Ferhat Baday

Turkish bass Ferhat Baday has been a member of the International Opera Studio at Oper Köln since the 2025/26 season. His Cologne repertoire includes Kaspar in Freikugeln – Der Freischütz in fünf Dimensionen, Jago in Ernani and Antonio in Le nozze di Figaro. His announced engagements for 2027 include Littore and Famigliare III in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea and the Bonze in Stravinsky’s The Nightingale.

Mr. Baday previously belonged to the International Opera Studio at the Komische Oper Berlin during the 2022/23 and 2023/24 seasons. His repertoire there included Zaretsky in Eugene Onegin, the Second Armoured Man in Die Zauberflöte, the Tutor in Les Brigands, Doeg in Handel’s Saul, the First Gravedigger in Thomas’s Hamlet, and the Herald and Farfarello in Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges.

His Deutsche Oper Berlin debut in 2024/25 brought appearances in Ab in den Ring! and the world premiere of Gordon Kampe’s children’s opera Immermeeehr. Work for young audiences also includes Ville Vätte and Olle in Elena Kats-Chernin’s Nils Holgersson in Berlin, and Maledictus Made in Der satanarchäolügenialkohöllische Wunschpunsch and Henriette the Chicken in Max and Moritz in Cologne. At the Bregenz Festival in 2025, he sang Don Magnifico in La Cenerentola and appeared as bass soloist in Weber’s Missa sancta No. 1.

Mr. Baday has collaborated with conductors including Adrien Perruchon, David Bates, James Gaffigan, Erina Yashima, Marie Jacquot and Hendrik Vestmann, and with directors including Axel Ranisch, Max Hopp, Nadja Loschky and Ruth Brauer-Kvam. He studied at the State Conservatory of Dokuz Eylül University in Izmir, earning his Bachelor of Music in 2023. In 2022, he won First Prize at the National Young Soloists Competition in Izmir.