Winterreise with MICHAEL NAGL, Bass
Academia Vocalis Laureate 2023
Accompaniment: GÖTZ PAYER
In the summer of 2016, the young artist completed his vocal studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna in the class of Univ.-Prof. Karlheinz Hanser. The bass-baritone celebrated his successful stage debut in March 2014 at the Schlosstheater Schönbrunn as Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte. He made his professional debut at the Stadttheater Baden as the Second Armed Man and Leporello. During his studies, Michael Nagl could be heard at the Schlosstheater Schönbrunn in roles such as Masetto, Leporello and Simone in Gianni Schicchi. In the summer of 2014 he won the prize for Best Young Singer at the Otto Edelmann Singing Competition. In 2015 he was awarded the Gottlob Frick Medal at the artists’ gathering of the Gottlob Frick Society.
In the summer of 2022 he made his debut at the Salzburg Festival as Papageno in Die Zauberflöte. Michael Nagl is a member of the ensemble at the Stuttgart State Opera, where during the 2022/23 season he appeared on stage, among other roles, as Leporello in Don Giovanni, Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro, Basilio in Il Barbiere di Siviglia and in the bass part of a staged production of the St John Passion. The Vienna-born singer, born in 1995, has celebrated successful debuts in recent years at the Paris Opéra National as First Priest and Second Armed Man in Die Zauberflöte, at the Bregenz Festival as Donner in Das Rheingold, at the Opéra du Rhin in Strasbourg as Leporello and at the Opéra national de Lorraine in Nancy as Papageno. He made his debut at the Dresden Semperoper as Conte di Ceprano in Rigoletto and appeared with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin in Stravinsky’s Pulcinella at the Berlin Philharmonie.
With the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne he appeared as Polydor and Père de famille in Berlioz’s L’enfance du Christ at Cologne Cathedral, and he made his debut in Bach’s Christmas Oratorio at the Vienna Musikverein. His debut at La Scala in Milan as the Fifth Jew in Salome under Riccardo Chailly in a new production by Damiano Michieletto had to be cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Later this year he will also make his debut at the Vienna State Opera. The young singer has already worked with conductors such as Sylvain Cambreling, Thomas Guggeis, Marie Jacquot, Lothar Koenigs, Oksana Lyniv, Cornelius Meister, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, François-Xavier Roth, Marc Soustrot, Andreas Spering, Lorenzo Viotti and Bas Wiegers.
Götz Payer has performed in concert with more than 80 singers, including Mojca Erdmann (Japan tour), Ulrike Sonntag (Russia), Sarah Wegener, Sibylla Rubens, Samantha Gaul, Esther Dierkes, Hamida Kristoffersen, KS Helene Schneiderman (USA), Angela Brower, Marie Seidler, Deniz Uzun, Klaus Häger, Thilo Dahlmann, Jens Hamann, Cornelius Hauptmann, Konrad Jarnot, Björn Bürger, André Morsch, Johannes Held, Andreas Weller and James Wagner.
Concert engagements have taken him to festivals and concert halls across Europe, Asia and the United States. These include the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival and Musikfest auf dem Lande, the Rheingau Music Festival, the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, the European Music Festival Stuttgart, the Lied Festival Berlin/Oxford, the Black Forest Music Festival, the Bach Festival Leipzig, the Menuhin Festival Gstaad, the Max Reger Days in Weiden, the Oberstdorf Music Summer, the Atlanta Opera, the Tonhalle Zürich, Oji Hall Tokyo, Vladivostok Theatre, the Liederhalle Stuttgart, Stuttgart State Theatre, the Hugo Wolf Academy Stuttgart, the MUK Lübeck, the Vielklang Festival, Shizuoka Hall, the Brühl Palace Concerts, the Herzogenberg Festival Heiden (CH), Schloss Leopoldskron Salzburg, Nymphenburg Palace, Opéra Lille, Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Frankfurt Opera, the song festival “Der Zwerg”, Cologne Philharmonie, the Oxford International Song Festival and the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg.
His chamber music partners have included the King’s Singers, the Ensemble Cantissimo, the Amaryllis Quartet, as well as the actress Franziska Walser and the actors Mathias Gnädinger, Elmar Roloff and Walter Sittler.
Approximately 35 CD productions (Cavi-music, Carus, WP, Spektral, SWR, DRS) have been produced with his participation.
In 2013 a song composed by Götz Payer especially for the 75th anniversary commemoration of Kristallnacht was premiered at a concert of the Atlanta Opera. He has also repeatedly arranged music, for example the songs for the CD “Makh tsu die Eygelech” by Helene Schneiderman.
Götz Payer received his first musical training as a member of the “Stuttgarter Hymnus Chorknaben” and the “Collegium Iuvenum Stuttgart”, as well as through piano lessons with Gerhard Wilhelm. After completing his Abitur, he initially studied Comparative Literature and Philosophy at the University of Stuttgart. He completed his piano and song interpretation studies at the music academies in Lübeck and Zürich with Gotlinde Sudau and Konrad Elser, and in the masterclass of Irwin Gage and Esther de Bros.
He was a scholarship holder of the DAAD, a prizewinner at several competitions and a member of the support programmes Yehudi Menuhin Live Music Now and Next Generation II.
As the official accompanist of numerous masterclasses he has worked with artists such as Grace Bumbry, Hedwig Fassbender, Ulrike Sonntag, Ernst Haefliger, Kurt Moll, Matthias Goerne, Christoph Prégardien, Rudolf Piernay, Rudolf Jansen, Alberto Zedda and Gerd Uecker. Götz Payer has been invited to give song masterclasses in France, Italy, Russia and Germany. In 2018 he was part of the Excellence Laboratory Lied in Villecroze (France).
He has served as a lecturer in song interpretation at the music academies in Cologne and Frankfurt am Main. In the winter semester of 2022, Götz Payer was appointed Professor of Song at the State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart.
