AudunIversen

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Bass-Baritone & Baritone
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News

  • 10 December 2021

    Audun Iversen debuts as Zurga at the Grand Théâtre de Genève

    Read full article

Press

  • Massenet - Manon

    Royal Opera House
    Jan 2014

    • Audun Iversen’s Lescaut was fittingly rumbustious, swaggering arrogantly and singing with vigour and vitality

    • Audun Iversen gave strength and presence as Lescaut, Manon’s cousin

  • R. STRAUSS - Capriccio

    Chicago Lyric Opera
    Oct 2014

    • Lyric has surrounded its starry soprano with a top-drawer supporting cast. Audun Iversen made a most impressive company debut as Olivier. The Norwegian baritone displayed a warm and flexible voice and deftly balanced the comedy with sincerity, looking like a bespectacled scholar yet ardent in making his impassioned, awkward moves on the Countess

    • As her two suitors, William Burden and Audun Iversen make an eloquent argument for the supremacy of their respective disciplines. Iversen is a real discovery and his juicy lyric baritone made the best possible case for Olivier’s poetry—even though Strauss makes clear where his bias lies.

  • Berg - Wozzeck

    Frankfurt Opera
    Jul 2016

    • All the soloists... gave a magnificent performance... Audun Iversen gave an impressive Frankfurt Title role debut.

    • As Wozzeck, the Norwegian baritone Audun Iversen gave in his role debut a wonderful portrait of the layers of this character's psyche. Vocally he managed to express Wozzeck's feelings in an abundance of facets, his helplessness towards the Hauptmann and Doktor, his crazy visions which in the beginning inhibited him, then subsequently openly erupted aggression against Marie and his confusing despair that eventually drowns him in the water.

  • Massenet - Werther

    Zurich Opera
    Apr 2017

    • What becomes even clearer, is that the other characters also are ideally casted: There is Albert (Audun Iversen), the husband with the trustworthy baritone, that becomes stone-cold as soon as he sees how much Werther means to his Charlotte.

    • Audun Iversen played an unbending and painfully conservative Albert, Charlotte’s husband-by-decree. Alongside his errant wife, he was as strong as to make us uncomfortable, and he showed a equally tight command of his vocal work.

  • Puccini -La boheme

    San Francisco Opera
    Jun 2017

    • The strongest work came from tenor Arturo Chacón-Cruz as Rodolfo and Norwegian baritone Audun Iversen (who delivered one of the most solidly-sung Marcellos I’ve heard in years).

    • A notable highlight came in Act 3, set near the snow-sprinkled gloom of a Parisian city gate. The consumptive Mimi (Erika Grimaldi), in distress about a fraying relationship with her jealous lover, Rodolfo (Arturo Chacón-Cruz), has come to seek out the counsel of a friend. Marcello (Audun Iversen), only too familiar with the ravages of sexual possessiveness, lends a sympathetic ear. Clasped together in a firm but chaste embrace, Grimaldi and Iversen spun out their duet in terms at once soaring and tenderly intimate. It was all achingly real, set off by the evocatively austere scene by production designer David Farley and bluish predawn lighting by Michael James Clark.

    • Norwegian lyric baritone Audun Iversen impressed as the painter Marcello, whose on-again, off-again relationship with Musetta tortures the character through most of the opera.

  • Berg - Wozzeck

    Den Norske Opera
    Nov 2017

    • With outstanding performances, Audun Iversen’s Wozzeck in particular, the production is a harrowing exploration of the chaos of human existence. Rising out of a magnificent supporting cast, Audun Iversen and Asmik Grigorian shone as Wozzeck and Marie. Iversen was frighteningly believable as a man driven further and further into insanity, moving seamlessly between tenderness and bottomless despair. Despite the enormity of Wozzeck’s emotions, Iversen shied away from overplaying the character, instead going for text-driven nuance, his voice underlining the primacy of the word, whether it be a desperate declaration of love or an anguished scream

    • Wozzeck is an impervious test bench (benchmark) for the biggest baritones, and Audun Iversen, already an excellent Wozzeck in the first round of this production in Frankfurt in 2016, surpasses himself, offering a masterly performance both from a vocal and a dramatic point of view. The voice is warm at the core and full at the top, capable of modulating the voice, from piano to fortissimo, without shouting. The combination of the vocal warmth and impeccable acting makes it a Wozzeck in which the viewer can easily connect and identify with emotionally

    • Audun Iversen sings brilliantly and convinces as a desperate and despairing Wozzeck. The last scene, which ends with his death, is a musical and emotional highlight

    • I've rarely heard the farewell-scene as beautifully performed as Audun Iversen as Wozzeck and Asmik Grigorian as Marie do it. (...) And what a performance by Iversen and Grigorian. One thing is to deliver such demanding vocal roles, but it's another to really embody the characters they are portraying.

      • Klassekampen (Paper Article)
      • 04 December 2017

  • Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin

    Norwegian National Opera
    Feb 2020

    • Audun Iversen was absolutely tremendous in the role of Onegin, his dark baritone giving a slightly dangerous edge to a character who at first might seem like an incurable flirt. His singing took on more of a serious – if not helpless – tone as events began to spiral out of control, and he seemed most at home in the anguished second half, with Onegin’s life unravelling in front of him... compelling storytelling and some utterly sensational singing from the main characters make this a production decidedly worth seeing.

    • Luckily they sing like gods. Audun Iversen's (Onegin) baritone is both full and rounded, at the same time as the overtones boom between the walls.

  • Bizet - Les Pêcheurs de perles

    Grand Théâtre, Geneva
    Dec 2021

    • On stage, the four protagonists of the opera are up to their task with a slight preference for the Norwegian baritone Audun Iversen (Zurga), whose brilliant timbre, accuracy of tone and above all impeccable French diction are appreciated.

    • The third act would offer two very beautiful moments thanks to the Norwegian baritone Audun Iversen. First in Zurga's long solo sequence 'The storm has calmed down': opulence of timbre, length of voice, mastery of nuances, phrasing, diction and especially interiority... The other great moment of this third act had to be the very long duet 'I shudder, I stagger' between Leïla and Zurga, with two perfectly matched vocal colors and above all a limitless commitment, really superb.

    • Audun Iversen, Norwegian baritone with a beautiful projection, also takes time to release his assets, among which a beautiful sincerity of incarnation, a woody color and a grain mordoré of timbre.

  • Korngold - Die tote Stadt

    London Coliseum
    Mar 2023

    • There’s terrific acting and singing, too, from Norwegian baritone Audun Iversen as a rather creepy Franz, Paul’s friend, and he doubles up as Felix in the troupe to perform ‘Pierrot song’ with sensitivity.

    • ... there is magnificent singing from Audun Iversen as Paul's friend Franz

    • Frank, strongly and beautifully sung by Norwegian baritone Audun Iversen

    • ... Audun Iversen – lustrous in the Act Two operetta number, "Pierrot's Song" – set the drama in motion superbly

    • Magnificent moments occurred. Audun Iversen as Frank/Pierrot sang the celebrated “Tanzlied” straight from the heart

    • Baritone Audun Iverson is in glorious voice as Paul’s friend Frank

    • Audun Iversen’s Franz was similarly first-class, offering fine attention to detail.

    • ..and Norwegian baritone Audun Iversen gave a spellbinding performance in the role of Fritz, singing ‘My loving, my yearning in the Pierrot dance song.

  • Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin

    Gran Teatre del Liceu
    Sep 2023

    • Audun Iversen, in the role of Onegin, stood out for his acting and his powerful voice. He managed to capture the complexity of his character, from his initial attitude of selflessness to his subsequent regret and sadness. The chemistry between Iversen and Aksenova in their scenes together was palpable and emotionally intense.

    • Baritone Audun Iversen is in charge of interpreting the title role of Eugene Onegin ; an unscrupulous heartbreaker. His interpretation is brave and groundbreaking, offering us a character who always seeks to achieve his goal: the enjoyment of life. Constantly searching for him will cause you to lose what he has (or could have).

    • However, the acting work of the performers, especially the protagonists, it should be stressed that it was exceptional. Among the latter, the vigorous Onegin of Audun Iversen stood out, of solid vocal projection and dramatic ambition

    • However, the acting work of the performers, especially the protagonists, it should be stressed that it was exceptional. Among the latter, the vigorous Onegin of Audun Iversen stood out, of solid vocal projection and dramatic ambition.

    • The baritone Audun Iversen, very dedicated, is a remarkable Onegin, who went further and shone in the final scene.

    • Among the vocal soloists the men stood out. Baritone Audun Iversen, who already participated in the premiere of the production in Oslo, did a very good Onegin, singing with ease both in the register and in the vocal projection and from a beautiful vocal colour.

    • The Norwegian baritone Audun Iversen fulfilled the tormented character of Onegin with quality, both vocally and as an actor, and was highly applauded at the end of the evening.

    • the Norwegian baritone Audun Iversen who set the tone of excellence for this evening: not only is the voice superb but his entire interpretation is striking. He manages to modulate his show in such a way as to make himself perfectly detestable during all the scenes at the beginning and the duel against Lensky, despite the doubt that assail him, only to be touching at the end when Tatiana pushes him away out of respect for his husband, even if passion consumes her... He goes through with enthusiasm all the stages which will dispossess him of his so-called youthful maturity, subsequently finding himself as a young old man devoid of illusions and whose amorous passion will be destroyed by the social conventions that he himself once assumed, probably prefiguring Russian nihilism.

    • Norwegian Audun Iversen whose Onegin was round, embodying his multifaceted character from haughtiness to humiliation, from contempt to loneliness both in the gestural and musical spheres. His raconto at the end of the first act “Kogda bi zhizn domashnim krugom ya ogranichit zakhotyel” was the explicit irony set to music, the lyricism manifested in his duet with the tenor preceding the moment of the duel, and his despair in the soprano's final duet which culminated in an excellent performance. His round, compact, generous voice and his artistic dedication earned him great recognition from the audience at the end of the performance before the curtain fell.