After completing his Master’s studies at Florida State University, American tenor Simeon Esper was engaged with the Theater Bielefeld from 2004 to 2007. Engagements with European houses such as the Operá National de Paris, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, The Deutsche Oper am Rhein, the Paris Operá Comique, Operá Rouen, Vienna’s Theater an der Wien, Bonn, Wexford (Ireland), Halle and Cologne followed. In the United States, he has appeared with the Seattle Opera (including covering the role of Loge in Der Ring des Nibelungen), The Atlanta Opera, the Bellingham Festival of Music and the San Diego Opera, where he was most recently heard as Bardolfo in Verdi’s Falstaff.
Since the 2010/11 season he is a member of the the ensemble of the Semperoper Dresden. As a soloist there he has been featured in a variety of roles including Tanzmeister in “Ariadne auf Naxos”, Flamand in “Capriccio”, Dmitri in “Boris Godunov”, Steuermann in “Der Fliegende Holländer”, Seemann/Hirt in “Tristan und Isolde”, Walther von der Vogelweide in “Tannhäuser”, Oronte in “Alcina”, Sam Kaplan in Weill’s “Street Scene”, Dawson in Henze’s “We Come to the River”, Jaquino in “Fidelio” or Comus in Purcell’s “King Arthur”.
Simeon Esper’s concert repertoire includes Stravinsky’s Les Noces, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, Orff’s Catulli Carmina, Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and Mendelssohn’s Elijah. In January of 2016, he was featured as Tenor Soloist in the German Premiere of Magreb’s Requiem for Auschwitz in Dresden’s Frauenkirche. He can also be heard in the role of ein Junge Diener on Deutsche Grammophone’s Grammy-nominated recording of Elektra under Christian Thielemann.
Guest appearances included Tanzmeister in “Ariadne auf Naxos” in Düsseldorf, Boni in “Die Czardàsfürstin” in Saarbrücken, Tinca in “Il tabarro” and Bruno in “I Puritani” with the Dresden Philharmonic, and Remendado in “Carmen” and Tamino in the World Premiere of Lubica Čekovská’s opera „Maestro Dotcom“ at the Bregenz Festival.
Simeon recently performed Loge in “Das Rheingold” and Mime in “Siegfried” in a new production of Wagner’s “Ring” Cycle in Coburg and made his debut at the Bavarian State Opera as Rev. Adams in Britten’s “Peter Grimes” next to Jonas Kaufmann in the title role.
