Ulrik Cold

Born: May 15, 1939 - Copenhagen, Denmark

The Danish bass, Ulrik Cold, has worked as Lieder, oratorio and opera singer since 1962. He took a law degree in 1968 and the same year made his official debut as a singer.

In 1974 Ulrik Cold achieved great fame when he appeared in Ingmar Bergman's TV production of The Magic Flute, which was shown on TV channels all over the world and later in the cinema. He has performed all over Europe and in the USA (for example at the Opera in San Francisco), and in 1985 he went on a six-week tour of Australia. In 1975-77 Ulrik Cold was artistic director of the Royal Danish Opera, but since then he has performed freelance as a singer. Major roles include Mephistopheles at the English National Opera, Don Quixote at the Komische Oper in Berlin and in Paris, Gurnemanz in Marseilles and Fafner in Bologna.

In 1990 and 1991, after several years of absence, Ulrik Cold guested at the Danish Royal Danish Opera again as Gurnemanz in Parsifal. The Italian conductor Aldo Ceccato used him in the 1991-1992 season in concerts in Madrid, Bratislava and Turin, and he guested with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra on a tour of Holland and Belgium. In 1992 he guested as Fiesco in Verdi's Simone Boccanegra at the Stockholm Opera, and as Saul in Carl Nielsen's opera Saul and David in a concert performance with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London. In 1996 he appeared in the successful Danish Broadcasting Corporation Grønnegård Theatre production of Alban Berg's Lulu.

Over the years Ulrik Cold has certainly been the most active concert-giving Danish singer, and he has worked in all sorts of musical genres: opera, operetta, musicals, oratorio, lieder, cabaret, revue and plays.