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
Khanyiso Gwenxane made his US debut singing the title role in Rossini’s Otello at Opera Philadelphia in 2022. The same year 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 May 2024. In 2023, he will return to Semperoper Dresden for Nemorino in Donizetti’s L’ elisir d’ amore. In 2025, he will return to Opera Philadelphia.
While still a student, the young tenor sang Chevalier Belfiore in Rossini’s Il viaggio a Reims and Don Ottavio in Mozart’s Don Giovanni. He was a member of the Young Ensemble of Semperoper Dresden from 2016 to 2018. 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. 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, Lensky in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin 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.
As a concert soloist Khanyiso Gwenxane has sung Beethoven‘s Symphony N° 9, Handel‘s Messiah, Haydn‘s Nelson Mass, Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang, and Schubert’s Magnificat in C. He performed under the baton of conductors including Jonathan Darlington, Srba Dinić, Michael Hofstetter, Marek Janowski, Tomaš Netopil, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Lawrence Renes, Ivan Repušić, Valtteri Rauhalammi, Corrado Rovaris, and Omer Meir Wellber – accompanied by orchestras including Dresdner Philharmonie, Kungliga Hovkapellet Stockholm, Neue Philharmonie Westfalen, The Opera Philadelphia Orchestra, Orchestr opery Divadlo Josefa Kajetána Tyla Plzen, Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, and Staatsorchester Braunschweig.
This biography is for information only and should not be reproduced. © Artistainternational, September 2023.
Rossini: Otello: “Che ascolto? ahimé, che dici? …”
Live recording 2022
