Benno Schachtner
Händel Festival Halle - Amagigi di Gaula
Countertenor Benno Schachtner was a revelation in the title role. His voice, warm and with a metallic sheen, traced Amadigi's emotional development with precision – from youthful devotion to tormented jealousy and finally to ultimate transcendence.
operawire (June 24, 2025)Season 25/26 and Highlights
BACH FEST MUNICH
Bach Cantatas - Freiburg Baroque Orchestra
Nov 2
STUTTGART CHAMBER CHOIR
concert tour
Dec11 - 18
BACH FESTIVAL LEIPZIG
St. John Passion
June 20
Biography
In recent seasons, Benno Schachtner has established himself as one of Germany's leading countertenors.
In the 2025/26 season, Benno Schachtner's engagements include the Bachfest Munich with Bach cantatas and the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, a concert tour with the Stuttgart Chamber Choir, and the Bachfest Leipzig with the St. John Passion.
His most important engagements in the 2024/25 season include Bach's Mass in B minor in the Hamburg State Ballet production at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden and the Hamburg State Opera, the role of the Refugee in Jonathan Dove's successful opera Flight at the Bonn Opera, and the St. John Passion at the Salzburg Easter Festival and the Opéra de Dijon. In the spring of 2025, he also presented himself with this production at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris.
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Previously, he had already made his debut at Carnegie Hall in New York with works by Johann Sebastian Bach, at the Theater an der Wien in a new production of Handel's Teseo, and at the Opéra de Paris in Romeo Castellucci's new production of Scarlatti's Il primo omicidio, each under the direction of René Jacobs. He also performed this production at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and the Staatsoper Berlin. Concert performances of Telemann's Orpheus took him to Antwerp, Amsterdam, Cologne, and Brussels.
Further engagements have led him to the Leipzig Opera (St. John Passion in scenic form), the Nationaltheater Mannheim (Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno), the Bonn Opera (Akhnaten, La Calisto), the Händel Festival in Halle (Sosarme, Arminio), the Staatstheater Braunschweig (Saul), the Theater St. Gallen, and the Theater Ulm (Written on Skin).
In the concert field, he has worked with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, the Academy for Ancient Music Berlin, Collegium 1704, the RIAS Chamber Choir, the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Hamburger Ratsmusik, and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. Performances have taken him to the Bachfest Leipzig, Bachwoche Ansbach, the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, the Festival de Fontainebleau, and the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg. He made his Canadian debut with Bach's Christmas Oratorio and his North American debut with Handel's Messiah in Seattle. CD recordings connect him with the Bach Academy Stuttgart. In 2017, his first solo album, Clear and Cloudy, featuring works by Purcell, Hume, and Dowland, was released.
Benno Schachtner was born in Illertissen, Bavaria, in 1984. As a boy soprano and soloist with the "Ulmer Spatzen," he undertook concert tours to Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Japan. He became a multiple prize winner at an early age at Jugend musiziert (Piano, Duo, Vocals). From 2004 to 2009, he studied church music with a major in organ at the Detmold University of Music with Prof. Gerhard Weinberger, followed by voice studies with Prof. Heiner Eckels. From 2010, he continued his studies at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in the class of Prof. Ulrich Messthaler.
As the first countertenor in the history of the International Bach Competition Leipzig, he was awarded the Bach Prize and the Orchestra Prize. As early as 2010, critics named him the "best up-and-coming singer in North Rhine-Westphalia." He has been a professor at the University of the Arts Bremen since the summer semester of 2020.
2025/26
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