Chinese baritone Zhengzhong Zhou graduated from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music under the tutelage of professor Zhang Renqing, and teaches at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music where he holds the title of Associate Professor. He is the recipient of many prestigious awards, including the First Prize of opera category and Second Prize of French art songs category at the International Opera Singing Competition of Marmande, and Third Prize at the International Singing Competition of Toulouse. He was awarded the scholarship from the Centre national d’insertion professionnelle d' artistes lyriques to undergo a 2-year internship at Marseilles. He was a member of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at Covent Garden before he joined the ensemble of the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

 

Zhou enjoys a successful international operatic career, having performed at many leading opera houses. Recent engagements include Valentin in Faust in Chile, as well as Renato in Un Ballo in Maschera, Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus, and Conte Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing. In concert, he has performed Spanish romantic songs and works by Rachmaninoff in tours across China, as well as a Puccini Gala with the Xi’an Symphony Orchestra.

 

Zhou has collaborated with renowned conductors such as Donald Runnicles, Sir Antonio Pappano, Marin Alsop, Andris Nelsons, Seiji Ozawa, Daniel Oren, Tang Muhai, and Lü Jia. His operatic repertoire includes leading roles in Faust, Carmen, Rigoletto, Roméo et Juliette, Madama Butterfly, Salome, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, La Bohème, Le nozze di Figaro, Les Pêcheurs de Perles, The Rape of Lucretia, The Rake’s Progress, AI’s Variation, La traviata, la boheme, Tea: The Mirror of Soul, and Die lustige Witwe. He has also given recitals in Singapore, Germany, and London. His performances as Valentin in Faust, Albert in Werther, and Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro particularly have received critical acclaim for his “melodious voice and convincing performance.”

 

Zhou is recipient of numerous prestigious awards, including First Prize in the opera category and Second Prize in the French art song category at the International Opera Singing Competition of Marmande, as well as Third Prize at the International Singing Competition of Toulouse. He was awarded a scholarship from the Centre National d’Insertion Professionnelle d’Artistes Lyriques, allowing him to undertake a two-year internship in Marseille. He was a member of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at Covent Garden before joining the ensemble of the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

 

Zhou’s lieder repertoire includes Schubert’s Schwanengesang cycle, selected melodies by Duparc, and Liederabendprograms featuring works by Mahler and Debussy. He has recorded Werther for Deutsche Grammophon and Le Portrait de Manon for Opera Rara. Additionally, he has participated in recordings of Anna Nicole, Rigoletto, Tosca, and Madame Butterfly for Opus Arte at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

 

As a producer and stage director, Zhou has created his ECO-opera series, a collection of cost-effective productions designed for small-scale performances and touring. The company’s repertoire includes Don Giovanni, La Bohème, Rigoletto, and The Poet’s Love—an adaptation featuring the love stories of Rodolfo and Mimì, as well as Werther and Charlotte.

 

 

Tenor - Jinxu Xiahou (North America) - fluent in German, Italian. 

Ever since his success in the prestigious international singing competition NEUE STIMMEN of the Bertelsmann Stiftung in Gütersloh in 2011, Jinxu Xiahou has been a regular on some of the world’s most important opera stages, including the Vienna State Opera, Paris Opera and La Scala in Milan.

 

In the season 2023/24 Jinxu Xiahou returned to the Teatro alla Scala for Verdi’s Don Carlo (Conte die Lerma), Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci (Beppe) and Puccini’s Turandot (Pong). On the concert stage, he had great success with an Italian Opera Gala with the İstanbul State Symphony Orchestra, as well as Verdi’s Requiem with the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire under Sascha Goetzel.

In 2022/23 he could be heard as Loris Ipanov in Umberto Giordano’s Fedora and Malcolm in a new production of Verdi’s Macbeth, both at La Scala, and gave his debut as Don José (Carmen) with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra as well as in Verdi’s Messa da Requiem.

In the 2021/22 season Jinxu Xiahou gave his house debuts at the Opéra national de Paris as Pang in the new production of Puccini’s Turandot under the baton of Gustavo Dudamel and at La Scala in Milan as Tebaldo in Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi. The same season he returned to Milan as Scaramuccio (Ariadne) and sang Ismaele (Nabucco) at the Opera in the Quarry in St. Margarethen, Europe’s largest natural stage. 

 

The 2020/21 season had Jinxu Xiahou appear as Nemorino (L’elisir d’amore) at the Vienna State Opera and as Roldolfo (La bohème) at the Mannheim National Theater.

His house debut as Pang at the Salzburg Easter Festival was unfortunately cancelled due to the Corona pandemic.

Between 2012 and 2020 Jinxu Xiahou was a member of the ensemble at the Vienna State Opera and sang roles like Nemorino, Rodolfo, Don Ramiro (La Cenerentola), Conte d’Almaviva (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Ernesto (Don Pasquale), Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni), Malcolm und Macduff (Macbeth), Fenton (Falstaff), Italian Singer (Rosenkavalier), Singer (Capriccio), Voice of a young sailor (Tristan und Isolde), Cassio and Rodrigo (Otello), Ismaele and Abdallo (Nabucco), and other roles of the lyric tenor repertoire. Additionally, he sang a gala concert alongside KS Edita Gruberova with the Vienna Philharmonic under the baton of Marco Armiliato.

He made his debut at the Vienna Musikverein in May 2017 with a recital, presenting songs by Schubert and Strauss, as well as works by Tosti, Rossini and Leoncavallo.

Jinxu Xiahou was born in the eastern Chinese province of Shandong in 1990. The tenor began his studies at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing (China) in 2008. Since 2015 he has been studying with Prof. Florian Boesch at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. He made his European debut in 2010 performing at the annual CLASSIC NIGHT in Zurich.