Espen Langvik
Baritone
Espen Langvik (born 1975) was trained at the Rogaland Music Conservatory, the Norwegian National Opera Academy and Mannes College of Music in New York.
Since the fall of 2009, he has been a regular member of the soloist ensemble at the Norwegian National Opera. In his first season there, he performed roles that ranged from Testo in Il Combattimento di Tancredi et Chlorinda to Harlekin in Ariadne auf Naxos and Pankrazius Schneidebart in Die Schweigsame Frau. He also performed Malatesta in Don Pasquale and a recital of Hugo Wolf's Italienisches Liederbuch.
Mr. Langvik made his role debut in all of the operas he performed in his second season at the Norwegian National Opera. First, he performed Il Conte in Le Nozze di Figaro, followed by Tarquinius in The Rape of Lucretia. He finished off the season with Ned Keene in Peter Grimes.
This season, he sang the roles of Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia, and he will be concluding the season with Schaunard in La Bohème, a new production by director Stefan Herheim which also will be broadcast live to Norwegian cinemas in February (a first for the Norwegian National Opera). Finally, he will sing the lead role of Benjamin Sigismund in Gisle Kverndokk's Den fjerde nattevakt (The Fourth Nightwatch), a production that will also guest perform at the Savonlinna Operafestival this summer.
Earlier roles at the National Opera have been Danilo in The Merry Widow, Falke in Die Fledermaus, Dancairo in Carmen, and Renato in Un Ballo in Maschera (on tour).
The New York Times gave Mr. Langvik a glowing review for his performance of Papageno in Die Zauberflöte in a production at Mannes College of Music, saying, "Espen Langvik was a big, bearlike Papageno with a warm, solid baritone voice and a love of off-the-cuff clowning."
Mr. Langvik has also been a steady guest at the different opera companies in Norway, in particular the RingsakerOperaen and the Opera of Kristiansund. There he has sung such parts as Figaro in both Il Barbiere di Siviglia and Le Nozze di Figaro, Scarpia in Tosca, Germont in La Traviata and the title roles for both Don Giovanni and Eugene Onegin (Opera Nordfjord).
Mr. Langvik has also performed in Carmina Burana and the Fauré Requiem a number of times, along with Händel's Messiah, Brahms' Requiem, and Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, amongst other concert works.