With his beard and penetrating eyes, Georg Nigl looks a bit like Hugo Wolf. In rehearsal, he sings, whispers, growls—Hans Neuenfels, the 76-year-old director of Manfred Trojahn’s opera “Orest,” can barely tame the extreme moods of the baritone, and the rehearsal is viscerally exciting. At breaks, the two get together for a smoke. The premiere of the opera will take place at Zurich’s opera house on February 26. Nigl was born in Vienna in 1972 and appeared on the opera stage for the first time in a boys’ choir when he was nine years old. Meanwhile, he has become an expert in playing men on the verge of the abyss, in productions from Monteverdi’s “L’Orfeo” to Wolfgang Rihm’s “Jacob Lenz.” These two parts made a “Singer of the Year” out of a college drop-out in 2015. Nigl collaborates frequently with contemporary composers, such as Rihm and Pascal Dusapin. Besides his work in opera, he also performs songs; his latest project was a compilation of Schubert’s lieder accompanied by the pianist Andreas Staier at the Wigmore Hall in London.
The Abyss
An Interview with Georg Nigl
