The prominent Lithuanian dramatic tenor Kristian Benedikt (his true name is Vaidas Vyšniauskas), b. 1971, began his artistic career at the National Opera in Vilnius in 1994 where he prepared more than twenty roles. His international breakthrough came in 2002 when he recorded Ponchielli’s La Gioconda with Plácido Domingo, Violeta Urmana, and Munich Rundfunk Orchestra. Lately Benedikt has been praised as one of the leading international singers of Verdi’s Otello. In 2013 he made his debut with Bavarian State Opera in this role and afterwards he sang it for many companies including the Mariinsky Theatre, Modena, Ekaterinburg, Santiago de Chile, Graz, Basel etc. His repertoire also includes Don José, Cavaradossi, Calaf, Canio, and Pinkerton, to mention a few. Benedikt’s concert repertoire includes Verdi’s Requiem, Das Lied von der Erde and more. He has performed with such conductors as Riccardo Chailly, Valery Gergiev and many others. In May 2014, he made his remarkable debut performing in Samson et Dalila at the Mariinsky Theatre. Recently, in December 2017, this role was reshaped to another Samson in a modern production of Vilnius City Opera directed by Dalia Ibelhauptaitė.

Benedikt‘s recordings are very well presented on youtube. We should thank him for this video (recorded in the Lithuanian National Opera, 2011.03.20, conductor G. Rinkevičius, stage director E.Nekrošius) from the “Kristian Benedikt” channel.

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