The Austrian baritone Daniel Schmutzhard, who was a member of the Wiener Volksoper from 2006-2010, joined the ensemble at Oper Frankfurt last season, during which he sang three roles for the first time: Guglielmo in Così fan tutte, Mercurio in La Calisto and Gabriel von Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus (he stepped in at short notice to sing Dr. Falke in this production in 2010/11), as well as Papageno. During the 2012/13 season he will broaden his repertoire further. Engagements for the company include concert performances of Rienzi, Marcello in La Bohème, Count Almaviva in Die Hochzeit des Figaro/Le nozze di Figaro, The Herald in Lohengrin and Rodrigo in Don Carlo. He will also be repeating his wonderful portrayal of Gabriel von Eisenstein. He has sung Papageno many times, at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, on a much praised recording conducted by René Jacobs, in Brussels, Amsterdam, Rome, Barcelona and Lisbon. Daniel Schmutzhard made his debut at the Berlin Staatsoper in Agrippina, where he returned to take part in Metanoia conducted by Daniel Barenboim. Other recent engagements have included performances of Arabella and Ariadne auf Naxos at the Vienna State Opera and Danilo in Die lustige Witwe/The Merry Widow and Dr. Falke with the Volksoper Wien in Tokyo in May 2012. He is also much sought after for concerts, oratorios and recitals. A prize winner at many singing competitions he made his debut at the Schubertiade in Schwarzenberg and sang Die Winterreise at the Konzerthaus in Vienna in 2012.