Daniel Behle

Germany's Daniel Behle ranks among the most adaptable performers active in vocal music today. His schedule encompasses orchestral concerts, operatic roles, and intimate lieder evenings, spanning Baroque scores through newly composed works, while he also maintains a parallel career as a composer.

Born in Hamburg in 1973, Behle received his earliest vocal instruction from his mother, the dramatic soprano Renate Behle, beginning when he turned 22 and continuing through the first years of the following decade. At the Musikhochschule Hamburg he completed a degree in trombone, studied voice with tenor James Wagner, and took composition lessons from Peter Michael Hamel. He first appeared on stage at the Oldenburger Staatstheater during the 2003-2004 season, subsequently joining the ensembles of the Volksoper Wien and the Frankfurt Opera. Since becoming a freelance artist in 2010 he has performed at the Paris Opera, the Vienna State Opera, and the Berlin State Opera. During the 2017-2018 season he made his Bayreuth Festival debut in the role of David in Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Concert engagements have included appearances with the Concertgebouw Orchestra, the WDR Radio Orchestra Cologne, the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn, and the International Bach Academy Stuttgart.

Behle entered the recording studio for the first time in 2009 with a song recital featuring works by Schubert, Beethoven, Britten, Grieg, and Trojahn; the release was named one of the fifteen finest albums of the year by New York's Metropolitan Opera. Issued on the Phoenix Edition label, the disc was followed by further recordings on Capriccio, Sony Classical, Oehms, Decca, Genuin, Berlin Classics, and Deutsche Harmonia Mundi. The resulting catalogue extends from specialized projects, such as his own transcription of Schubert's Die Winterreise, D. 921, scored for voice and piano trio and released by Sony, to widely appealing collections. In 2017 he issued Nostalgia, a program of well-known operetta numbers. Behle received a 2014 Grammy Award nomination for his contribution to a recording of Leonardo Vinci's Artaserse.