Highly sought after in opera as well as in concert and lied, the bass Franz Hawlata performs in great halls throughout the world. Mr. Hawlata was born in Eichstätt, Bavaria, Germany, and studied musicology there before entering the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich, where he studied with Ernst Häfliger, Hans Hotter, and Erik Werba. In 1986 he made his debut with the Gaertnerplatztheater in Munich. In 1992 he started his international career with productions of Busoni’s Turandot in Lyon and Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro in Pretoria. Mr. Hawlata has given more than 200 performances at the Vienna State Opera in such roles as Rocco in Beethoven’s Fidelio, the title role of Berg’s Wozzeck, Mozart’s Leporello in Don Giovanni, Papageno and Sarastro in The Magic Flute, Osmin in The Abduction from the Seraglio, and Figaro in The Marriage of Figaro, Strauss’s Baron Ochs in Der Rosenkavalier, Orest in Elektra, and Sir Morosus in The Silent Woman, Wagner’s Daland in The Flying Dutchman and Pogner in Die Meistersinger, and Caspar in Weber’s Der Freischütz. Mr. Hawlata made his Metropolitan Opera debut as Baron Ochs and was highly acclaimed as Leporello at the London’s Royal Opera. He made his role debut as Hans Sachs in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at the Bayreuth Festival. Among his numerous recordings are Lieder by Carl Loewe, Spohr’s Faust, Loewe’s The Three Wishes, Marschner’s The Vampyr, Nicolai’s Merry Wives of Windsor, and Dvořák’s Rusalka. Recent and upcoming engagements include Sir Morosus in The Silent Woman at the Bavarian State Opera and Don Pinto de Fonseca in Weber’s The Three Pintos in Leipzig.