Kihwan Sim :: Opera Connection

Highlights

2009 1st Prize at the International Mirjam Helin Competition in Helsinki
2011 1st prize at the Long-Thibauld-Crespin Competition in Paris
2012 Featured on Rolando Villazón's TV show "Stars of tomorrow" (ARTE)
2012 Member of the ensemble at Frankfurt Opera
2016 Metropolitan Opera debut as Colline
2018 Debut at Royal Opera Covent Garden as Erster Nazarene in Salome
2022 BBC Proms Verdi Requiem at Royal Albert Hall

Biography

After his studies at the Yonsei University College of Music, the Korean bass-baritone Kihwan Sim was accepted into the “Hochschule für Musik und Theater” in Hamburg to study with professor Geert Smits.

Kihwan Sim has won prizes at several acclaimed international singing competitions such as the 1st Prize at the International Mirjam Helin Competition (2009), 2nd Prize at the Neue Stimmen competition in Germany (2009), 2nd Prize at the “Paris International Opera Competition” (2010) and the 1st Prize at the International Long-Thibaud-Crespin Competition in France (2011).

After his first appearance on European opera stages in 2011, singing Figaro in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro at Staatstheater Darmstadt and Masetto (Don Giovanni) at the prestigious Savonlinna Opera Festival, he was invited to join the opera studio of the Frankfurt Opera, where he became a member of the solo ensemble in 2012. His first main roles there included the Duke of Albany in Aribert Reimann's Lear, Colline (La bohème), Figaro (Le Nozze di Figaro), Talbot (Maria Stuarda), Count Rodolfo (La Sonnambula), Procida (Vespri Siciliani), Gottardo (La gazza ladra), Raimondo (Lucia di Lammermoor), Leporello (Don Giovanni), and the title role in Verdi’s Oberto.

In later seasons, he added Capellio (Rossini’s Bianca e Falliero), Nick Shadow (The Rake’s Progress), Don Ruy Gomez de Silva (Ernani), Méphistophélès (Damnation de Faust), Escamillo (Carmen), Ferrando (Il trovatore), Lodovico (Otello), Ramfis (Aida), Gremin (Eugene Onegin), Sarastro (Die Zauberflöte) and Daland (Der Fliegende Holländer) to his repertoire. This season’s roles include Tierbändiger/Athlet (Lulu), Banco (Macbeth), Sparafucile (Rigoletto) and the title role in Le nozze di Figaro.

In addition to his busy schedule in Frankfurt, Kihwan Sim has also appeared in guest performances as Procida at the Opéra de Nice and Colline at Oper Köln, shortly followed by his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in the same role in 2016. In the following season, Sim performed the bass solo in Verdi’s Messa di Requiem with the La Verdi Orchestra and the role of Lord Gualtiero Valton in I Puritani by Bellini at the Festival of Radio France in Montpellier. In 2018, Sim made his debut at London's Covent Garden in Strauss' Salome as 1.Nazarener and was invited back to the Metropolitan opera for Masetto in Mozart’s Don Giovanni in 2019. The most recent guest performances include Escamillo at the Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen and the bass solo of Verdi’s Messa da Requiem at the BBC Proms 2022 first night concert in London with BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by maestro Sakari Oramo.

Kihwan Sim participated in recordings of Wagner’s Das Liebesverbot and Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos, both on Oehms Classics label, and was featured in Rolando Villazon’s television series Stars of Tomorrow, broadcast on ARTE.