Performance Database

Norwegian bass Jens-Erik Aasbø graduated from the Oslo Opera Academy in 2011, and has since been a member of the soloist ensemble of the Norwegian Opera & Ballet, where he will make his debut in the current season as Padre Guardiano (La forza del destino) and can be heard again as Bonze (Madama Butterfly) and as Dottore Grenvil (La traviata).

In Oslo, he has been able to win acclaim in recent seasons with roles such as Sarastro (Die Zauberflöte), Gremin (Eugene Onegin), Il Commendatore and Masetto (Don Giovanni), Basilio (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Chief of Police (Lady Macbeth of Mzensk), Friar Tuck (Schwemmer/Robin Hood), 1. Nazarene (Salome), Zuniga (Carmen), Rocco (Fidelio), Raimondo Bidebent (Lucia di Lammermoor), Cesare Angelotti (Tosca), Lieutenant Ratcliffe (Billy Budd), Police Commissioner (Der Rosenkavalier), Mester Laurentius (Bræin/Anne Pedersdotter), Bartolo (Le nozze di Figaro), Sparafucile (Rigoletto) and Hunding (Die Walküre).

Jens-Erik Aasbø is also a singer in demand internationally. His recent engagements include, Daland (Der fliegende Holländer) at the Spring Festival in Tokyo and previously at Opera på Skäret in Sweden, Vodník (Rusalka) at the Komische Oper Berlin as well as Fasolt (Das Rheingold) and Il Commendatore at the Theatro Municipal de São Paulo.

Jens-Erik Aasbø made his Bayreuth Festival debut in the summer of 2022 as Fasolt (Das Rheingold), Reinmar von Zweter (Tannhäuser) and as the 4. Edler (Lohengrin). He returned to Bayreuth in the summer of 2023 as Fasolt and as Reinmar von Zweter, but also appeared in the new production of Parsifal as the 2. Gralsritter. He will sing these three roles again at the 2024 Bayreuth Festival.

As a concert singer, Jens-Erik Aasbø has sung the bass solo in Mozart’s Requiem in numerous concerts, but his repertoire also includes other works such as Dvořák’s Stabat Mater, Verdi’s Messa di Requiem, Missa pro defunctis, Requiem in B flat major by Michael Haydn, and the part of Jesus in the St. John Passions by Bach and Arvo Pärt.