Jørgen Backer

Jørgen Backer is fast emerging as one of the Nordic region’s most versatile young baritones. He studied at the Norwegian Academy of Music and at The Academy of Opera in Oslo, where his teachers included Carsten H Stabell and Markus Kvits. At the opera academy, Jørgan sang Tarquinius in The Rape of Lucretia, Figaro in The Marriage of Figaro and Nick Shadow in The Rake’s Progress among other roles.

Jørgen has appeared with The Norwegian Opera, the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra, Opera Nordfjord, Opera Sør, Opera Vestfold, Oscarborg Opera, Haugesund Chamber Opera and at the Oslo and Kristiansund Opera Festivals. He made his debut at The Norwegian Opera in 2013 as Dr Falke in Strauss’s Die Fledermaus and has also appeared with the company as the Imperial Commissioner in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, Lønning in Vaage’s Khairos and Harry in Schwemmer’s Robin Hood.

Jørgen is a regular artist at the Oslo Opera Festival, where his roles have included Tonio in Pagliacci, Scarpia in Tosca and the Theatre Director in Viva la Mamma. He recently appeared as Marchese in the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra’s staging of La Traviata. At the Kilden Performing Arts Centre he will sing the Sacristan in Tosca in a co-production with Nordnorsk Opera and Opera Rogaland during September - October 2018 and in February 2019 he did his debut as the title role in Verdi’s Macbeth for Kristiansund Opera.
Season 2019-20 will include roles as Dancaire and Falstaff (debut).

Jørgen’s roles have ranged from Wotan in Wagner’s Die Walküre and Alberich in the same composer’s Das Rheingold to Escamillio and Morales in Bizet’s Carmen and Schaunard and Marcello in Puccini’s La bohème. For Haugesund Chamber Opera, he has appeared as Count Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro. In November 2017, Jørgen participated in the first performance of Dracula in Haugesund, a new collaborative chamber opera to which he contributed the libretto.

Jørgen regularly appears as a concert soloist in Norway and beyond in both sacred and secular repertoire. He signed to Nordic Artists Management in 2018.