Dietrich Henschel

Baritone Dietrich Henschel has performed music spanning from Bach through Henze across opera houses as well as concert and recital venues, while maintaining an international profile centered on art song and orchestral song. Born in Berlin during 1967, he spent most of his childhood in Nuremberg, where his father taught art. At age four he began recorder lessons and soon revealed strong musical promise; his parents then acquired a piano for him, prompting an early ambition to conduct. Initial training occurred in both voice and conducting at a Nuremberg arts high school under Anneliese Puchner, after which he enrolled at the Musikhochschule München for vocal studies. His principal teachers were Hanno Blaschke and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau; although occasionally viewed as the latter’s successor, Henschel possesses a darker timbre and has at times been described as a bass-baritone. He made his professional debut in 1990 at the Munich Biennale, appearing in Michèle Reverdy’s opera Le Précepteur. Between 1993 and 1995 he belonged to the resident company at Kiel Opera, and his commitment to contemporary repertoire continued when he sang the title role of Hans Werner Henze’s Der Prinz von Homburg in 1997. That same year he achieved his first international engagement, performing the title role of Busoni’s Doktor Faust at the Opéra National de Lyon. His recording debut arrived in 2000 on the Angel label with Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin, D. 795. Exceptionally versatile, Henschel commands an operatic range extending from the title role in Monteverdi’s Orfeo of 1607 to Dr. Schön in Alban Berg’s Lulu of 1935, and he has participated in premieres by Péter Eötvös, Peter Ruzicka, and Chaja Czernowin. In recital he favors songs by Schubert and Beethoven yet also programs works by Wolf, Mahler, and Erich Korngold; his regular accompanists have included Irwin Gage, Helmut Deutsch, Leonard Hokanson, and Shinya Okahara, the last of whom has joined him on numerous tours of Japan. In 2007 he took part in William Christie’s recording of Haydn’s Die Schöpfung with Les Arts Florissants and continues to appear in concert repertoire at European festivals. His discography, issued on Harmonia Mundi, Evil Penguin, and Capriccio, includes a 2023 release on the latter label of Henze’s Das Floß der Medusa; by that date the catalog had grown to roughly ninety entries.