In summer 2017 Werner Van Mechelen made his debut at the Bayreuth Festival with outstanding success in the role of Klingsor in Wagner’s PARSIFAL. The multi-faceted bass-baritone Werner Van Mechelen has achieved great success in opera as well as in concerts and as a recital singer. Recently he sang a Alberich in RING CYCLES at the Deutsche Oper Berlin as well as Wolfram in TANNHÄUSER at the Saarbruck State Theatre. During the coming seasons he is invited for Heerrufer in LOHENGRIN at the

Théâtre de la Monnaie, Brussels, Don Pizarro in FIDELIO and Alberich in RHEINGOLD and SIEGFRIED at the Hamburg State Opera, Alberich in SIEGFRIED at the Erl Festival and Pandolphe in Massenet’s CENDRILLON at the Komische Oper Berlin. Apart from his opera productions he will sing Golaud in PELLEAS ET MELISANDE in a version with two pianos (CD recording) and he will prepare Schubert’s WINTERREISE with guitar. Further he is invited for concerts with Orff’s CARMINA BURANA in Bruxelles, Bach’s b-minor Mass in Basle, for VERDI REQUIEM and for the CHRISTMAS ORATORIO in Freiburg. His lyric repertoire extends from the baroque repertoire to great Mozart roles like Count Almaviva, Figaro, Don Alfonso, Don Giovanni, Leporello and Papageno, to German and Italian repertoire, including Michele and Gianni Schicchi in Puccini’s Il TRITTICO, Scarpia in TOSCA, Amonasro in AIDA and Ford in FALSTAFF – not forgetting masterpieces of the 20th century such as Berg’s Wozzeck and many world-creations. A focus is on the german repertoire of Wagner and Strauss: Wagner: Wolfram in TANNHÄUSER, Kothner in DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NÜRNBERG, Amfortas and Klingsor in PARSIFAL as well as Kurwenal in TRISTAN UND ISOLDE. He has interpreted many times and with great success the role of Alberich in Wagner’s RING CYCLE: at the Opéra Royal de Wallonie (broadcasted on RTBF), the Nationale Opera, Amsterdam, the Vlaamse Opera, Antwerp and Ghent, the Teatro la Fenice in Venice. He sang his first Wotan in RHEINGOLD at the Wagner Festival in Sopot. At the Hamburg State Opera and in Bogota he was Kurwenal in TRISTAN UND ISOLDE. Strauss: Faninal in DER ROSENKAVALIER and Musiklehrer in ARIADNE OF NAXOS at the Opéra du Rhin, Strasbourg, Jochanaan in SALOME at the Opera Monte Carlo, Mandryka in ARABELLA at Göteborgs Operan and at the Opéra Royal de Wallonie, Liège. Konstantin Unger Artists.Management Scheffelstrasse 11 | D - 65187 Wiesbaden +49 611 51 0099 76 / +49 176 846 24 222 unger@ungerartiststs.com www.ungerartists.com Werner Van Mechelen has a close relationship to the opera houses of Belgium and Holland. At La Monnaie, Brussels he has sung the title role in Berg’s WOZZECK, Nekrotzar in Ligeti’s GRAND MACABRE, Sancho Pansa in Massenet’s DON QUICHOTTE, the Chambellan YVONNE and the older son in AU MONDE by Boesmans. The Vlaamse Opera, Antwerp invited him for Besenbinder in HANSEL AND GRETEL, Ford in FALSTAFF, Amonasro in AIDA, Geisterbote in DIE FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN and Amfortas in PASIFAL. At the Nederlandse Opera in Amsterdam he has sung a.o Varlaam in BORIS GODUNOV, Tierbändiger / Athlet in Lulu and Alberich in the RING CYCLE. Furthermore he was invited to the Opéra d’Avignon (Pizarro), the Gran teatro del Liceu (Nekrotzar), the Augsburg Opera (Scarpia / TOSCA) as well as to the opera houses of Paris, Zürich, Cologne etc. Werner Van Mechelen has sung under the baton of conductors like: Hartmut Haenchen, Sigiswald Kuijken, Ton Koopman, Antonio Pappano, Marc Minkowski, Bernhard Kontarsky, Gabriel Feltz, Patrick Davin, Jeffrey Tate, Silvio Varviso, Franck Ollu, Stefan Soltesz, Gustav Kuhn, Alexander Joel, Donald Runnicles, Eliahu Inbal, Kent Nagano, Alain Altinoglu und Jaap van Zweden and many important stage directors like Laurent Pelly, Oliver Py, Jean Louis Grinda, Damiano Michieletto, Georges Delnon , Guy Joosten, Ivo van Hove, Uwe Eric Laufenberg, Robert Carsen, Tatjana Gürbaca, Pierre Audi, Götz Friedrich, Lorenzo Fioroni, David Freeman und Joël Pommerat. The artist has a particular affection for concerts and Lied- recitals: His concert repertoire extends from BACH’S ST JOHN’S PASSION through romantic works such as ELIJAH and BRAHMS REQUIEM, to the SONG CYCLES and SYMPHONIES of Mahler and to composers of the 20th and 21st Century. His Lied repertoire includes not only the great SONG CYCLES of Schubert, Schumann and Brahms but also repertoire by less known composers. He worked with pianists like Eric Schneider, Lucas Blondeel and Jozef De Beenhouwer. Werner Van Mechelens recordings show the large variety of his repertoire: Lied CDs – with works by Franz Schubert, Richard Strauss, Claude Debussy, Francis Poulenc, etc. / Oratorio: ELIJAH, Mendelssohn / Opera: DON GIOVANNI, LE NOZZE DI FIGARO, LIVIETTA E TRACOLLO (Pergolesi), DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NÜRNBERG and RHEINGOLD. DVD- LE ROI D’YS (Eduard Lalo) / DON QUICHOTTE, Massenet / LE GRAND MACABRE (György Ligeti) and STRADELLA (César Franck) Furthermore there are CDs with recordings of Flemish composers like Lodewijk Mortelmans and Peter Benoit . Werner van Mechelen made his studies at the Lemmens Institute at Leuven with Roland Bufkens and has participated in master classes of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Robert Holl, Mitsuko Shirai, Hartmut Höll and Malcolm King. He has been awarded with several international prizes the Queen Elisabeth Prize (Brussels), the International Vocalists Competiton (‘s-Hertogenbosch), the International Singing Competition (Toulouse), the Vinas Competition (Barcelona) and the Cardiff Singer of the World Competition.