After his sensational success as Alberich, Jochanaan, Wotan/Wanderer in the 2013 Jubiläumsring and also as Jack Rance/La Fanciulla del West - the opening premiere of the 2013/14 season at the Vienna State Opera - Tomasz Konieczny was also heard as Jochanaan, Cardillac and Telramund in the following years at this house. Konieczny also made guest appearances at the Metropolitan Opera, the Bayreuth Festival, the Zurich Opera House and the Teatro Real Madrid, among others.
Tomasz Konieczny was born in Łódź/Poland in 1972 and studied acting at the local film academy. He worked as an actor in the theatre and was involved in various film and television productions. He began his vocal studies at the Fryderyk Chopin Academy in Warsaw and continued at the Hochschule für Musik in Dresden in the class of Prof. Christian Elßner. He was a prize-winner at the 33rd International Dvorak Singing Competition in Karlsbad in 1998.
He made his debut as a singer in 1997 at the Poznan Opera/Poland with Figaro/Le nozze di Figaro. Various engagements took Konieczny to Leipzig, St. Gallen, Chemnitz and Mannheim, among others, where he became a permanent ensemble member at the Nationaltheater Mannheim in 2002 and where he was also awarded the Arnold Petersen Prize, a special award for talented young artists. In 2005 he sang Osmin/Die Entführung aus dem Serail at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein and Wotan/Das Rheingold in 2006. He was part of the ensemble at this house from 2006 - 2014, where he sang Golaud/Pelléas et Mélisande, Amfortas/Parsifal, Kurwenal/Tristan und Isolde, Holländer/Der fliegende Holländer, Barak/Die Frau ohne Schatten, Balstrode/Peter Grimes, Selim/Il Turco in Italia, Falstaff and Escamillio/Carmen, among others.
Since 2006 he has regularly sung at the Budapest Wagner Days roles such as: Amfortas and both in 2007 and 2009 Wotan/Die Walküre, the Wanderer in 2010 and Kurwenal in 2010/11. In 2008 he made an acclaimed debut as Alberich/Das Rheingold and Siegfried at the Semperoper Dresden, where he sang Telramund/Lohengrin in 2016 and initially Alberich/Das Rheingold under the baton of Christian Thielemann to great acclaim. At the Teatro Real Madrid he made a guest appearance as Dr Kolenatý/Die Sache Makropulos. In 2010 he also made his debut as the Four Villains in the premiere of Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann at the National Theatre in Prague, where he enjoyed a special artistic success in 2011 as Amfortas in the premiere of Parsifal. In April 2010 he made his brilliant debut as Alberich/Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. In 2011 followed his debut at the Opéra National de Paris (as Biterolf/Tannhäuser), where he then celebrated a spectacular success in 2017 as Telramund/Lohengrin. In 2012 Konieczny made his debut as Pizarro/Fidelio at the Kennedy Center with the National Symphony Orchestra Washington and at the Bavarian State Opera Munich, and in the summer of 2012 at the Salzburg Festival, where he caused a sensation as Stolzius in Zimmermann's Die Soldaten. In 2016 he again enjoyed a particularly great success in Salzburg as Jupiter in Strauss' Die Liebe der Danae under the baton of Franz Welser-Möst.
In 2013, two important recordings of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen were released; one conducted by Marek Janowski on the Pentatone label, with Konieczny interpreting the role of Wotan. In the other recording (Deutsche Grammophon), conducted by Christian Thielemann, Konieczny sings the role of Alberich. Both recordings were highly praised by the critics. In 2015, another recording of Das Rheingold was released, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, with Konieczny as Alberich. In 2017 the DVDs/Blu-rays of Lohengrin (Thielemann/Beczala/Netrebko/Konieczny) and Die Liebe der Danae (Welser-Möst/Stoyanova/Konieczny) were released.
In early 2014 Konieczny made a brilliant debut as Jochanaan/Salome at Carnegie Hall in New York, and in November 2015 he enjoyed a particularly great personal success as the title character in Berg's Wozzeck at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. In May 2017 Konieczny made his debut at Teatro alla Scala in Milan as the Komtur/Don Giovanni, in October at the Canadian Opera Company Toronto as Mandryka/Arabella, in January 2018 at the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse as Wotan/Die Walküre and in March 2018 at the New National Theatre in Tokyo with the Four Villains/Hoffmann's Tales. He made his debut at the opening premiere of the 2018 Bayreuth Festival under the baton of Christian Thielemann as Telramund/Lohengrin, and immediately afterwards also at the Edinburgh International Festival as Vater/Hänsel und Gretel, and at the Chopin and His Europe Festival in Warsaw, with a recital accompanying the CD release of Schubert's Winterreise (with completely rewritten Polish texts by Stanislaw Baranczak). On 09 March 2019, Konieczny made his Metropolitan Opera New York debut as Alberich in Das Rheingold. Anthony Tommasini wrote in the New York Times: "The standout member of the cast was Tomasz Konieczny, a powerhouse bass, in a breakthrough Met debut as Alberich."
The Vienna State Opera has been an artistic home for Konieczny since 2009. Here he sings, among others: Jack Rance/La Fanciulla del West, Wotan/Der Ring des Nibelungen, Scarpia/Tosca, Mandryka/Arabella, Jochanaan/Salome, Telramund/Lohengrin, Pizarro/Fidelio and other important roles. He always receives rapturous applause from the Viennese audience. By decision of the Council of Ministers on 3 May 2017, it was confirmed that the granting of Austrian citizenship to Tomasz Konieczny was in the special interest of the Republic. On 16 January 2019, Tomasz Konieczny was officially appointed Austrian Chamber Singer on the stage of the Vienna State Opera.
In addition, Tomasz Konieczny is also an extremely successful performer in concert. His repertoire includes Bach's St. Matthew Passion, the Christmas Oratorio, Handel's Messiah and Mendelssohn's Elijah, the Requiems of Mozart, Verdi and Dvorak, Beethoven's 9th Symphony, Dvorak's Stabat and many more. He has already presented his recital programmes with songs by Strauss, Rachmaninov, Twardowski, Penderecki, Beethoven, Moniuszko, Schubert, Mahler, Mussorgsky and other great composers with great success in Dresden, Warsaw and Tokyo.
In the 2020/2021 season Tomasz Konieczny has sung, among others, the Wanderer in Madrid, Cardillac in Warsaw, Holländer at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich and Wotan/Walküre in Bayreuth as well as Wagner concerts in Budapest and Tokyo. Projects in the current season 21/22 include Holländer at the Opéra national in Paris, Kaspar in Freischütz at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, Pizarro/Fidelio in Florence, Wotan in a new production of Walküre in Copenhagen and Rheingold-Wotan in a new production in Zurich.