Frank van Aken
Dutch tenor Frank van Aken studied singing in Utrecht and was a member of the Opera Studio of the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. He won the Cristina Deutekom Competition in 1994 and made his debut as Macduff ("Macbeth") one year later at the Nederlandse Reisopera in Enschede. In the same year, he made his international debut in Rome as Cavaradossi in "Tosca". This was followed by an engagement at the Meiningen State Opera in 1996 and a long-term engagement as ensemble member at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf from 1997 to 2000. Here, he sang roles such as Lohengrin, Erik ("Der fliegende Holländer"), Stolzing ("Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg"), Radames ("Aida"), Siegmund ("Die Walküre") and Parsifal. Guest engagements have taken him to Berlin, Munich, Stuttgart, Straßbourg, London and New York, amongst others. He was a permanent ensemble member at the Oper Frankfurt from 2006 to 2015. He made his Bayreuth Festival debut in 2007 in the title role of "Tannhäuser", a role which has since taken him to Barcelona, Baden-Baden, Vienna and Frankfurt. In the Italian fach, he has made a name for himself Otello, first at Opera Graz and later in Frankfurt. This season, he graces the Wiesbaden stage to sing Herod in the new production of "Salome".