Martin Kronthaler, Baritone

Austrian Baritone Martin Kronthaler studied in Krakòw,Poland; Salzburg, Austria (with Nikolaus Harnoncourt); Vienna, Austria (with R. Sartorius and Walter Berry); and in Basle, Switzerland at the Schola Cantorum with René Jacobs.

His opera career started with parts from operas by Mozart, Rossini and Salieri.
He won the 1st prize at the "International Singers Contest of the Opera Royal de Wallonie", Belgium and was invited to Naples, Italy to sing Heerrufer in Wagner's Lohengrin.

Other engagements brought him to Austria ("Festival of Ancient Music" in Innsbruck), to both the Landestheater of Innsbruck and Salzburg (to sing Guglielmo, Don Geronio in Rossini's "Il Turco in Italia" and Luna in Verdi's "Il Trovatore" rispectively), to the Festival "Tiroler Festspiele" to sing Sixtus Beckmesser in Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, to Germany ("Händel Festival" in Halle; Staatstheater Schwerin; Meiningen; Zwickau/Plauen; to sing Don Giovanni at the Festival of Bad Hersfeld; Kammeroper Berlin; Theatre of the Palace of Sanssoucis in Potsdam; Deutsche Oper am Rhein/Düsseldorf to sing the role of Poeta in Rossini's "Il Turco in Italia", Wolfram in Wagner's "Tannhäuser" and Conte Almaviva) Switzerland, Spain (Festival of Peralada; San Sebastian) Italy (to Naples to sing Wolfram, to Trieste, Pisa, Lucca, Barga, Cagliari, Florence, Bozen and Carrara), to Japan (Wolfram)to China and to Singapore.

For several years he also sang regularely in Halle/Germany where he interpreted Marcello in Puccini's "La Bohème", Eisenstein in J.Strauss' "The Bat", Father in Humperdinck's "Hänsel und Gretel", Harlekin in R. Strauss' "Ariadne auf Naxos", Homonay in Strauss' "Zigeunerbaron" and many others.

He sang with contuctors such as Seiji Ozawa, Kiril Petrenko, Hans Wallat, Arthur Fagan, René Jacobs, Rolf Reuter, Gustav Kuhn, Frank Beermann, Günter Neuhold, Alexander Joel, Marcus Creed, Alessandro de Marchi, Martin Haselböck, Olof Boman, Hubert Soudant, Niksa Bareza, and worked with stage directors such as Werner Herzog, Christine Mielitz, Tobias Richter, Sebastian Baumgarten, Paul Curran, Robert Carsen, Jacob Peters-Messer, Enrico Job, Nicholas Broadhurst, Fred Berndt, Gerd H. Seebach, Uwe E. Laufenberg, Jean Louis Martinoty, Achim Thorwald and many others.

Martin Kronthaler sang concerts in many European countries. His repertoire reaches from Italian, French and German baroque to modern music; most frequently Bach and Telemann, Händel, Brahms, Orff (Carmina Burana) as well as Mahler (all song cycles for baritone and orchestra).
His song recitals include Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, R. Strauss, Zemlinsky, Mahler and others.