Valer Barna-Săbăduș (born 15 January 1986), also Valer Sabadus, is a Romanian-German countertenor. He sings in both the alto and soprano range.
Barna-Sabadus was born in Arad (Romania), near the Hungarian border. He is the child of a pianist and a cellist. His father died in 1990 when Valer was four years old. In 1991, after the end of the Ceaușescu regime, his family emigrated to Germany and he grew up in Landau an der Isar, Lower Bavaria.[1]
Barna-Sabadus received his first musical education in violin and piano. At the age of 17, he began his studies as a countertenor at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München with Gabriele Fuchs.[1] In 2009, he became a member of the Bayerische Theaterakademie August Everding, where he completed his postgraduate studies with distinction in 2013.[2] Already before that, he sang important roles in his field under various conductors such as Orpheus in Orfeo ed Euridice[3] by Christoph Willibald Gluck, the title role in Rinaldo by Georg Friedrich Händel, Endimione in La Calisto by Francesco Cavalli[4][5] and Sesto in La clemenza di Tito by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.[6] After many years in Munich he settled in Cologne in 2018.
Barna-Sabadus has collaborated with other countertenors in Leonardo Vinci's Artaserse tour. He debuted in the title role of Handel's Serse at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein.[7] In 2013, he made his debut at the Aix-en-Provence Festival as Menelao in Cavalli's opera Elena. [1] Since 2014, he has been under contract with the major label Sony Classical.[8] At the Händel-Festspiele Karlsruhe and at the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe he sang the title role of Handel's Teseo.[9]
