After His First ‘Glorious’ Wotan at La Scala and Then at White Nights with Gergiev, René Pape Graces Festivals All Over Europe

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Fall Sees the Black Diamond Bass Starring in New Met Production of Boris Godunov, and on a New Parsifal CD

“A glorious role debut that will change the perception of this Wagner character for the next decades” – Die Welt (Germany)

Weeks after René Pape delivered his much praised role debut as Wagner’s King of the Gods, he traveled to the White Nights Festival where he reprised the role of Wotan in concert and recorded the opera with Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Theater Orchestra for later release on the Mariinsky label. Pape fans don’t have to wait long, however, to hear a new Wagner recording from the German bass: his famous Gurnemanz can be heard on a fall release of Parsifal, also from Mariinsky, which represents Gergiev’s first Wagner recording. Festival appearances in Europe keep Pape busy during the summer, before he heads over the Atlantic to assume the mighty role of Russian Tsar Boris Godunov in the Met’s new fall production.

On July 20, Pape will meet up again with Gergiev in Baden-Baden for a concert featuring the final act of Boris Godunov, giving a sneak preview of the starring role that Pape unveils in New York this fall in a new Metropolitan Opera production. (This will mark Pape’s Met debut in the title role; after performances as the Tsar in Berlin, the Financial Times described Pape as the "consummate Boris, terrifying yet pitiable, a complex and charismatic ruler whose greatest battle is with himself.”) To round out his summer European performances, Pape sings Bruckner’s Te Deum at the Salzburg Festival (July 26 & 27) with Daniel Barenboim and the Vienna Philharmonic; and in August, still in Salzburg, Pape portrays the role of Orest in a new production of Strauss’s Elektra, with Danielle Gatti conducting.

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