Samuel Youn

South Korean operatic bass-baritone (b. 1971, Seoul). Samuel Youn (윤태현, romanized as Yun Tae-hyeon or Yun T'aehyŏn) has been Oper Köln's soloist since the 1999/2000 season, with leading male roles in critically-acclaimed operas by Richard Strauss, Georges Bizet, Richard Wagner, and Carl Maria von Weber, among others. Besides his operatic roles, Youn also sang in German Requiem by Johannes Brahms, Mahler's Symphony No. 8, Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, and various other orchestral works and concerts. Samuel Youn studied in South Korea, Italy and Germany at Musikhochschule Köln with Arthur Janzen. He performed in several Wagner's operas at the prestigious Bayreuth Festival, debuting in Parsifal (2004) conducted by Pierre Boulez, followed by Tannhäuser (05) under Christian Thielemann's baton and Lohengrin (2010) conducted by Andris Nelsons. In 2012, Samuel Youn had perhaps the most publicized Bayreuth appearance as the first Korean-born artist to sing the leading role in Wagner's Der Fliegende Holländer. (At the last moment, he stood in for Russian singer Evgeny Nikitin, who withdrew after the German press published his old photos with controversial tattoos.) In 2016, Youn sang in Giacomo Puccini's Tosca at Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, and also made his first appearance in the United States, in Wagner's Das Rheingold staged by the Lyric Opera of Chicago.