During the 2012/13 season Sungkon Kim will be singing roles in the new productions of Pelléas et Mélisande, Der Spieler/The Gambler, and La Fanciulla del West and in revivals of La Bohème, L’Étoile and Ein Maskenball/Un ballo in maschera. This baritone studied singing at the Kyung-Hee University in Seoul, where he was born, before going to Berlin to further his studies at the Hanns Eisler Highschool for Music from 2004-2007. In 2005 he took part in a festival for young artists in Bayreuth, which led to a concert with the Brandenburg Symphony Orchestra in 2006, the same year that Sungkon Kim received a scholarship from the Richard Wagner Verband. In 2007 he took part in the first performances in Germany of Zdenek Fibich’s opera Der Sturm/The Storm at Theater Bielefeld and, as a prize winner at the Kammeroper Schloss Rheinsberg competition, sang Mr. Ford in Falstaff. He also won awards at the 2007 „Competizione dell’opera“ in Dresden and the Bertelsmann „Neue Stimmen/New Voices“ competition in Gütersloh. He made his debut at Oper Frankfurt in 2007/08 singing Masetto in Don Giovanni and joined the ensemble here in the 2008/09 season, since when his roles have included Renato in Verdi’s Ein Maskenball/Un ballo in maschera (role debut, which led to him jumping in at the last minute to sing it again in Mannheim), several Puccini roles (Schaunard in La Bohème, Marco in Il trittico and Périchaud in concert performances of La Rondine), Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro and Papageno.