Markus Butter
Guest of the OperaBiography
Austrian baritone Markus Butter made his National Theatre Opera debut in the 2022/23 season as Böhni (Kleider machen Leute). He graduated from the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Graz. He was a member of the Bavarian State Opera (1999–2001), Deutsche Oper am Rhein (2001–2005) and Sächsische Staatsoper Dresden. Since 2015/2016 he has been a member of Opera Graz, where his roles have included Capulet (Gounod: Roméo et Juliette), Escamillo (Bizet: Carmen), Kurwenal (Wagner: Tristan und Isolde), Dr Vigelius/Count (Schreker: Der ferne Klang), Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, Priest Fotis (Martinů: The Greek Passion), or the title role in Dallapiccola’s Il prigioniero, among others. Markus Butter has also maintained a long-standing relationship with Theater an der Wien where he has appeared in various 20th-century and contemporary opera roles including Rittmeister/Beichtvater (HK Gruber’s Geschichten aus dem Wiener Wald, also at the Bregenz Festival), Count Almaviva (Milhaud’s La mère coupable), Jackie “Tiger“ Brown (Brecht’s Die Dreigroschenoper), or Prediger (Gottfried von Einem’s Der Besuch der alten Damen). Apart from his operatic career, he also sings in concert productions with many leading European orchestras, with conductors including Harding, Harnoncourt, Hengelbrock, Järvi, Luisi and Rilling. In 2014, he sang in the world premiere of Maxwell Davies’s Symphony No. 10 with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Antonio Pappano.
Photo Werner Kmetitsch