Lecturers

The bassist Roland Schubert comes from Gentha near the Luther town of Wittenberg.

At young age Schubert was already educated in playing the flute and the piano. Having this previous knowledge he attended the music school "Johann Sebastian Bach" in Leipzig from 19779-1983 where he also got his first singing lessons. After the Abitur  (school leaving exam) he studied singing in the master class of Professor Hermann Christian Polster at the music college "Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy" in Leipzig from 1983-1989. There he also worked as an assistant. Since 1993 he got lessons from Professor Walther Berry in Vienna.  After his successful final examinations he was engaged at the opera house in Leipzig were he succeeded with roles like Leporello, Papageno, Rocco, Bartolo and celebrated different premières successfully.

Since 1991 Schubert has also been bound by a second contract to the Vienna State Opera House. Since the theatre season 2000/2001 he has had an engagement at the German State Opera in Berlin.

Guest performances led the artist to the Semper Opera in Dresden, the State Opera in Hamburg, the Opera in Halle, the State Opera in Munich, the Opera in Rouen, the Folk Opera in Vienna, the Milan Scale, the Berlin State Opera, the Opera in Chemnitz and the Opera in Seoul.

Apart from his career as a a singer of opera  Roland Schubert also has a good reputation as a concert singer. Among the orchestras which asked him for cooperation are  the Vienna Philharmonics, the Gewandhuas Orchestra Leipzig, the MDR Symphony Orchestra, the Bach Orchestra Leipzig, the Saxon State Band, the Bavarian Radio Orchestra Munich and the Orchestra dell'Accademia Santa Cecilia Rom. He worked with conductors like Carlo Maria Giulini ,Riccardo Muti, Zubin Mehta, Horst Stein, Lord Yehudi Menuhin, Mstislaw Rostropowitsch, Fabio Luisi, Christian Thielemann, Michel Plasson und Kent Nagano.

In 2001 he was conferred the honorary title of a Chamber Singer.

Roland Schubert took part in different radio and TV recording. So he sang the roles of Masetto, Bartolo and Don Alfonso in the Mozart – da Ponte series which was produced by the Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk.

Numerous CD recordings with him were published within the last years. Roland Schubert has already sung more than 100 parts and worked together with many important directors, among others Ruth Berghaus, Christine  Mielitz, Alfred Kirchner, David Pountney, Volker Schlöndorf, Christoph Loy  and many more.

In the year 2004 he was appointed full Professor for singing at the College of Music and Theater in Leipzig.

He gave different master courses in Germany, Switzerland and in Italy. Students of his singing classes are prize winners of international competitions and were engaged to different theaters, among others German Opera Berlin, State Opera Berlin, State Opera Vienna, Opera Leipzig, MDR Radio Choir, Theater Bremen, Gera/Altenburg, Luzern, Semper Opera Dresden.

Caroline Stein was born in Königstein/Taunus and studied singing with Prof. Claudio Nicolai at the Musikhochschule Köln. Her professional career began for the lyric-coloratura soprano at the Mainfranken-Theater Würzburg and at the Hessische Staatstheater Wiesbaden. From 1991 until 1999, she was a member of the ensemble of the Niedersächsische Staatsoper Hannover.

She sang several major roles in her “Fach” like Königin der Nacht in Die Zauberflöte, Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos, Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, and Konstanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail. For her outstanding interpretation of Venus/Gepopo in Le Grand Macabre she was nominated as singer of the year from the magazine Opernwelt, and guested in these Roles among others by the BBC Symphony Orchestra London and at the San Francisco Opera.

At the Staatsoper Berlin Stein performed in new productions with Michael Boder and Philippe Jordan as conductors. She guested further at the Theatre de la Monnaie in Brüssel, Semperoper Dresden, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Opera National de Paris and at Teatro Real Madrid.

Stein made her debut at the Bayreuther Festspielen in 1999 as a Blumenmädchen in Parsifal conducted by Giuseppe Sinopoli and sang this role in the following years with Christoph Eschenbach and Christian Thielemann. In Der Ring staged by Jürgen Flimm 2002-2004, she sang Woglinde in Rheingold and Götterdämmerung conducted by Adam Fischer. In Paris at the Opera Bastille she did the same role in a new production staged by Günter Krämer, conducted by Philippe Jordan.

She has also performed numerous concerts and recitals. For instance with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin with Händel`s Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno. With the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra she sang Requiem für einen jungen Dichter by Zimmermann conducted by Peter Eötvös and Mysteries of the Macabre by Ligeti with Simon Rattle as conductor at the Salzburger Festspiele and Lucerne Festival. Recordings at WDR was made with pieces of Jacques Offenbach and Oscar Straus. She also made a cd production with the RIAS Kammerchor with pieces of Ernst Krenek.

Caroline Stein has worked with many widely known conductors, such as Michael Boder, Marcus Creed, Sir Colin Davis, Christoph Eschenbach, Peter Eötvös, Hartmut Haenchen, Philippe Jordan, Jonathan Nott, Sir Simon Rattle, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Markus Stenz and Christian Thielemann among others.
Her close work with Claudio Abbado, brought her as Blumenmädchen with the Berlin Philharmonic to Berlin, Salzburg and Edinburgh. To the Osterfestspielen Salzburg as Gretchen in Szenen aus Goethes Faust by Schumann and a european tour as 1.Dame in Die Zauberflöte with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. This production was recorded on cd by Deutsche Gramophon.

Since 2007 Stein has worked close with choreographer and staging manager Sasha Waltz in the production of Medeamaterial composed by Pascal Dusapins. This opera was performed in Berlin, by the Hollandfestival Amsterdam, Melbourne International Festival, at the Paris Theatre des Champs-Elysees, Theatre de la Monnaie in Brussels and at Theatre du Capitole in Toulouse.

Caroline Stein was appointed professor in Lübeck 2012. Since 2014 she is professor at the Hochschule für Musik Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Leipzig.

Yamina Maamar was born in Germany and studied singing with Prof. Carol Richardson at the Hannover University of Music, Drama and Media. She started her career as a mezzosoprano with roles such as Cherubino, Dorabella and Orlofsky before she changed to the dramatic soprano repertoire. In addition to her international artistic activities, she sang in important German opera houses such as the Bavarian State Opera Munich, the Lower Saxony State Opera Hannover, the Aalto Theater Essen, the opera houses in Dortmund, Braunschweig, Kaiserslautern, Linz, Gelsenkirchen, Bern, Darmstadt and others.

She made her US debut in 2007 at the Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center,  New York City, as „Grete“ in Franz Schreker’s opera „The Distant Sound“.
In recent years she took on many key roles such as Isolde, Salome, the Empress (The Woman Without a Shadow by Richard Strauss), Lady Macbeth (Shostakovich and Verdi), Aida, Abigaille (Nabucco), Elisabetta (Don Carlo), Manon Lescaut, Adriana Lecouvreur, Marschallin (Rosenkavalier), Kundry (Parsifal), Senta (The Flying Dutchman) and Fidelio Leonore.
In 2019 she will appear as „Brünnhilde“ in the complete „Ring des Nibelungen“ (R. Wagner) in Passau, in Verdi's „Messa da Requiem“ in Cologne and Bonn as well as in the German Premiere of Anno Schreier’s „City of the Blind“ at Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern.

Important stations in the concert area were the International Edinburgh Festival (Berlioz: Les nuits d’été, Wagner: Wesendonck-Lieder, de Falla: El amor brujo), the Seoul Arts Center (Beethoven, 9th Symphony), Herkulessaal Munich (excerpts Tristan and Isolde), Verdi's „Messa da Requiem“ with Enoch zu Guttenberg, concerts with WDR Cologne (e.g. excerpts Tannhäuser), a recital in the Apollosaal State Opera Berlin and „Tove“ in Schoenberg’s „Gurrelieder“ in the Berlin Cathedral.

Yamina Maamar is co-founder and artistic director of the International Opera Academy IOA e.V. which organizes annual masterclasses for singers and concerts since 2012. After a few years of teaching at Hannover University of Music, Drama and Media she has been appointed as a professor for classical voice at the Dresden University of Music Carl Maria von Weber in 2019.
She is also a welcome guest at numerous masterclasses at home and abroad, e.g. in China, Tunisia, France, at the Opera Academy Schloss Henfenfeld or the Sankt Goar International Music Festival and Academy.

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Hans-Joachim Beyer wurde 1940 in Leipzig geboren und wuchs in einem musikliebenden Elternhaus auf.
Nach seiner schulischen Ausbildung absolvierte er an der Hochschule für Musik und Theater Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Leipzig ein Studium für Gesang und Gesangspädagogik bei Prof. Heinrich Bergzog.
Im Anschluss daran erhielt er am gleichem Institut die Möglichkeit einer außerplanmäßigen pädagogisch-künstlerischen Aspirantur bei Prof. Helga Forner, von welcher er auch weiterhin über viele Jahre gesanglich betreut wurde.
Als Baßbariton, später lyrischer-und Charakterbariton war er an verschiedenen Musiktheatern in Görlitz, Altenburg und Leipzig engagiert.

Seine Gesangspartien u.a.:

• G.F. Händel, „Agrippina“ Otto | „Ezio“ Varo
• W.A.Mozart, „Hochzeit des Figaro“ Figaro, Almaviva, „Don Giovanni“ Massetto, Leporello, „DieZauberflöte“, Papageno
• G.Donizetti, „Don Pasquale“, Don Pasquale
• G.Rossini, „Die Liebesprobe“, Pacuvio
• O.Nicolai, „Lustige Weiber von Windsor“, Fluth
• G.Verdi, „Ein Maskenball“, Renato
• R.Wagner, „Tannhäuser“, Wolfram
• B. Britten, „Albert Herring“, Sid
• A.Lortzing , „Waffenschmied“, Liebenau | Adelhoff
• Fr. v. Suppe , „Gasparone“ Erminio, „Boccacio“ Boccacio
• J.Stauss, „Die Fledermaus“, Dr.Falke
• R.Benatzky ,„Weißes Rössel“, Dr.Siedler
• R.Stolz, „Die Trauminsel“, Rubio
• O.Hammerstein/R.Rodgers „Oklahoma“, Curly
• F. Loewe, „My fair Lady“, Freddy
• G.Kern, „Showboat“, Ravenal

Gastspiele, Rundfunk-und Fernsehaufzeichnungen sowie Liederabende und Oratorienaufführungen ergänzten sein umfangreiches künstlerisches Wirken.

Ab dem Jahr 1985 war Hans-Joachim Beyer an der Hochschule für Musik und Theater Leipzig Lehrbeauftragter für Gesang, seit 1988 Obersassistent für Gesang und wurde im Jahr 1992 zum Professor für Gesang berufen.
Nach seiner Emeritierung und einem Lehrauftrag an seiner Heimathochschule, übte er von 2005 bis 2009 eine Vertretungsprofessur an der Musikhochschule Nürnberg/Augsburg aus.

Nachfolgend leitet er als Professor im Lehrauftrag eine Gesangsklasse an der Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar, wo er auch Sängerinnen und Sänger des Thüringer Opernstudios betreut.
Seine erfolgreiche pädagogische Tätigkeit belegen zahlreiche von seinen Schülern errungene Preise bei nationalen und internationalen Wettbewerben.

Zum Beispiel:

• Matthias Goerne 1. Preis Paula Lindberg Salomon Wettbewerb Berlin, 1. Preis Hugo-Wolf-Wettbewerb Stuttgart
• Stephan Genz 1. Preis Internationaler Brahmswettbewerb Hamburg, 2. Preis Hugo-Wolf-Wettbewerb Stuttgart
• Christoph Genz 1. Preis Internationaler Johann-Sebastian-Bach Wettbewerb Leipzig
• Daniel Ochoa 1. Preis Lortzing Wettbewerb Leipzig
• Julia Sophie Wagner 1. Preis Lortzing Wettbewerb Leipzig
• Wolfram Lattke Echo Classik mit Vokalensemble Amarcord
• Martin Lattke Echo Classik mit Vokalensemble Amarcord
• Szabolcs Brickner 1. Preis Königin-Elisabeth-Wettbewerb Brüssel
• Audun Iversen 1. Preis Königin-Sophia-Wettbewerb Oslo
• Fang Hao Chao 2. Preis „ Centuries of romanze“ St.Petersburg

Als Lehrende sind oder waren einige seiner ehemaligen Studentinnen und Studenten an verschiedenen Hochschulen in Deutschland und in anderen europäischen Ländern tätig.

Zum Beispiel:

• Matthias Goerne (Professur für Liedgestaltung Düsseldorf)
• Stephan Genz (Professur für deutsches Repertoire-Conservatoire National de Paris) (Professur Mozartteum Salzburg).
• Mareike Schellenberger (Professur für Gesang Conservatoire de Rayonnement Regional Dorius Milhaud in Aix-en-Provence)

Hans-Joachim Beyer gibt regelmäßig Meisterkurse, wie zum Beispiel: Internationales Musikfestival Stuttgart, Bachakademie Stuttgart; in Lugano, Basel, Oslo, Magdeburg, Weickersheim, Berlin, Aix-en-Provence u.a.
Auch konnte er als Juror bei nationalen und internationalen Wettbewerben seine reichhaltigen Erfahrungen einbringen. (u.a. Internationaler Robert-Schumann-Wettbewerb Zwickau, Deutscher Musikwettbewerb Berlin).

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Baritone Olaf Bär still lives in his home town of Dresden where he was for many years a principal member of the Semper Oper and where he continues to make regular guest appearances. As the winner of the inaugural Walther Grüner Lieder Competition, Olaf Bär was launched on an international career and is today considered to be one of the foremost Lieder interpreters of his generation, a reputation which is also documented in his numerous Lied recordings, most of them with EMI.

Olaf Bär appears worldwide in recital and has made major tours of Australia, Israel, Japan and America. He made his Covent Garden recital debut in 1992 and is one of the most frequent guests in London’s esteemed Wigmore Hall but also in most major chamber music halls all over the world.

Equally at home in the concert hall and opera house, Bär’s concert repertoire ranges from the baroque to the contemporary including Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Bach’s St Matthew Passion, Britten’s War Requiem, Brahms’ Requiem and Haydn’s Creation. He has appeared with many of the world’s finest orchestras and conductors including the LSO/Tilson Thomas, the COE/Solti, RCO/Harnoncourt, La Scala/Muti, the RSNO/Runnicles, the NYPO/Masur, the Accademia di Santa Cecilia/Tate and Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks/Maazel.

As an opera singer Olaf Bär has appeared at Covent Garden as Harlekin and Papageno; at La Scala as Papageno; at the Aix Festival as Harlekin and Guglielmo; in Frankfurt as Guglielmo; at the Vienna State Opera as Harlekin and Olivier; at Glyndebourne both as Olivier and Don Giovanni; Papageno in Chicago, marking his American operatic debut, as Mozart’s Count in Rome and in the Flimm/Harnoncourt production in Amsterdam as well as with Seiji Ozawa as part of of the Ongaku-Juku Opera project in Japan; Olivier/Capriccio and Foila in Schubert’s Alfonso e Estrella in Zürich and at the Vienna Festival, Der Graf/Capriccio in Amsterdam and Dr. Falke/Die Fledermaus conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt at the Vienna Festival to mention only some of his engagements.

1998 Olaf Bär was awarded the Schumann-Preis of the city of Zwickau.

Since 2004 hat Olaf Bär is a regular professor for recital at Hochschule für Musik in Dresden.

Alexander Schmalcz got his first piano lessons as a member of the Dresden Cross Choir. He studied at the College of Music in Dresden and changed for 2 years to the Conservatory in Utrecht. At the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London he was the student of Iain Burnside and Graham Johnson. The pianist is a prize winner of the Gerald Moore Award 1996 and of the Megan Foster Accompanist Prize. In 1995 he won the competition of the Nederlands Impresariaat with his piano trio.

Besides performances at music festivals like the Schubertiade in Schwarzenberg,the Salzburg Festspiele, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Schwetzing Festspiele, the Tanglewood Festival or the Prague Spring the accompanist of song gives quest performances in the big centers of music in Europe, America, Japan and Korea. Concerts led him, among other places, to the Wigmore Hall London, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Vienna Music club, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the Cologne Philharmonic Orchestra, the Théâtre du Chatelet, the Théâtre de la Monnaie Bruxelles, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden London, the Kennedy Center Washington D.C., the Tokyo Opera City Hall and the Church of our Lady Dresden.

Alexander Schmalcz works together with singers like Grace Bumbry, Peter Schreier, Matthias Goerne, Konrad Jarnot, Stephan Genz, Eva Mei, Doris Soffel, Christiane Oelze and Stephan Loges. His chamber music partners are the Petersen Quartette and the actors Julia Stemberger and Hans-Jürgen Schatz.

He made records for different CD labels and radio stations,among others, BBC, BR, SWR and the Netherlands Radio. Mozart-songs, Zilcher-songsr and a CD with songs by Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt with Konrad Jarnot were published by OehmsClassic.

Since 1999 Alexander Schmalcz has been teaching at the Robert Schumann College in Düsseldorf and in master courses.

Brigitte Wohlfarth began her vocal studies in Würzburg, Germany, where she recieved scholarships from both the „Richard Wagner-Verband“ and the „Leni- Geissler-Stiftung“. Further studies with James King in Munich (National Theater) greatly influenced her singing artistry.
Her career began as sought-after oratoria and recital singer:
Rheingaufestival, Weilburger Schloßkonzerte, Internalional Musiktage Bad Urach, Mozartfest Würzburg, Festival der Mitte Europa and the „Bregenzer Festspiele“ are only a few of her many concert stations. Milano, Rome, Bolzano, Trieste, Munich, Berlin, Nürnberg, Leipzig, Bern, Biel, Ankara, London, Singapore (New Esplanade Hall) Salzburg as well as in Australia, France, Norway and Finland and China.
Mrs. Wohlfarth can be heard on numerous CD and Radio productions, among the most important are: Faust (Louis Spohr), Die Vögel (Braunfels – nominated for 40 Grammy awards), 9.Symphony (L.V. Beethoven) and Das Tagebuch der Anne Frank (G. Fried). It is with the world premiere of the latter that Mrs. Wohlfarth launched her opera career in Nürnberg Germany in 1993. In the same year, following an appearance as finalist in the international „Neue Stimmen“ competition (Bertelsmann), she debuted as „Desdemona“ (Otello/Rossini) at Staatstheater Braunschweig, where she remained until 1997.

Since then she has guested in numerous theatres:
Bologna (the opening of the ARENA DEL SOLE), Castello di Montegridolfo, Naples (Teatro San Carlo), Udine (the opening of the Nuovo Teatro), Palermo (Teatro Massimo), Festspiele Erl, Tbilisi (National Opera House), Beijing, Shanghai (Grand Theatre), Heidenheim (Opernfestpiele), Halle a.d. S., Lübeck, Trier, Frankfurt a.M., Berlin, Stuttgart, Munich ( first night “ Leonore – L.v. Beethoven ), Rome, London and Meiningen, where she enjoyed enormous success from audiences and critics alike as Sieglinde (Die Walküre) and Gutrune (Götterdämmerung) in the „RING“-staging from Christine Mielitz. Her many-sided repertoire ranges from Mozart`s Fiordiligi and First Lady to Puccini`s Turandot, Verdi`s Aida and Leonore (Trovatore), to Wagner`s Elisabeth (Tannhäuser), Elsa (Lohengrin), Brünnhilde (Götterdämmerung) and Isolde (Tristan und Isolde), Weber`s Agathe (Freischütz), Beethoven`s Fidelio-Leonore and Richard Strauss` Arabella, Salome, Ariadne, Diemut (Feuersnot) and Elektra. Brigitte Wohlfarth worked from September 2010 until August 2015 as a professor for classical voice at the Hochschule der Künste (HKB) in Bern (Switzerland). Since September 2015 she was appointed as a professor for classical voice at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Hochschule für Musik und Theater to Leipzig. Since 2017, she has also been an accredited professor at Kalaidos University of Switzerland.

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