Benjamin Bruns began his singing career as an alto soloist in the boys' choir of his hometown of Hanover. After four years of private vocal training with Prof. Peter Sefcik, he studied at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg with Kammersängerin Renate Behle. While still a student, he was offered his first permanent engagement by the Bremen Theatre, which enabled him to build up a broad repertoire early on and was soon followed by an ensemble contract at the Cologne Opera. Via the Sächsische Staatsoper Dresden, his path led him directly to the Vienna State Opera, where he was an ensemble member from June 2010 to June 2020.
His wide-ranging repertoire includes Mozart roles such as Belmonte (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), Tamino (Die Zauberflöte) and Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni) but also other important repertoire such as Fenton (Falstaff), Camille de Rosillon (Die lustige Witwe), Lysander (Britten: A Midsummer Night's Dream), Don Ramiro (La Cenerentola), Boris Grigorievič (Janáček: Kátia Kabanová) or the Italian Tenor in the two Strauss operas Capriccio and Der Rosenkavalier. With Wagner roles such as Lohengrin, Loge (Das Rheingold), Erik (Der fliegende Holländer) and Siegmund (Die Walküre) or Weber's Max in Der Freischütz and the Matteo in Strauss' Arabella, the expansion into the youthful dramatic field is emerging. In spring 2020 for the first time he appeared at the Vienna State Opera as Florestan in Beethoven's Fidelio.
Benjamin Bruns will open the 2023/2024 season as the Kaiser in Strauss' Frau ohne Schatten at the Stuttgart State Opera. In Munich he will perform Wagner's Lohengrin at the Bavarian State Opera under the baton of Francois- Xavier Roth (director: Kornél Mundruczó) and Piet vom Fass in Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre under the baton of Kent Nagano (director: Krzysztof Warlikowsky).
Oratorio and Lied form an important counterpoint to his stage work. The focus of his extensive concert repertoire is on the great sacred works of Bach, Händel, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert and Mendelssohn. He performs with all the major German orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, as well as with renowned international ensembles such as the Vienna Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Bach Collegium Japan, the Czech Philharmonic, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Basel Chamber Orchestra and the Choir and Orchestra of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome.
The concert season 2023/24 holds interesting projects and shows the whole range of Benjamin Brun's repertoire: in Munich he sings Haydn's The Creation under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle and Mahler's 8th Symphony under the baton of Kirill Petrenko. In Heidelberg he participates in Lili Boulanger's cantata Faust et Hélene. He also sings Beethoven's 9th Symphony in Bamberg under the baton of Tarmo Peltokoski, Mahler's Song of the Earth in Lahti under the baton of Matthias Pintscher, Mendelssohn's Paulus in Madrid under the baton of Masaaki Suzuki, Bach's St Matthew Passion and Mahler's Song of the Earth (under the baton of Jonathan Nott) in Japan. In July 2024 he will be back at the Operetta Gala in Grafenegg under the baton of Johannes Wildner.
Benjamin Bruns is a prize-winner of the Bundeswettbewerb Gesang Berlin, the Hamburg Mozart Competition and the international singing competition of the Kammeroper Schloss Rheinsberg. Special awards include the Kurt Hübner Prize of the Bremen Theatre and the Young Singers Award of the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival.
His Lied CD Dichterliebe with Schumann's Dichterliebe and Der arme Peter, Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte and Hugo Wolf's Liederstrauß (at the piano: Karola Theill) was highly praised by the press and nominated at the International Classical Music Awards as well as for the German Record Prize in the category 'Vocal Recital'. His most recent CD is a recording of Schubert's Winterreise, accompanied by Karola Theill.
For more information, please visit the artist's website: www.benjaminbruns.de