Haugland, Aage
Haugland, Aage
Haugland, Aage, Danish bass-baritone; b. Copenhagen, Feb. 1, 1944. He studied with Mogens Wöldike and Kristian Riis in Copenhagen, making his operatic debut as the Brewer in Martinû’s Veselohra na mostë at the Norwegian Opera in Oslo in 1968. He then sang with the Royal Opera in Copenhagen (from 1973), and also made guest appearances with other major European opera houses, including London’s Covent Garden as Hunding (1975), Milan’s La Scala as the King in Lohengrin (1981), in Salzburg as Rocco (1982), and in Bayreuth as Hagen (1983). In 1979 he made his U.S. debut as Boris Godunov in St. Louis, as well as his Metropolitan Opera debut in N.Y. (Dec. 13, 1979) as Baron Ochs. He continued to sing at the Metropolitan Opera with success in operas by Wagner, Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Strauss, and Janacek. In 1990 he appeared as King Marke at the Edinburgh Festival. After singing Boris in Lady Macbeth of the District of Mtsensk at La Scala in 1992, he was engaged as Varlaam at the Salzburg Easter Festival in 1994. During the 1996-97 season, he appeared as Schoenberg’s Moses at the Royal Festival Hall in London. His other roles include Leporello, Sarastro, Gounod’s Méphistophélès, and the Grand Inquisitor.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire