Andreas Schmidt

Andreas Schmidt ranks among Germany's most celebrated veteran low voice singers on both operatic and concert platforms. As a boy he launched his vocal career by joining the Dresden Kreuzchor. Studies commenced for him in 1965 at the Carl Maria von Weber Academy of Music in Dresden, where he concentrated on opera singing and vocal pedagogy.

His first stage appearance came as Georg in Marschner's Der Waffenschmied at the Gerhart-Hauptmann Theater in Görlitz, after which he joined that theater's ensemble. He advanced through memberships with the Hans-Otto-Theater of Potsdam and the Volkstheater Rostock before entering the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin company in 1980.

Roles he has performed encompass Oberon, Monostatos, and Pedrillo in Entführung aus dem Serail, along with parts in Don Carlos, Pique Dame, Wozzeck, and Salome. Broadcast performances of concerts and oratorios have frequently featured him on both television and radio. Recordings issued under numerous international labels document his work, among them extensive sets of Bach cantatas together with the principal Bach Passions and Masses. Special recognition has come to him for his interpretations of vocal music by the late Romantic composers Franz Schreker and Franz Schmidt, for operas by Wagner, Strauss, Humperdinck, and Mozart, and for lieder by Franz Schubert and Robert Schumann.