In the 2026/27 season, Markus Francke will make his role debuts at Theater Ulm as Éléazar in Halevy's La Juive, Lenski in Eugen Onegin and Harold Mitchell in André Previn's A Streetcar Named Desire.
His concert calendar also includes Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle and J. S. Bach’s St. John Passion.

Markus Francke has been a member of the ensemble at Theater Ulm since the 2018/19 season.

At Theater Ulm, he has performed the major roles of his repertoire, giving acclaimed role debuts as Florestan in Fidelio, Max (Freischütz) and Hoffmann (Les contes d’Hoffmann), Bacchus (R. Strauss, Ariadne auf Naxos) and the title role in Wagner’s Parsifal. He also sang the title role in the highly acclaimed 2022 world premiere of Charles Tournemire’s La légende de Tristan.
His role debut in 2026 as Walther von Stolzing in Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg was enthusiastically received by both press and audiences.

And now Markus Francke, the Heldentenor who can do it all at Theater Ulm, is also taking on the role of Stolzing: brilliant, full-bodied, and always thoughtful in his interpretation of the hit Prize Song. Südwestpresse, 6.6.2026

In 2023, Markus Francke was awarded the Ulm Theater Prize as an "outstanding member of the music theatre ensemble".

Permanent and guest engagements have taken Markus Francke to the Staatstheater Wiesbaden, the Bayerische Staatsoper, Oper Leipzig, the Anhaltische Theater Dessau, the Staatsoperette Dresden as well as to the International May Festival Wiesbaden, the Holland Festival Amsterdam and the Bregenz Festival, where he made role debuts including the Steersman in Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer, Toni in Henze's Elegie für junge Liebende, Hans in Smetana's Die verkaufte Braut, and Matteo in R. Strauss’s Arabella at Oper Leipzig.

Markus Francke has performed in concert in Helsinki, Moscow and Budapest, as well as, among others, at the Philharmonie in Köln and Berlin, the Liederhalle Stuttgart, the Philharmonie de Paris, the Tonhalle Zürich and the National Theatre & Concert Hall in Taipei, Taiwan

His wide-ranging concert repertoire covers works from J. S. Bach’s Passions and the Mass in B minor to Bruckner’s Te Deum, Britten's War Requiem, Luigi Nono's Prometeo and Giuseppe Verdi's Messa da Requiem, with which he made his Asian debut in Taiwan in 2024.

He has worked with renowned international orchestras including the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra, the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra, the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra, L'arpa festante, Concerto Köln, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the WDR Sinfonieorchester and the SWR Sinfonieorchester, and with conductors including Steuart Bedford, Asher Fish, Reinhard Goebel, Pavel Kogan, Ingo Metzmacher, Helmut Rilling, Ulf Schirmer und Alexander Soddy.

Markus Francke’s broad Lieder repertoire ranges from works by Mozart and Beethoven through the Romantic period to contemporary music.

Markus Francke has taken part in numerous radio and CD recordings, including Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari’s Die vier Grobiane (Münchner Rundfunkorchester, Ulf Schirmer) and the 2022 world premiere recording of Tournemire’s La légende de Tristan, recorded by SWR.

Markus Francke was born in Freiburg im Breisgau. After studying musicology, he continued his studies at the Cologne University of Music and Dance, where he studied choral conducting with Professor Johannes Hömberg and singing with Professor Arthur Janzen.
He received further important artistic impulses from Berthold Schmid, Diane Forlano, Francisco Araiza and Gundula Hintz.

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