Zachariah N. Kariithi, Baritone

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Zachariah N. Kariithi is a member of the ensemble at the Braunschweig State Theatre where his roles include Eugene Onegin, Valentin in Gounod’s Faust, Marcello in La Bohème and Sharpless in Madama Butterfly. Highlights of the 2023/24 season were his debuts as Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia and the baritone solo in Carmina Burana. For 2024/25 he is looking forward to singing the title role in a new production of Don Giovanni in Braunschweig.

Zachariah N. Kariithi has emerged as one of the most promising new talents from the International Opera Studio of the Hamburg State Opera where he had been engaged from 2015 to 2017. Since this time, he is a regular guest in Hamburg and has been invited to perform Schaunard, Belcore and Papageno. In June 2024 he returned to Hamburg to sing Moralès and Le Dancaïre in Carmen.

Engagements elsewhere have included Guglielmo and Don Giovanni in Tel Aviv, Marcello in La Bohème at the Daegu Opera House in South Korea, Don Fernando in Fidelio at the Opera Bałtycka in Gdańsk, and Porgy in Porgy and Bess at the Konzerthaus Dortmund, a role he will also sing at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and the Philharmonie Haarlem.

Zachariah N. Kariithi was born in 1987 in Nairobi, Kenya. He started his musical training at the age of 12 by taking private piano lessons. He later joined the Kenya Conservatoire of Music, where, under the guidance of his teacher, Gachigi Kungu, he continued his piano playing and also started taking voice lessons. After two years he successfully completed the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music exams in voice and piano, which he passed with distinction and with merit, respectively. He later went on to represent Kenya in the World Youth Choir session in the summer of 2008.

He was a student and scholarship recipient at the Buchmann Mehta School of Music at the Tel Aviv University, Israel, and was part of the Adler-Buchmann International Program for Outstanding Foreign Students since 2008. In 2011 he performed with the Buchmann Mehta School of Music Symphony Orchestra as a soloist under the direction of Maestro Zubin Mehta, and, in 2012, performed as a soloist at Carnegie Hall in New York. He also performed with the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra and the Haifa Symphony Orchestra in several programs until 2013.

Zachariah N. Kariithi obtained his master's degree in opera at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg, where he was studying from 2013 to 2015. He was also a scholarship recipient from the Hermann und Milena Ebel Stipendium, 2014-2015, and the Hamel Stiftung Hannover, 2015-2016.

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Repertoire

Ludwig van Beethoven
Fidelio – Don Fernando
Opera Bałtycka Gdańsk
Hector Berlioz
Béatrice et Bénédict – Claudio
Staatstheater Braunschweig
Les Troyens – Un chef grec
Staatsoper Hamburg
Georges Bizet
Carmen – Le Dancaïre
Staatsoper Hamburg

Carmen – Moralès
Staatsoper Hamburg
Gaetano Donizetti
L'elisir d'amore – Belcore
Staatsoper Hamburg
Antonín Dvořák
Rusalka – Hajný (Gamekeeper)
Staatstheater Braunschweig
George Gershwin
Porgy and Bess – Porgy (in concert)
Konzerthaus Dortmund, Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Philharmonie Haarlem
Benjamin Godard
Dante – Bardi
Staatstheater Braunschweig
Charles Gounod
Faust – Valentin
Staatstheater Braunschweig
Jake Heggie
Dead Man Walking – Motorcycle Cop / Prison Guard 1
Staatstheater Braunschweig, Theater Koblenz
Engelbert Humperdinck
Hänsel und Gretel – Peter
Staatstheater Braunschweig
Leoš Janáček
Příhody lišky Bystroušky (The Cunning Little Vixen) – Harashta
Staatsoper Hamburg
Franz Lehár
Cloclo – Maxim
Staatstheater Braunschweig
Stefan Litwin
Wie dem Herrn Mockinpott das Leiden ausgetrieben wurde – Mockinpott
Staatstheater Braunschweig

Gian Carlo Menotti
The Telephone – Ben
Staatstheater Braunschweig
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Così fan tutte – Guglielmo
Tel Aviv University
Don Giovanni – Don Giovanni
Tel Aviv University, Staatstheater Braunschweig
Die Zauberflöte – Papageno
Staatsoper Hamburg, Staatstheater Braunschweig
Carl Orff
Carmina Burana – baritone
Staatstheater Braunschweig
Giacomo Puccini
La Bohème – Marcello
Daegu Opera House South Korea, Staatstheater Braunschweig
La Bohème - Schaunard
Staatsoper Hamburg, Staatstheater Braunschweig
Madama Butterfly – Sharpless
Staatstheater Braunschweig
La fanciulla del West – Happy
Staatsoper Hamburg
Gioachino Rossini
Il barbiere di Siviglia – Figaro
Staatstheater Braunschweig
Il barbiere di Siviglia – Fiorillo
Staatsoper Hamburg
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Yevgeny Onegin – Onegin
Staatstheater Braunschweig
Georg Philipp Telemann
Orpheus – Orpheus
Staatsoper Hamburg
Richard Wagner
Tristan und Isolde – Steuermann
Staatsoper Hamburg
Kurt Weill
Street Scene – Henry Davis
Theater Magdeburg

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