Tall and good-looking, Gwenxane showed attractive timbre and a good sense of line and decoration, …. clearly a considerable talent to watch… Opera News, 27 September 2022
At Opera Philadelphia Khanyiso Gwenxane made his US debut singing the title role in Rossini’s Otello in 2022 and will return for another production in 2025. In 2022, he performed Admeto in Gluck’s Alceste at Bayreuth’s Markgräfliches Opernhaus during the International Gluck Festival, where he will return for the title role in Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito in 2024. In 2023, he made his debut at Staatstheater Darmstadt singing Lenski in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin.
As a student, the tenor already sang Chevalier Belfiore in Rossini’s Il viaggio a Reims and Don Ottavio in Mozart’s Don Giovanni. In 2016, he made his debut at Kungliga Operan in Stockholm as Ferrando in Mozart’s Così fan tutte, followed by his role debut as Nemorino in Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore at the New Generation Festival in Florence in 2017, a part he has sung at Semperoper Dresden in 2023. In 2018, he performed Tito in a new production of Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito Staatstheater Braunschweig. Khanyiso Gwenxane has worked with directors including David Bösch, Jürgen Flimm, Dietrich Hilsdorf, Manuel Schmitt, Michael Schulz, Keith Warner and Matthew Wilde.
A member of Musiktheater im Revier in Gelsenkirchen since the 2018/19 season, his repertoire includes Don José in Bizet’s Carmen, Nadir in Bizet’s Les pêcheurs de perles, Ernesto in Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, Janek in Janáček’s Makropulos Case, Narraboth in Strauss’ Salome and Froh in Wagner’s Das Rheingold as well as in the title roles in Orfeo in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo and Rossini’s Otello.
Khanyiso Gwenxane performed under the baton of conductors including Jonathan Darlington, Gaetano d’Espinosa, Srba Dinić, Michael Hofstetter, Marek Janowski, Tomaš Netopil, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Lawrence Renes, Ivan Repušić, Valtteri Rauhalammi, Corrado Rovaris, Omer Meir Wellber and Johannes Zahn – accompanied by orchestras including Dresdner Philharmonie, Kungliga Hovkapellet Stockholm, Neue Philharmonie Westfalen, Orchestr opery Divadlo Josefa Kajetána Tyla Plzen, Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, Staatsorchester Braunschweig and Darmstadt, as well as The Opera Philadelphia Orchestra.
This biography is for information only and should not be reproduced. © Artistainternational, February 2024.
Rossini: Otello: “Che ascolto? ahimé, che dici? …”
Live recording 2022