Neville Marriner, Helmuth Rilling, Armin Jordan, Sir Georg Solti, James Levine, Marek Janowski, Lorin Maazel, and Herbert Blomstedt in works as diverse as Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Shostakovich's Fourteenth Symphony, and Haydn's Creation.