Brenden Gunnell

Brenden Gunnell is a key player in the next generation of heldentenors. Born in the U.S., Gunnell has been an ensemble member of Oper Leipzig since the 2022-23 season. Upcoming roles with the company include Siegmund (Die Walküre) and the title role in Peter Grimes, which he’ll also sing for Oper Köln. His 2023-24 concert engagements include Das Paradies und die Peri with Hamburg Symphony Orchestra and Sylvain Cambreling and Das Lied von der Erde with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Alpesh Chauhan. Gunnell’s recent operatic roles have included Herodes (Salome) for Oper Leipzig; Erik (Der fliegende Holländer) for Komische Oper Berlin; the title role in Lohengrin for the Bolshoi Theatre; Duke of Kent (Aribert Reimann’s Lear) and Hüon in a new production of Oberon for the Bavarian State Opera; Prince (Rusalka) for the Glyndebourne Festival and Bergen National Opera; Loge (Das Rheingold) for Birmingham Opera Company and Gothenburg Opera; Jimmy (Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny) for Teatro dell’Opera di Roma; Jenik (The Bartered Bride) for Garsington Opera; the title role in Peter Grimes at the Staatstheater Saarbrücken, and the title role in Idomeneo for Opéra national de Lorraine. 2023 marked Gunnell’s debut with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig singing both Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with Matthias Foremny and Symphony No. 8 with Andris Nelsons. He is particularly noted for Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius, which he sang in his debut with the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra under Sir Jeffrey Tate and has since sung with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Dortmund Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and for the Rheingau Musik Festival. After completing his studies at Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia in 2006, Brenden Gunnell was an ensemble member at the Tiroler Landestheater in Innsbruck from 2007 to 2011, under artistic director Brigitte Fassbaender, and the Norwegian Opera and Ballet from 2011 to 2013.