His parents were German; his father was a successful engineer, and for reasons of his work, the family was moving around a lot.
When Michael Schade was born, they lived in Geneva, later in Germany; when Michael was 12 years old, they eventually settled in
Canada, and he got his musical education there and in the USA. He used to live in Canada for many years also as an adult (and for
the Canadians, he is Canadian); later, he moved to Austria. Schade is perfectly bilingual, German and English.
Considered an expert for Mozart and lyrical Strauss roles, he regularly performed at the Canadian Opera Company, Vienna Staatsoper,
Salzburg Festival,
Metropolitan Opera, Washington Opera, Opéra National de Paris, San Francisco Opera, Hamburg State Opera, the Lyric Opera of
Chicago and the Los Angeles Opera. At the Vienna Staatsoper, Schade has appeared in Daphne (as Leukippos), Don Giovanni,
Così fan tutte, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Die Zauberflöte, Arabella, Capriccio, Der fliegende Holländer
(Steuermann), Il barbiere di Siviglia, L'elisir d'amore, Die Fledermaus (both Alfred and Eisenstein), Fidelio (Jacquino),
Idomeneo, La clemenza di Tito, La traviata, Dvořák's Rusalka, Die schweigsame Frau and Die Meistersinger von
Nürnberg (David).
It's a pity: he is an unusually nice, modest and intelligent person, just that his intelligence (as with so many otherwise
intelligent singers) doesn't encompass judgement of his own singing, which latter is just terrible: it's definitely more
labored than mannered, and to say that he possesses an ill-placed voice would be wrong, because he possesses no voice at all. He
never did, but already at age 45, even what little he once had possessed was gone, as the above recording from June 2010 –
not exactly a demanding piece – proves.
Reference 1; reference 2:
archives of the Vienna Staatsoper
