Icelandic baritone Ólafur Sigurðarson has been hailed as “the best Alberich in the world” a title earned through electrifying performances across the globe - from Bayreuth to La Scala, where his portrayal in Das Rheingold was described as “flawless… his delivery felt natural, as if he were speaking rather than singing.”
In 2025/2026, he returns to the Teatro alla Scala for Ring des Nibelungen, following celebrated performances in the role of Alberich across Europe and in China at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing. He also stars as Simone in a new production of Violanta at Deutsche Oper Berlin and Telramund Lohegrin with Malmö Opera.
Current and recent engagements include returns to Bayreuther Festspiele as both Alberich Der Ring des Nibelungen and Kurwenal Tristan und Isolde, thr Gran Teatre del Liceu as Telramund Lohengrin, Oper Leipzig as Der Holländer Der fliegende Holländer and Baron Scarpia Tosca, and Prague National Theatre in the title role of Macbeth.
Sigurðarson has also appeared at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna as Telramund, with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra as Klingsor Parsifal, and with the Gothenburg Opera as both Rigoletto and Alberich Götterdämmerung. At English National Opera, he has been heard as Captain Balstrode Peter Grimes, Wozzeck, Miller Luisa Miller.
His previous seasons include his Teatro alla Scala debut as Captain Balstrode Peter Grimes, multiple returns to Bayreuth Festival for Alberich and Kurwenal, and highly praised portrayals of Rigoletto and Macbeth at the Prague National Theatre.
Alberich, clearly Wotan’s vagrant-brother, is the astonishing Icelandic baritone Olafur Sigurdarson, here on top form in his exchanges with a tinnie-toting Wotan - Opera Now
Thus the most convincing performance was reserved for Olafur Sigurdarson, who is able to let the pain behind all his Alberich's desire for revenge shimmer through grippingly
Olafur Sigurdarson garnered the greatest cheers from the audience as Alberich, probably rightly so. His was certainly an outstanding performance, seemingly instinctively alert to the dramatic reality and implications of Wagner's particularly dialectical blend of verse, music, and gesture
Olafur Sigurdarson’s Alberich is the evening’s greatest triumph… The voice, for us, is perhaps the most notable to be found in this role anywhere in the world; a hard but appealing tone, a projection so good that it seems as if he is sitting next to you