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Kostas Smoriginas

Bass-baritone

  • Kostas Smoriginas is one of the most sought after bass-baritones of today. He made his debut at the Deutsche Staatsoper, Berlin as Escamillo Carmen and has since performed the role with the Berlin Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle (recorded for EMI Classics), the Salzburg Easter Festival, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Santa Fe Music Festival, Dresden Semperoper, and with Beijing’s National Centre for Performing Arts.

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  • During 2022/23 Smoriginas will sing Jochanaan Salome for the National Theatre Brno and in his return to the Zurich Opera House, make his house debut at the Hamburg Opera as Escamillo, perform Kurwenal Tristan und Isolde for Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg and Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía, and appear in concert as Orest Elektra with the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (Pappano). Last season Smoriginas made his house debut in Zurich Opera as Jochanaan, also performing the role in concert at the Bergen International Festival (Edward Gardner), sang the title role Eugene Onegin for the Opéra de Lausanne, and sang Escamillo for the Norwegian Opera and in his return to the Cologne Opera.


    Recent highlights include: a return to the Bregenz Festival as Monterone Rigoletto; an Eastern European tour as Escamillo in concert performances with the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra under Karel Mark Chichon; Escamillo in Barrie Kosky’s production of Carmen, Heerrufer in David Alden’s new Lohengrin, and Tchelakov in a new production of Boris Godunov at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden; Scarpia Tosca at Opéra de Rouen; Jochanaan Salome in Cologne and for the Hannover State Opera; Kurwenal Tristan und Isolde in Cologne and in concert with the Boston Symphony Orchestra (Andris Nelsons) in Boston and at Carnegie Hall; the title role Don Giovanni at Opéra de Lausanne; Figaro Le nozze di Figaro in Dresden; Escamillo in Kasper Holten’s new production of Carmen at the Bregenz Festival; Escamillo, Tomsky Pique Dame, Eugene Onegin and Le nozze di Figaro for Lithuanian National Opera; Count Le nozze di Figaro in Malmo; title roles in Aleko and The Demon at La Monnaie; and his role debut as High Priest in Samson et Dalila in Vilnius.


    Smoriginas made his US opera debut in 2010 as Figaro Le nozze di Figaro at Washington National Opera, a role he later performed at San Francisco Opera. Other operatic engagements have included Colline La bohème at Covent Garden, title role Don Giovanni at Teatro Municipal Santiago, Chile and in Toulouse, Leporello Don Giovanni at Opera de Bordeaux, Tomsky with the New Israeli Opera, Eugene Onegin, Guglielmo Cosi fan tutte and Scarpia Tosca at Vilnius City Opera, and Masetto Don Giovanni in his debut at the Teatro alla Scala and in a new production by Dmitri Tcherniakov conducted by Marc Minkowski at the Aix-en-Provence Festival.


    Smoriginas is in high demand on the concert platform. His repertoire includes Verdi, Brahms, Mozart and Faure Requiems, Beethoven Symphony No. 9, Janacek Glagolitic Mass, Dvorak Te Deum and Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater, which he sang with Edward Gardner and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and with the London Symphony Orchestra and Valery Gergiev. He won rave reviews for his BBC Proms debut in Stravinsky Les Noces at the Royal Albert Hall. Recent concert engagements include Dvorak Te Deum with the Orchestre de Paris, Beethoven Symphony No. 9 with the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra and Rachmaninov The Bells with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andris Nelsons. In the 2017 Prague Spring Festival he performed Shostakovich Symphony No. 13 with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. He has recorded as Pietro Simon Boccanegra alongside Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Ildar Abdrazakov and Barbara Frittoli.


    Smoriginas studied at the Lithuanian Music and Theatre Academy before representing his country at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. He spent two years at the Royal College of Music and was a member of the Jette Parker Young Artist Programme at the Royal Opera House for two years.

    2022/23 season / 632 words. Not to be altered without permission.

Performances

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Opera repertoire

Bartók
Title role Bluebeard's Castle


Bellini
Riccardo I puritani


Bizet
Escamillo Carmen
Zurga Les pêcheurs de perles


Debussy
Golaud Pelleas et Melisande


Donizetti
Malatesta Don Pasquale
Enrico Lucia di Lammermoor


Leoncavallo
Tonio Pagliacci


Massenet
Albert Werther


Mozart
Guglielmo Cosi fan tutte
Title role Don Giovanni
Figaro / Il Conte Le nozze di Figaro


Mussorgsky
Shchelkalov Boris Godunov


Puccini
Scarpia Tosca
Sharpless Madama Butterfly
Lescaut Manon Lescaut


Rachmaninov
Title role Aleko


Rubinstein
Title role The Demon


R. Strauss
Oreste Elektra
Jochanaan Salome


Saint-Saëns
Samson et Dalila High Priest


Tchaikovsky
Title role Eugene Onegin
Tomsky Pique Dame


Verdi
Rodrigo / Posa Don Carlo
Ford Falstaff
Renato Un ballo in maschera
Paolo Simon Boccanegra


Wagner
Herrufer Lohengrin
Kurwenal Tristan und Isolde 
Wotan The Ring Cycle*


*In preparation

Concert repertoire

Beethoven
Symphony No.9


Dvořák
Te Deum


Mussorgsky
Songs and Dances of Death


Rachmaninov
The Bells


Shostakovich
Symphony No.13


Stravinsky
Les noces


Szymanowski
Stabat Mater


Verdi
Requiem 

Smoriginas swaggered into Lillas Pastia's café as the reigning bullfighter and sang his 'Toreador Song' with resonant, robust sounds. He seemed to be having fun with the role and the part fit him perfectly.

Opera Today

As Figaro, bass-baritone Kostas Smoriginas sang with power and clarity, at his best when venting righteous anger on learning of Almaviva's designs on Susanna the night before her scheduled marriage to Figaro.

New Orleans Advocate

The real revelation of the evening is the young Lithuanian bass-baritone Kostas Smoriginas... The voice is splendid, powerful and rich in a great variety of colours. But Smoriginas is also a fine musician who manages to give a lot of humanity to his character, and to make him almost sympathetic despite his dark designs.

Forum Opera

Intermusica represents Kostas Smoriginas worldwide

Nathan Morrison
Associate Director, Vocal & Opera
+44 20 7608 9923
nmorrison@intermusica.com

Jonathan Turnbull
Associate Artist Manager, Vocal & Opera
+44 20 7608 9907
jturnbull@intermusica.com

If you have any queries, please fill in the form below, and we will be in touch soon

All artists

Chansonnier

HK Gruber

Counter-tenor

Tim Mead

Piano accompanist

Roger Vignoles