Gidon Saks Bass baritone

Born in Israel, Gidon Saks was a member of the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto and the Opera Studio in Zurich. He has performed at all the major European opera houses (Kaspar in Freischütz at the Opéra Comique and the BBC Proms, Fasolt in Das Rheingold and Hagen in Götterdämmerung at La Fenice in Venice, the four incarnations of evil in The Tales of Hoffmann at Covent Garden in London, Scarpia in Tosca at the Bregenz Festival, Henri VIII in Anna Bolena in Cologne, Pizarro in Fidelio in Toronto and at the Berlin Staatsoper, Seneca in the L’Incoronazione di Poppea at La Monnaie in Brussels, the title role in Mefistofele in Amsterdam, Philippe II in Don Carlos in Geneva and Palermo, Fafner in Siegfried, Hunding in Die Walküre, Daland in Der Fliegende Holländer and the music master in Ariadne auf Naxos in Washington…). He has also taken part in the world premiers of Harvey Milk by Stewart Wallace, Salammbô by Philippe Fénelon (Paris Opera) and Arianna by Goehr.
He has recently appeared in Bluebeard’s Castle at the Komische Oper in Berlin in a production by Calixto Bieito, at the Teatr Wielki, at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and at Angers-Nantes Opera in a production directed by Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser and in The Rake’s Progress as Nick Shadow at the Paris Opera, at the Berlin Staatsoper and at the Edinburgh Festival. He made his debut at the Berlin Deutsche Oper in the role of John Claggart in Billy Budd, a role he also interpreted at the Paris Opera and recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra (Grammy Award for the Best Opera Performance).
This season sees his role debut as Bottom in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Bergen in Robert Carsen’s legendary production and performances as Gyges in Zemlinsky’s Der König Kandaules at Flanders Opera conducted by Dmitre Jurowski and Bluebeard at the La Corogne Festival. On the concert platform, he has sung Creon in Œdipus Rex and the hermit in Der Freischütz with the London Symphony Orchestra. He has performed with some of the most renowned conductors, such as Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Valery Gergiev, Donald Runnicles, Sir Neville Marriner, Daniel Harding, Sir Andrew Davis and Sir Colin Davis.