Bass

Bass Alexander Vassiliev was born in St. Petersburg and studied singing and composition at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, before joining the Opera Studio in Munich. He was then engaged at the opera houses of Freiburg, Bielefeld, Braunschweig and Cologne and has has also sung at the opera theaters of St. Petersburg, Munich, Duesseldorf, Essen, Nancy, Montpellier, Paris, Rome, Bologna, Amsterdam and Geneva. He has worked with many renowned conductors, such as M.Janssons, J.Conlon, K.Ono, I.Bolton, M.Yurowski, and staging directors like P.Audi, W.Decker, R.Carsen, R.Jones. His opera repertoire includes over 70 roles, among which most of the important bass and bass-baritone roles. He has recorded Bizet‘s “Ivan IV” (Naïve), Reznicek‘s “Chamisso-Variations” (CPO), the DVDs of Prokofiev‘s “The Love of Three Oranges“ and Shostakovitch‘s “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” (Opus Arte) and participated in many radio recordings in Paris, Amsterdam, Geneva and Cologne. His future engagements include productions in Covent Garden, Madrid, Amsterdam and Singapore. Wasilyew has performed at the festivals of Davos, Lockenhaus, Citta di Castello, Schloss Elmau and Freiburg, at the Beethoven Festival in Krakow, as well as in Palao de la Musica in Barcelona, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the concert halls of Cologne, Paris, Utrecht, Strasbourg, Montpellier, Rome, Geneva, Munich and Frankfurt. Since 2008 he is co-founder and artistic director of the chamber music festival “Klassikfest Kaiserstuhl” in Ihringen, Germany, where he now lives.

Photo: Kay Blaschke