Fredrik Akselberg

Biography

Studied at the Music Conservatory in Stavanger and at the Royal College of Music in London, where he received the Thomas Mohrherr Prize in the Peter Pears’ Singing Competition.

2004-2005 Fredrik Akselberg was a member of the ensemble at the opera in Kiel where his roles included Mercure and Thespis in Rameau’s Platee, Don Curzio in Le Nozze di Figaro, Sir Hervey in Anna Bolena, and 3^rd Knappe in Parsifal.

2005-2006 he was a member of the International Opera Studio at the Staatsoper Hamburg where he participated in productions such as Fidelio, Die Zauberfloete, La Traviata, Rigoletto, Il Turco in Italia, Parsifal and La Fille du Regiment.

Other recent opera engagements have included Almaviva in Il Barbiere di Siviglia at the Norwegian National Opera, Testo in Monteverdi’s Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Ferrando in Cosi fan tutte at the Bergedorfer Musiktage, Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni at the Lyckaa Chamber Music Festival (Sweden), Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni and Tom Wingfield in Antonio Bibalo’s opera The Glassmenagerie with Opera Vest and Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as Kurt Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins and Malcom Williamson’s The Happy Prince in Stavanger.

Fredrik Akselberg regularly works with conductors such as Alessandro De Marchi, Fabio Biondi, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Kenneth Weiss, Ruben Jais, Robin Ticciati and Michel Corboz.

His many concert appearances have included Bach’s St. John Passion, St. Matthew Passion Mass in B Minor, Mass in G, Magnificat, Christmas Oratorio and many Cantatas, Mozart’s Requiem and Mass in C Minor, Handel’s Messiah, Dettingen Te Deum and Esther, Haydn’s Theresienmesse, Dvorak’s Stabat Mater, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Monteverdi’s Marienvespers, Gounod’s Messe Solennelle, Buxtehude’s Jesu Membra Nostri, Arvo Part’s Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Secundum Joannem, and Britten’s Saint Nicholas.

The season 2007/08 he sang Testo in Monteverdi’s Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda at Opera de Monte Carlo, Theatre des Gemaux Sceaux and Opera de Bordeaux, Bach’s St. John Passion with the conductor Ruben Jais in Milan, Telemann’s Die Tageszeiten with the conductor Fabio Biondi, Pastore in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo with the conductor Rinaldo Alessandrini, Bach’s Mass in B Minor with the conductor Michel Corboz in Lisbon, as well as in Bergen and Bodo, and 4^th Jew in Salome at the Staatsoper Hamburg. He also sang concerts in Italy as well as recorded Testus in Scarlatti’s Davidis Pugna et Victoria with the conductor Alessandro De Marchi.

The season 2008/09 included the title role in Rameau’s Platee in Augsburg, Liberto and Soldato 2 in L’Incoronazione di Poppea in Bordeaux, Bach’s Kaffee Kantate at Theater an der Wien, Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri with Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra, Bach’s Mass in B Minor in Oslo, concerts with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, and Uriah in the world premier of Staale Kleiberg’s David and Bathsheba in Trondheim.

In 2009, he made his Bolshoi Theatre debut as Andres (Berg’s Wozzeck).