Bass-baritone Karl Buttermann is gearing up to sing Papageno in a touring production of The Magic Flute with Opera for the Young, an educational outreach company based in Madison, Wisconsin. He most recently executed the role of Gunther in TUNDI Productions’ Wagner in Vermont Festival in Götterdämmerung this past summer in Brattleboro, Vermont. He also reprised singing Donner in Das Rheingold, a role he sang previously with the same company in 2022. In the fall of 2023, Mr. Buttermann ventured into contemporary opera, where he explicated the roles of Prophet/King in Nico Muhly’s Dark Sisters with Journey North Opera Company in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In the summer of 2023, he covered Wanderer in Wagner in Vermont’s Siegfried. In 2021, he sang a few roles with MIOpera, those being Melchior (Amahl and the Night Visitors) and Don Basilio (Il barbiere di Siviglia) in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois. As a 2020 Resident Artist, Mr. Buttermann was scheduled to sing as Count Monterone in Opera North’s production of Rigoletto, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the performances were postponed. He only performed in a Flute, singing the roles of Speaker/Second Armored Man, in Lebanon, New Hampshire.
Mr. Buttermann was a member of the 2019-2020 Herndon Emerging Artist Program with Virginia Opera in Norfolk, Virginia. During his residency there, he sang Alidoro in La Cenerentola. In the summer of 2019, he portrayed Leporello in North Carolina Summer Opera’s Don Giovanni in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. Mr. Buttermann was also a 2019 Apprentice Artist with Opera Southwest in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he played the part of Norton in La cambiale di matrimonio. He had the opportunity to work with soprano Martina Arroyo in her “Prelude to Performance” summer program in New York, New York, where he sang Betto di Signa in Gianni Schicchi, in 2017.
For his secondary education, Mr. Buttermann was a 2016-2018 fellow of University of North Carolina School of the Arts’ A.J. Fletcher Opera Institute in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He brought to life the character of Capitán in Florencia en el Amazonas. From 2015-2016, Mr. Buttermann had his first notable performance experiences. In these years, he was given roles suitable for an artist at a college level, as well as at an advanced level. These include Mozart’s Figaro and Don Alfonso, Frank Maurrant (cover) (Street Scene), and William Jennings Bryan (Ballad of Baby Doe).
Mr. Buttermann attended UNC School of the Arts from 2016-2018, and received a Master of Music Degree in Vocal Performance. From 2012-2016, he received a Bachelor of Music Degree in the same major from Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody Conservatory.