About OperGermany

Lawrence Bakst, Founder

Lawrence Bakst made a career in Germany performing in more than 50 theaters for over 30 years. Productions based in German theaters took Larry three times on tours of Japan and to engagements in Rio de Janeiro, Paris, Rome, Madrid, among many others. Larry has maintained relationships with theaters, directors, conductors as well as a particularly close relationship with Pina Bausch & Tanztheater Wuppertal for decades. He made his professional European debut at the 1985 Wexford Festival as Hagenbach in Catalani’s La wally, & after a production of Simon Boccanegra at the Landestheater Detmold, he was given a Festvertrag in Wuppertal, where he sang in productions of Carmen, Les pêcheurs de perles , Manon, MacBeth, Un ballo in maschera, Die Zauberflöte, La bohéme, Tosca, La gioconda, and Aïda. During that period he also appeared as a guest artist in various theatres in productions of Il trovatore, Un ballo in maschera, and La bohéme. Larry left his Festvertrag in Wuppertal in 1993 but continued to guest in Wuppertal, as well as continuing what would be a twenty year association with Pina Bausch’s production of Gluck’s Iphigenia auf Tauris, in which he sang Pylades all over the world. Bakst also guested in many new productions as well as countless last minute ‘jump-ins’ after leaving his Festvertrag in Wuppertal. He specialized in Verdi, Puccini and verismo operas such as Pagliacci and performed for many years at the summer festivals in Eutin and Bad Hersfeld. He also performed regularly at the State Theater in Prague in the roles of Manrico, Calaf, Don Carlos, and Otello, and worked in Marseille along with Leo Nucci and Ghena Dimitrova, as well as in Toulon and the Theatre du Capitole, Toulouse, where he had earlier won the Premier Gran Prix in the International Singing Competition. For the last 15 years of his stage career, Bakst regularly performed the roles of Florestan and Tannhäuser, and had the pleasure of singing the young Siegfried for the 2009-2011 seasons in the very theater where he was first engaged in 1986, Landestheater Detmold. He retired from the stage in 2013 and lives in Athens, Georgia, where he teaches voice at Truett McConnell University. He has give several Faculty Recitals at the University of Georgia’s Hugh Hodgson School of Music along side his wife Kathryn Wright, an accomplished opera coach and prompter who primarily lived and worked in Germany for over 20 years until joining the faculty of the Hugh Hogdson School of Music's Opera Program in 2011. Larry has also taught at the 2016 Liszt Festival at California State University, Northridge. He returns regularly to Germany to visit his children who are now raising their own family there.