Reinhard Hagen received his musical education at the State Conservatory in Karlsruhe and began his operatic career at the theatre of the City of Dortmund. Early on in his career, he was the recipient of numerous prestigious international awards. Götz Friedrich engaged the artist from the beginning of the 1994/95 season at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, where he has since interpreted the major roles of his repertoire.
From Berlin the artist developed an extensive guest activity worldwide. Reinhard Hagen is a guest at international festivals and important opera houses including the State Operas of Hamburg and Munich, the Royal Opera House – Covent Garden London, the San Francisco Opera, Dallas Opera, San Diego Opera and Los Angeles Opera, as well as the Gran Teatre del Liceu Barcelona, the Opéra National de Paris and the Metropolitan Opera New York.
Recent engagements include, Il Re in Aida in Malmö, Commendatore in San Diego, Landgraf at the Wels Festival, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis with the Hallé Orchestra and 9th Symphony with the Mannheim Philharmonic Orchestra.
Future roles include Daland and Cuno in Der Freischütz at the Hamburg State Opera, König Marke in Warsaw, Pistola in Falstaff in San Diego, a guest visit to Oman with the company of the Wels Festival (Lohengrin), and Fasolt in concert with the Hallé Orchestra at the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester.
Under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle, Reinhard Hagen made his debut at the Glyndebourne Festival and the Salzburg Easter Festival and under Sir Andrew Davis and Peter Schneider at the Bayreuth Festival.
On the concert podium he appears with leading orchestras such as the Symphony Orchestra of the Bavarian Broadcast Company, the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, the Academy of Saint Martin in the Fields, the Orchestra of Santa Cecilia in Rome, the Vienna Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic.
Conductors with whom Reinhard Hagen has worked include Lorin Maazel, Marek Janowski, Herbert Blomstedt, Riccardo Chailly, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Christian Thielemann, Sir Neville Marriner, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Sir Simon Rattle, Kurt Masur, Seiji Ozawa, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Claudio Abbado and James Levine.
CD recordings are available on ERATO, The Magic Flute (Sarastro) under William Christie, and on Deutsche Grammophon, Bach Cantatas with Sir John Eliot Gardiner.
