Kwangchul Youn

Kwangchul Youn is a Korean baritone with a singing career based in Berlin. His hometown of Ch'ung-Ju is pretty much in the center of South Korea. He went to nearby Ch'ong-Ju, a larger city, to study singing at the Ch'ong-Ju University. While he was still a student, he won First Prize in the Korean National Singing Competition. He made his operatic debut at the Korean State Opera as de Seriex in Umberto Giordano's Fedora in 1988. After a period of singing as a guest artist in several Korean opera houses (in such operas as Rossini's Barber of Seville, Verdi's I due Foscari, and Donizetti's L'Elisir d'amore), he went to the Sofia Academy of Music in Bulgaria to resume his musical studies. Lesa Koleva was his teacher during the 1990 - 1991 year. After that, he studied with Herbert Brauer from 1991 - 1993 at the Berlin Academy of Arts.

In 1993, he won in the Plácido Domingo International Opera Voice Competition in Paris. This led to Domingo giving a gala concert with Youn in Seoul in August 1995. Youn sang with Oper Leipzig in 1993 - 1994. His roles there included Sarastro in Mozart's Magic Flute. In 1994, he became an ensemble member of the Berlin Staatsoper (State Opera) at the Theater Under den Linden. There, he has sung Sarastro and several other authoritative baritone roles, including the King in Aïda and the Minister in Fidelio. He has sung in Mozart's Requiem with the Berlin Philharmonic and in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, under the direction of Daniel Barenboim. He has sung the part of the Nightwatchman in Die Meistersinger at Bayreuth, Figaro in The Marriage of Figaro, Bertram in Robert le Diable, King Marke in Tristan und Isolde, Banco in Verdi's Macbeth, Angelotti in Puccini's Tosca, Lodovico in Verdi's Otello, and the King in Dessau's Verurteiling des Lukullus.