BENEDIKT Kristian
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In fall 2018 Kristian Benedikt gave his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in the part of Samson in Samson et Dalila and returned to the Met in spring 2019 for more Samson et Dalila. In December 2019 he will be heard in New York as Hermann in The Queen of Spades.
Among other plans are Don Alvaro in La Forza del Destino in Lisbon, Eric in Der fliegende Holländer in Bilbao, as well as Ernani, Turandot and Madame Butterfly in Vilnius.
Signature role of Lithuanian tenor is the title role in Verdi’s Otello. With this role he gave his debut at Vienna State Opera and at Semperoper Dresden in 2018. Before this he has performed the role already over 100 times in opera houses and at festivals such as Verona Teatro Filarmonico, Vienna State Opera, Bavarian State Opera Munich, at Savonlinna Opera Festival, at the Mariinski Theatre in St. Petersburg, Montreal Opera, at Beirut’s Al Bustan festival, Modena, Piacenza, Cagliari, Palermo, Ekaterinenburg, Santiago de Chile, Vilnius, Graz, Basel Stockholm, at the Latvian Opera Festival or at Victoria’s Pacific Opera.
Highlights of past seasons include Eléazar in La Juive in Konstanz, Siegmund in Die Walküre conducted by Alexander Vedernikov in Odense, Hermann in The Queen of Spades at the Moscow Bolshoi Theatre, Canio in I Pagliacci at London’s Covent Garden conducted by Antonio Pappano, Samson in Samson and Dalila in Turin conducted by Pinchas Steinberg, Hermann in The Queen of Spades in Budapest and Lucerne, Don José in Carmen, Cavaradossi in Tosca, the title role of Lohengrin, Samson in Samson et Dalila, Calaf in Turandot at Macedonian National Opera, Siegmund in Die Walküre in Odense, Pinkerton in Madame Butterfly, as well as roles like Eleazar in La Juive, Manrico in Il Trovatore, Dick Johanson in La Fanciulla del West, the title roles in Andrea Chenier, Ernani, Rienzi, Edgaro in Lucia di Lammermoor or Hoffmann in Les Contes d’Hoffmann in Munich, Saint Petersburg, Santiago de Chile, Mexico, Beijing, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Stockholm, Budapest, Amsterdam, Tallin, Barcelona, Bergamo, Palermo and other places.
Kristian Benedikt started his carrier in Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre where he performed more than 20 different roles. Starting out his career as a lyrical tenor, he made his first international experiences recording Ponchielli’s La Gioconda conducted by Marcello Viotti next to Placido Domingo and in Amsterdam’s Don Carlo conducted by Riccardo Chailly. Subsequently he was guesting at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, at most opera houses of the Baltic countries.
He has performed under the baton of conductors including Marcello Votti, Riccardo Chailly, Maurizio Barbacini, Paolo Carigniani, Asher Fisch, Renato Palumbo, Valeri Gergiev, Alexander Vedernikov and is working with stage directors like Willy Decker, David Alden, Calixto Bieito, Hugo de Ana, Dmitri Bertman, Eimuntas Nekrošius or Pier Francesco Maestrini.
As a concert singer he performs, among others, Verdi’s Requiem, Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, Rachmaninov’s The Bells and Webber’s Requiem.
