Opera Arias with Knut Skram – Knut Skram

Knut Skram with Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Knut Skram´s voice is a rich, sonorous baritone with a beautiful resonant quality and a perfect diction. He was formerly a lyric baritone, but has gradually taken on more dramatic and heavier roles. Today he is a full-bodied baritone with a great international career, notably in Norway, France, Belgium, Germany and Italy. He is also a formidable opera singer, having laid more than fifty different roles behind him during his career, among the most important; Eugen Onegin, Don Giovanni, Germont (“La Traviata”), Kurwenal (“Tristan und Isolde”), Scarpia (“Tosca”), Amonasro (“Aida”), Simon Boccanegra and Holländer (“Der fliegende Holländer”). In 1969 he made a sensational international debut s Guglielmo (“Cosi fan tutte”) at the Glyndenbourne Festival Opera. Within a few years he was to become one of the most sought after Mozart singers in Europe when he, in 1973, sang Figaro in a memorable performance of “Le nozze di Figaro” with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa”.

The aria selection on this CD reflects Knut Skram´s career as an operasinger in Norway and abroad. We will hear works of Mozart, Verdi and Wagner, composers whose talent in writing for the opera are unexcelled. They create their characters through musical, psychological and dramatic inspiration. This has also been the goal for Knut Skram´s interpretation of more than 50 leading roles at the Norwegian National Opera and at different theatres abroad. The result has been extraordinary, intensive and stunning interpretations of all the roles he has created.