Mark Bowman-Hester

was born in the United States and studied at the University of North Carolina, the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester in New York and at Indiana University in Bloomington. He won, among other accolades, the Metropolitan Opera Auditions and the National Opera Association Auditions. His first stage experience as a tenor came as a member of the opera studio at Houston Grand Opera. In 1987, he moved to Germany, where he held permanent engagements at theatres in Heidelberg, Darmstadt, Münster, Kassel, Dessau and Gera/Altenburg. He also appeared as a guest artist at opera houses in Munich, Berlin, Essen, Dortmund, Hanover, Mannheim, Leipzig, Lübeck, Koblenz, Düsseldorf, and Dresden, as well as in France, Italy, Austria, Portugal, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and the United States. After years of success as a lyric tenor, he transitioned to dramatic tenor roles in 1996. His repertoire comprises nearly 200 roles across more than 160 operas, including the Prince (in Sergei Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges), Wenzel (in Bedřich Smetana’s The Bartered Bride), Einsiedel (in Karl Amadeus Hartmann’s Simplicius Simplicissimus), Orpheus (in Jacques Offenbach’s Orphée aux enfers), Piet (in György Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre), and the Witch (in Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel). Bowman-Hester enjoyed particular success in the roles of Mime and Loge in Richard Wagner’s Das Rheingold and Siegfried, David in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, the Captain in Alban Berg’s Wozzeck, and Weißensee in Detlev Glanert’s Joseph Süß at the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz and Theater Erfurt. From the 2016 season until 2023, he was a permanent member of the ensemble at the Wuppertal Opera.