Werner Güra

German tenor Werner Güra, born in Munich, received his musical training at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and comple­ted his vocal studies with Profes­sor Kurt Widmer. Furthermore, he was coached by Nicolai Gedda, Professor­ Margreet Honig in Amsterdam and Professor Wessela Zlateva in Vienna.

After guesting at the opera houses of Frankfurt and Basel, he joined the ensemble of the Semperoper Dresden in 1995, where he sang the important Mozart and Rossini parts of his Fach. Daniel Barenboim invited Werner Güra for various productions to the Staatsoper Berlin and he sang his highly acclaimed Mozart roles at La Monnaie in Brussels at the Opéra National de Paris, and at the Zurich Opera.

At this stage of his career, Werner Güra concentrates his activities on the vocal-symphonic and Oratorio repertoire. He sang on the most prestigious European concert stages and worked with many orchestras including Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Symphony Orchestra of the Bavarian Radio, the Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Vienna Symphoy Orchestra, Freiburger Barock Orchestra, Concentus Musicus Wien, the Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Boston Symphony Orchestras with conductors such Riccardo Chailly, Adam Fischer, Pablo Heras-Casado, Philippe Herreweghe, Manfred Honeck, Philippe Jordan, Andris Nelsons, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Franz Welser-Möst and many others. Werner Güra enjoyed close collaboration with Nikolaus Harnoncourt.

Werner Güra is also much appreciated as Lied interpreter, regularly giving recitals amongst others at the Musikverein and the Konzerthaus Vienna, the Pierre-Boulez Hall in Berlin, the Wigmore Hall London, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Lincoln Center New York and the Schubertiades Schwarzenberg. For Harmonia Mundi France he recorded an impressive number of solo-recordings. Some of them were awarded with prestigious prices. Werner Güra has been teaching at the Zurich University of the Arts since 2009.