During the course of a stage career that has spanned more than twenty years, Franz-Josef Selig has
established himself on the international arena as one of the most well known performers of serious bass
parts – particularly Gurnemanz, King Marke, Sarastro, Rocco, Osmin, Daland, Fiesco and Fasolt. Bass singer
Franz-Josef Selig first studied church music at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik, Cologne before taking
voice classes under Claudio Nicolai. He was a member of the Aalto Theatre ensemble in Essen from 1989
to 1995. Franz-Josef Selig has been a freelance singer since then and has given guest performances at
all of the world’s great opera houses such as Wiener Staatsoper, Royal Opera Covent Garden, La Scala di
Milano, Staatsoper Hamburg, Opéra de la Bastille, Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, the Metropolitan Opera New
York, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Théâtre de la Monnaie Brussels, Deutsche Oper Berlin or Bavarian State Opera
Munich. In the summer of 2012 Franz-Josef Selig made his debut at the Bayreuth Festival.
Despite his worldwide concert and opera engagements Franz-Josef Selig still finds time for recitals. A favourite project of the singer is the Liedertafel with Markus Schäfer, Christian Elsner and Michael Volle, as well as Gerold Huber as pianist. With the programm of his Lieder recital CD he will appear in many other concert cycles over the next years.
His affinity to earyl music can bee seen in cooperation with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the Concentus
Musicus Wien, with Philippe Herreweghe, René Jacobs or the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin. Numerous
CD and DVD productions – from Bach’s St. Matthew Passion via Mozart’s Magic Flute (Royal Opera London/
Sir Colin Davis), Don Giovanni (Wiener Staatsoper/Riccardo Muti) and Le nozze di Figaro (Salzburger Festspiele/ Nikolaus Harnoncourt), Weber’s Abu Hassan and Busoni’s Turandot to the Deutsche Grammophon recording of Wagner’s Parsifal under Christian Thielemann – show Franz-Josef Selig’s broad artistic spectrum.