René Pape

René Pape is a leading German bass who has won two Grammy Awards for his performances of Wagner. Emerging into international attention in the early 1990s, he received his first Grammy for the 1998 Best Opera Recording winner, Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg, featuring the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He later made his film debut in Kenneth Branagh's 2006 screen adaptation of The Magic Flute, and he won Germany's equivalent of the Grammy, an ECHO award, for his 2009 album, Gods, Kings & Demons, a wide-ranging selection of arias recorded with the Staatskapelle Dresden. Pape performed in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony at BBC Proms in 2012, and starred as Boris Godunov at the Metropolitan Opera in 2021, among his many other high-profile international performances. His repertoire also includes the work of more-contemporary composers, including his appearance on the 2025 premiere recording of Sven Helbig's Requiem A, for bass-baritone, chorus, and orchestra.