The Viennese baritone Michael Kraus studied at the conservatories in Vienna and Munich. After starting his career in Ulm, Aachen, and at the Vienna Volksoper, he began to perform frequently as a guest artist, a career that has already taken Michael Kraus to many international opera houses, including the State Operas of Vienna, Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich, as well as those in Frankfurt, Leipzig, the Zurich Opera House, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Gran Teatro del Liceu in Barcelona, the Helsinki National Opera, the San Francisco Opera, the Nederlandse Opera, the Vlaamse Opera, the Grand Théâtre de Genève, the Opéra National de Paris, the Komische Oper, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, and the Glyndebourne Opera Festival.
Michael Kraus’s repertoire is extremely diverse. It encompasses lieder, oratorio, opera, and operetta, ranging from Baroque through Classical and Romantic to contemporary music. In 2010, for example, he sang the role of Stolzius in “Die Soldaten” at the Nederlandse Opera Amsterdam (directed by Willy Decker) and has also participated in several world premieres, such as in the title role of “Don Quixote en Barcelona” by José Luis Turina (2000, directed by La Fura dels Baus) and in “La Cabeza del Bautista” by Enric Palomar (2009), both at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona. In 2012, he premiered Christian Jost’s new opera “Rumor” at the Vlaamse Opera (directed by Guy Joosten).
His repertoire, which originally consisted mainly of roles for lyric baritone and Mozart (such as Papageno, whom Michael Kraus also sang under the baton of Sir Georg Solti with the Vienna Philharmonic on the DECCA recording of *The Magic Flute*, or Leporello in “Don Giovanni,” which he performed at the Nederlandse Opera under Nikolaus Harnoncourt, among other venues), has expanded in recent years to include roles for the cavaliere baritone and character baritone (Conte Luna in “Il Trovatore,” Don Carlos di Vargas in “La Forza del Destino,” Beckmesser in “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg,” the Music Teacher in “Ariadne auf Naxos,” or Faninal in “Der Rosenkavalier,” which he sang in 2011 under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle in Amsterdam and subsequently at the Berlin State Opera, the Glyndebourne Opera Festival, and under Petrenko at La Scala in Milan.
In 2015, he made his debut at the Salzburg Whitsun and Summer Festivals (Thoas/“Iphigenia”). This was followed in 2016 by his debut at the Semperoper Dresden – Donner/“Das Rheingold” under Christian Thielemann. It was not until 2026 that he returned there as the Marquis de la Force in “Les Carmélites.”
His role debut as Alberich in 2017 and 2018 in the new “Ring” cycle at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein (directed by Kober and Hilsdorf) was celebrated by audiences and the press alike.
Michael Kraus can be heard on numerous commercial recordings, including several in the award-winning DECCA series “Entartete Musik,” such as in the title role of Viktor Ullmann’s “Der Kaiser von Atlantis.”
Future plans include his return to the Helsinki Opera and the Glyndebourne Festival, as well as his debut at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence.
Since September 2020, Michael Kraus has been directing the newly established International Opera Studio at the Vienna State Opera.