A very engaging artist, Gidon charms the opera and concert stages over the world. Recent highlights include Konig Heinrich Lohengrin with the CBSO under Andris Nelsons, Hagen Götterdämmerung for La Fenice (which won an Abbiati Award), Claggart Billy Budd for Opéra National de Paris, Four Villains Les contes d’ Hoffmann under Antonio Pappano at Covent Garden, Scarpia at Bregenz Festival, Bluebeard at the Concertgebouw under Peter Eotvos, in Nantes and for the opening of a new theatre in Angers, and Don Pizzaro for Canadian Opera Company. His critically acclaimed performance as Claggart with the London Symphony Orchestra under Daniel Harding was also recorded by EMI / Virgin Classics, which won a Grammy Award 2010 for Best Opera Recording. Previously he sang this role for Royal Opera House, Opéra National de Paris, Scottish Opera, Geneva and Antwerp.

Other opera highlights in Europe include Kaspar Der Freischütz and Don Pizarro Fidelio for Staatsoper Berlin, title role of Boito’s Mefistofele for De Nederlandse Opera, Seneca L’incoronazione di Poppea for La Monnaie, title role Don Giovanni for Reisopera, Mefisto in Spohr's Faust in Vienna and Cologne, Filippo Don Carlo in Geneva and Palermo, Sparafucile Rigoletto, Ashby La Fanciulla del West and Cadmus/Somnus Semele for Vlaamse Opera. In the UK Gidon sang in The Pilgrim’s Progress under the late Richard Hickox at the Royal Opera House, title role Boris Godunov, Kaspar, Nick Shadow The Rake’s Progress and Hagen for English National Opera, Leporello, Achillas, Sarastro for Scottish Opera, Don Pizarro, Count Figaro, Daland and Kochubei Mazeppa for Welsh National Opera. While with the Canadian Opera Company Gidon has sung Rochefort Anna Bolena with Dame Joan Sutherland, Daland Der Fliegende Holländer, Wurm Luisa Miller, Bluebeard and Boris Godunov. For Washington National Opera he sang Fafner Siegfried, Hunding Die Walküre, Daland and Musiklehrer Ariadne auf Naxos. Other opera appearances include Wurm at Spoleto USA Festival and San Francisco Opera, Konig Heinrich Lohengrin, Fafner and Hagen Der Ring des Nibelungen in Seattle, Mephistopheles Gounod's Faust for Cape Town Opera, Colline La Boheme and Kecal The Bartered Bride for New Israeli Opera.

Gidon has created several roles including George Moscone in Stewart Wallace’s Harvey Milk directed by Christopher Alden (Houston Grand Opera, New York City Opera and San Francisco Opera) which was also recorded for Teldec under Donald Runnicles, Hamilcar in Fénélon’s Salammbô (Bastille), and the Messenger in Goehr’s Arianna (Royal Opera House).

Recordings include Abbot Curlew River (Philips) with Sir Neville Marriner, the Gravedigger in Weill’s Silbersee (BMG), the title role in Handel’s Hercules under Minkowski (Deutsche Grammophon) and Saul with Rene Jacobs, which won a Gramophone Award.

Gidon Saks is also active as a director/designer and is visiting Professor of Voice at the Conservtoire of Ghent in Belgium. He also frequently gives masterclasses internationally.

He is currently performing 4 Villains Hoffmann for Santa Fe Opera and future engagements include Nick Shadow The Rake’s Progress for Staatsoper Berlin under Ingo Metzmacher, Gaspard Le Freyschutz for Opéra Comique under John Eliot Gardiner, Fasolt Das Rheingold for La Fenice under Jeffrey Tate, Hagen Götterdämmerung in La Coruna and return to Nantes and Angers for Bluebeard’s Castle revival.

Gidon Saks is represented by Intermusica.

July 2010 / 561 words. Not to be altered without permission. Please destroy all previous biographical material.

Hagen in Wagner’s Götterdämmerung (concert performance)
Washington National Opera / cond. Philippe Auguin
“Bass-baritone Gidon Saks’ menacing Hagen was larger than life and highly convincing as the menacing psychopath who murders Siegfried and destroys a kingdom to get at the ring. His massive voice was never buried in Wagner’s dense orchestral score, and his diction was crisp and precise.”
T.L.Ponick, Washington Times, November 2009

“…a cast of singers led, in order of excellence, by bass-baritone Gidon Saks as Hagen

Saks as Hagen creates perhaps the performance's most chilling visual image in Act 3 when, after mortally wounding Siegfried by stabbing him in the back with his spear, he runs to the opposite side of the stage and stands there, panting and holding his hand over his heart as if to say: "My God - I've really done it!"

His rich, black voice, especially potent in the upper part of his range, is ideally suited both to his brooding soliloquy in Act 1 and to his boisterous exchanges with the chorus of vassals in Act 2. Altogether, a superior performance.”
Associated Press, November 2009

Hagen in Wagner’s Götterdämmerung
Gran Teatro la Fenice / cond. Jeffrey Tate / dir. Robert Carsen & Patrick Kinmonth
“Hagen was played by the powerful bass, Gidon Saks.”
Il Gazzattino, June 2009

“A vocal triumph for all the cast, but the optimum roles were that of Hagen – played by Gidon Saks, whose voice is profoundly dexterous and suited to the drama and the conflict between the powers - Waltraute and the three Norns.”
Il mattino, la tribuna, la Nuova, June 2009

“The extremely expressive singers deserve our attention, among whom at least two must be mentioned here: Gidon Saks (Hagen) and Jayne Casselmann (Brunilde).”
Il Giornale, July 2009

“Gidon Saks’s mephistophelian Hagen was excellent. He took full advantage of his impressive physicality to bestow the necessary negative charge on the character.’ Saks’s voice has huge volume… completely perfect for this role.”
Operclick, June 2009

“The overpowering and evil Hagen was played by the booming Gidon Saks.”
Teatro.org, June 2009

“The Israeli bass-baritone Gidon Saks gave a remarkable interpretation of Hagen, in both his acting and his singing.”
Asterisco Informazioni, June 2009

Four Villains in Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann
Royal Opera House / cond. Antonio Pappano / revival dir. Christopher Cowell (original production John Schlesinger)

“Gidon Saks played the (four) villains with saturnine charisma.”
Rupert Christiansen, The Telegraph, November 2008

Claggart in Britten’s Billy Budd
London Symphony Orchestra & Chorus / cond. Daniel Harding
Virgin Classics 5 19039 2

“Gidon Saks catches the malevolence and cringing oiliness of the corrupt master-at-arms well.”
Hugh Canning, Sunday Times, October 2008

"Gidon Saks, meanwhile, is wonderfully baleful and dark-voiced as Billy's nemesis, the evil Master-at-Arms John Claggart - a match for Hickox's John Tomlinson and Britten's Michael Langdon."
Matthew Rye, The Telegraph, September 2008

Claggart in Britten's Billy Budd
London Symphony Orchestra / cond. Daniel Harding

"It was Gidon Sak's Claggart that pushed this Billy Budd over the edge into greatness. It was an extraordinarily powerful, diseased creation, cavernous and black and completely inside the role. Sak's baleful presence defined the Indomitable's claustrophobia, and he went beyond portraying Claggart as merely a compulsive force of evil to reveal him as oddly powerless to stop himself from destroying Billy… It was a fantastic performance."
Peter Reed, Opera Magazine, January 2008

"Saks, disturbingly, almost balefully handsome, was like some Miltonic fallen angel bent on destroying the positivity of creation. A great, utterly convincing characterisation, this was arguably the finest performance of the role for some years."
Tim Ashley, The Guardian, December 2007

"Rightly dominant was the Canadian giant Gidon Saks, barrel-chested and barrel-voiced as a sneering, brutally misanthropic Claggart."
Richard Morrisson, The Times, December 2007

"Gidon Saks chilled one to the marrow with the malevolence of his stage persona, combined with a cavernous tone that irradiated evil - a tremendous performance."
Barry Millington, The Evening Standard, December 2007

"The revelation was Gidon Saks's Claggart, as definitive an impersonation of evil in word, tone and physical demeanour as I would wish to hear."
Andrew Clark, Financial Times, December 2007