Roman Trekel is a German baritone who has established a firm career from a base at the Staatsoper Berlin during the 1990s. He began his higher musical education in 1980, studying voice with Prof. Heinz Reeh until 1986. He received a position at the Berlin Staatsoper's Opera Studio in 1986, and in 1988 joined the Staatsoper (Unter den Linden) as a soloist member of the company. He entered the music competition circuit and in 1989 won the First Prize in the Walter Gruner International Competition in London. He began to receive roles at the Staatsoper, soon taking leading baritone parts. There he has sung Harlekin in Richard Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos, Guglielmo in Mozart's Così fan tutte, Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, and the Count in Le nozze di Figaro; Figaro in Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia, Pélleas in Debussy's Pélleas et Mélisande, Orpheus in Telemann's opera, Olivier in Strauss' Capriccio, Wolfram in Tannhäuser, the Tsar in Zar und Zimmerman, Sharpless in Madame Butterfly, the Emperor in Der Kaiser von Atlantis, Ford in Verdi's Falstaff, and Croesus in the German Baroque opera Croesus, by Keiser. In 1996, he debuted at the Staatsoper Dresden and the Bayreuth Festival, and has also sung as a guest artist at the opera houses of Madrid, Catania, Florence, and other cities. He is also a noted recital artist. He has appeared in several festivals, including the Festival of Flanders, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Schubertiade Feldkirch, and the Festival für Alte Musik Innsbruck. Other venues for his recital programs have included Atlanta, Vienna, London, Schwetzingen, Cologne, Zürich, and New York. He has worked with conductors such as Antonio Pappano, Georg Solti, Zubin Mehta, Pierre Boulez, Michael Gielen, René Jacobs, Marek Janowski, Fabio Luisi, Daniel Barenboim, Claudio Abbado, Kent Nagano, and Helmuth Rilling. He has often appeared on European radio and television networks and has made several compact discs, including a recording of Telemann's Orpheus that won the 1998 Deutsche Schallplattenpreis.