Georg Zeppenfeld, a renowned bass from Attendorn in Westphalia, began his musical journey with a teaching degree in music and German studies, perfecting his opera singing at the music academies in Detmold and Cologne under Hans Sotin. After initial engagements in Münster and Bonn, he joined the Saxon State Opera Dresden in 2001, which remains his artistic home to this day.
Zeppenfeld has conquered the stages of the most important opera houses in Europe and the USA and has performed at prestigious concert venues worldwide. His repertoire includes significant roles in the Italian and German genres, such as Rocco (Fidelio), Kaspar (Der Freischütz), Sparafucile (Rigoletto), Zaccaria (Nabucco), King Philip II (Don Carlo), Daland (The Flying Dutchman), King Heinrich (Lohengrin), King Marke (Tristan und Isolde), Hunding (Die Walküre), and Gurnemanz (Parsifal). Particularly outstanding is his portrayal of Sarastro in Mozart's The Magic Flute, which he performed under Claudio Abbado in Baden-Baden and many other opera houses.
His debut as Hans Sachs in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at the 2019 Salzburg Easter Festival under Christian Thielemann marked a pinnacle of his career. Since 2010, he has been a regular at the Bayreuth Festival.
Zeppenfeld's career has been shaped by collaborations with renowned conductors such as Pierre Boulez, Riccardo Chailly, Sir Colin Davis, Gustavo Dudamel, Daniele Gatti, Daniel Harding, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Thomas Hengelbrock, Marek Janowski, Fabio Luisi, Lorin Maazel, Andris Nelsons, Marc Minkowski, Antonio Pappano, Kirill Petrenko, Christian Thielemann, and Franz Welser-Möst. His impressive work is documented on numerous CDs, DVDs, and radio and television productions. For his extraordinary achievements, Zeppenfeld was named Kammersänger of the Saxon State Opera Dresden in 2015 and received the Foundation Prize for the Promotion of the Dresden Semperoper in 2018. In 2022, he was awarded the Austrian Music Theater Prize for his outstanding performance in Parsifal at the Vienna State Opera.
