German bass-baritone Georg Festl has been a member of the solo ensemble at Staatstheater Darmstadt since 2017. Twentieth-century and contemporary opera form a particular focus of his work: his roles include Golaud in Pelléas et Mélisande, Orest in Elektra, Sam in Trouble in Tahiti, the Prisoner in Ethel Smyth’s The Prison and the title role in Messiaen’s Saint François d’Assise. For the latter, he was nominated as “Young Artist of the Year” in Opernwelt.

Mr. Festl’s Darmstadt repertoire also includes the title role in Massenet’s Don Quichotte, which he sang in 2025, and Pietro in Auber’s La Muette de Portici. His interpretation of the Animal Tamer and Athlete in Berg’s Lulu has taken him from Darmstadt to Staatstheater Nürnberg, where he appeared in 2026. In 2027, he is scheduled to sing Jochanaan in Salome in Darmstadt.

Alongside this repertoire, he sings Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro, Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, Leporello in Don Giovanni, Dulcamara in L’elisir d’amore, the Herald in Lohengrin, Schaunard in La bohème and Frank in Die Fledermaus. Figaro and Leporello have also brought him to Finnish National Opera. His guest engagements include Opernhaus Zürich, La Monnaie in Brussels, Komische Oper Berlin and Luzerner Theater, as well as the theatres in Wiesbaden, Karlsruhe, Würzburg, Freiburg and Lübeck, the Munich Opera Festival and the Munich Gasteig. Before joining Darmstadt, he was engaged as a soloist in Augsburg from 2015 to 2017.

In 2020, Mr. Festl recorded When She Loved Me with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for Decca’s Disney Goes Classical, which debuted at number one on the UK classical charts. He also maintains an active concert schedule, with a repertoire including Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Bach’s St John Passion, and Rossini’s Stabat Mater and Petite messe solennelle.

Mr. Festl studied with Endrik Wottrich and Christiane Iven at the University of Music Würzburg, completing his master’s degree in 2017. During his studies, he received a Richard Wagner Association scholarship and took part in the Jeunes Ambassadeurs Lyriques programme in Montreal, performing in concerts supported by Bavaria and Quebec. He holds a teaching appointment at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg.