Graduated from the Warsaw Chopin Music Academy, with Professor K. Pustelak, receiving Magna cum Laude Distinction.
He has been awarded prizes at international vocal competitions: Ada Sari 1999 (First Award); Bilbao 2000 (2nd), the Main Award in Milan 2001 (Premio Caruso); and Francesc Viñas in Barcelona 2004 (3rd Award).
Gierlach made his debut in 1999 at Warsaw Chamber Opera singing Haendel’s Imeneo title role; in this theatre he also performed the role of Don Giovanni in Mozart’s Don Giovanni. He appeared as Leporello at Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera and at Nico Opera in Cape Town. He performed Figaro in Le Nozze di Figaro at Teatro Piccini di Bari and Argenio in Imeneo at Opera Ireland in Dublin.
In Rossini’s operas he played Mustafa in L’Italiana in Algeri in Lisbone, Minneapolis and Ravenna; Assur in Semiramide at Pisa’s Teatro Verdi, Alidoro in La Cenerentola at Deutsche Oper Berlin, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and at the Stadttheater in Klagenfurt, Orbazzano in Tancredi at Teatro Maestranza de Sevilla, Don Basilio in Il Barbiere di Siviglia and the Governor in Le Comte Ory at Wildbad’s Belcanto Opera Festival, Lord Sidney and Don Profondo in Il Viaggio a Reims at Rossini Festival in Pesaro as well as Gesler in Guillaume Tell in Warsaw.
Some of his other most remarkable performances include his role as Colline in La Bohème, Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermoor, Don Alfonso in Lucrezia Borgia and Escamillo in Carmen at Warsaw’s Teatr Wielki, Salieri in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Mozart and Salieri at the Teatro Filarmónica de Oviedo, Timur in Turandot in Tenerife, Commendatore in Ramón Carnicer’s Il dissoluto punito at La Coruña Mozart Festival, Creonte in Mayr’s Medea in Corinto in St. Gallen, Méphistophélès in Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust at Krakow Philharmonic, Orfeo at Narodne Divadlo Bratislava and Domoslav in Der Berggeist of Louis Spohr during the 13th Ludwig van Beethoven Easter Festival.
Wojtek Gierlach has collaborated with many orchestras, taking part in concerts both in his home country and across Europe. His appearances have included Bach’s Mass in B minor, conducted by Helmuth Rilling at the Warsaw Philharmonic, Verdi’s Requiem, conducted by Kai Baumann at the Polish Baltic Philharmonic, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with Orquesta de Navarra under Antoni Wit, Penderecki’s Seven Gates of Jerusalem with National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice under the composer’s baton, Mozart’s Coronation Mass with Kraków Philharmonic Orchestra under Jan Krenz during the celebrations of the composer’s 250th birth anniversary, and the solo part in Olivier Greif’s Symphony with Sinfonia Varsovia conducted by Marc Minkowski.
Salieri’s The Passion of Jesus Christ, which he performed with I Solisti Veneti, conducted by Claudio Scimone (the concert was broadcast by RAI – Italian Television), Rossini’s Stabat Mater with Orquesta del Principado de Asturias with Alberto Zedda as conductor and Arvo Pärt’s Passion in Prague’s Spring Festival are a part of his oratorio repertoire.
Gierlach recorded Mose in Egitto and La Donna del Lago by Rossini, and Meyerbeer’s Semiramide under Richard Bonynge for NAXOS. For the Iberautor label, he has recorded Il dissoluto punito by Ramón Carnicer, conducted by Alberto Zedda, Luigi Mosca’s L’Italiana in Algieri for the Bongiovanni label, and Lodoïska by Cherubini conducted by Łukasz Borowicz for the Ludwig van Beethoven Easter Festival and Polskie Radio label.
photo by Jarosław Budzyński
www.wojtek.gierlach.net
Wojtek Gierlach is represented by the Ludwig van Beethoven Association.
