Äneas Humm | Life After Juilliard

After graduation, I started my fest engagement at the Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar and debuted as Harlekin in Ariadne auf Naxos and Masetto in Don Giovanni. I was also lucky to have engagements to travel around Europe giving recitals and collaborating with wonderful orchestras. One absolute highlight was singing for the German president at his official residence, Bellevue, accompanied by Renate Rohlfing (MM ’12, collaborative piano).

I now cherish and take health more seriously than ever since, just before Corona hit us all, I was diagnosed with kidney failure and spent some weeks at the hospital. Thanks to the help of doctors and nurses, my health is back on track. It was in those dark moments that my now husband and I saw that our relationship would be strong enough to go through lows and highs. We got married in October in Düsseldorf, our home, and enjoyed a beautiful intimate wedding with close friends and family at a wonderful restaurant and—with masks—shared our smiles with the world all day long.

Because of COVID most of my freelance work got cancelled. I’ve tried to find the beauty in practicing at home, and that has given me the luxury of growth and an almost meditative way of finding solutions and inspiration for vocal and artistic questions. When the pandemic hit, I saw that many children could not afford to take lessons and offered free voice lessons via Skype, which has been a wonderful experience that warmed my heart.

The Staatstheater Karlsruhe has asked me to join its ensemble, and once the pandemic is over, I will be singing such lyric baritone roles as Papageno (The Magic Flute), Malatesta (Don Pasquale), and many more there. The post-pandemic future also holds role and house debuts in Germany and Switzerland. And in February, I'm recording my next CD, Embrace. It is scheduled for release this summer.

As I am writing this, Germany is under lockdown, and we will be spending many more weeks at our home. I guess I will be posting more of my cooking on social media and reading some great books. My advice for students: learn to focus on you and get to know yourself so that when you go on stage, your personality will shine through.

Baritone Äneas Humm (MM ’19, voice)