Egils Silins was born in Latvia and graduated from the Latvian Academy of Music. He made his debut at the Latvian National Opera, performing in Mephistopheles (Boito). He has won ten international competitions and received the Latvian Annual Music Aware in 1996 and 2003.
After engagements at the Frankfurt opera and Basel opera, he became soloist at the Wiener Volksoper with an acclaimed debut as Mephisto in Gounod's Faust, followed by the leading role in Boris Gudonov directed by Harry Kupfer. He made his debut at the Wiener Staatsoper in I Puritani. Other roles at the Wiener Staatsoper included the title role in Mephistopheles (Boito), Silva in Ernani, Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermor, Rodolfo in La Sonnambula, Escamillo in Carmen, and Procida in Sicilian Vespers. He gained international acclaim singing the title role in Le Demon (Rubinstein) at the 1997 Bregenzer Festspiele. He has also performed at other prestigious music festivals, including the Tanglewood Music Festival, Savonlinna Opera Festival, and Glyndebourne Festival.
Egils Silins has performed at many of the world's leading opera houses, including Teatro alla Scala, Metropolitan Opera, Hamburgische Staatsoper, Semperoper, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Teatro del Liceu, Mariinsky Theatre, Opernhaus Zürich, Chicago Opera, Staatstheater München, among others.
His repertoire covers more than 70 roles, include: Hollander in Fliegender Holländer, Wotan in Rheingold and Walküre, Wanderer in Siegfried, Amfortas-Klingsor in Parsifal, Telramundin Lohengrin, Jochanaan in Salome, Barakin Woman without Shadows, Orest in Elektra, the title role in Demon, Rangoon in Boris Godunov, Gd. Prater in Samson et Dalila, Mephisto in Faust and Damnation de Faust, Sebastian in Tiefland, Scarpia in Tosca, and Vermont in La Traviata.
Mr Silins performances in recents seasons have included Wotan and Jochanaan at the Opernhaus Zürich; Holländer at Teatro Real, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Semperoper and Royal Opera House; Wanderer and Sebastiano at Deutsche Oper Berlin, Amfortas-Klingsor Teatro del Liceo Barcelona, and Opernhaus Zürich; Prince Igor again in Zürich; Jochanaan at London Royal Opera House; Wotan-Wanderer at Opera de Paris and Bayerische Staatsoper Munich; Jochanaan at Volksoper Vienna, Telramund and Holländer at NCPA Beijing, and at Festival de Orange.
His most recent appearances include among others Wotan at Opera de Monte-Carlo; Scarpia at Staatsoper Berlin; Wotan-Wanderer at Budapest Wagner festival and Tokio Aomori Festival; Kurwenal at Deutsche Oper Berlin; Jochanaan at Ravinia Festival in Chicago; Amfortas at New National Theater Tokyo; and Holländer at ROH London.
Mr Egils Silins next projects include Wotan and Wanderer at Leipzig Opera, Essen, and Seoul; Holländer at Düsseldorf Opera; Escamillo at Hamburg Opera; Mandryka at Oper Kiln; Pizarro at Vienna State Opera; Wotan-Wanderer at Budapest Wagner festival and Tokyo Aomori Festival; Jago at Cincinnati Hall; as well as his return to Opera de Paris with Samson et Dalila and Lohengrin, among others.
He has worked with such world-renowned conductors as Andrew Davis, Colin Davis, Daniele Gatti, Marc Minkowski, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Marcello Viotti, Marek Janowski, Christian Thielemann, Philippe Jordan, Christoph von Dohnányi, Zubin Mehta, Ricardo Mutti, Fabio Luisi, Seiji Ozawa, James Conlon, Vladimir Fedosseyev, Neeme Järvi, Mariss Jansons, Andris Nelsons, Sebastian Weigle, Kazushi Ono, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, and Mstislav Rostropovich.
