The Catalan countertenor Xavier Sabata trained as an actor at the Theatre Institute of Barcelona before studying singing ath the Higher School of Music of Catalonia and the Musikhochschule in Karlsruhe, where his teachers were Hartmut Höll and Mitsuko Shirai.
Opera productions have taken him to the world’s most prestigious opera theatres, including the Teatro Real in Madrid, the Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, the Theatre an der Wien, the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, the Grand Théâtre de Genève, and the Teatro de la Fenice in Paris. The next season, he will make his debut at the Wiener Staatsoper as Ottone in Poppea by Monteverdi, conducted by Pablo Heras-Casado. In 2019 Xavier was named best male performer at the International Opera Awards.
The repertoire of Sabata encompasses everything from Cavalli and Monteverdi, to serious baroque opera and contemporary works. His most recent roles include Bertarido in Handel’s Rodelinda with Claus Guth, conducted by Stefano Montanari at the Opéra de Lyon, as well as at the Teatro Municipal of Santiago de Chile; Ottone in a revival of Monteverdi’s L'incoronazione di Poppea, conducted by Diego Fasolis at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden; Endymion in La Calisto conducted by David Alden with Ivor Bolton at the Teatro Real in Madrid; the global premiere of L'enigma di Lea at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona; the lead role in Handel’s Rinaldo in a European tour with Christophe Rousset and the Kammerorchester Basel, including the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, as well as in a new production at the Festival Perelada and Ottone in Handel’s Agrippina in a European tour with Il Pomo D'Oro and Maxim Emelyanychev.
He has performed with ensembles such as Les Arts Florissants, Europa Galante, Collegium 1704, the Venice Baroque Orchestra, Il Pomo D'Oro, Sevilla Baroque Orchestra and La Folia Barockorchester, and he regularly collaborates with conductors such as Fabio Biondi, René Jacobs, Jordi Savall, Alan Curtis, Gabriel Garrido, Fabio Bonizzoni, Diego Fasolis, Andrea Marcon, Xavier Dìaz Latorre, Ivor Bolton, George Petrou, Riccardo Minasi, Harry Bicket and Christopher Moulds. His concerts have taken him to the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Barbican Center and Wigmore Hall in London, the Lincoln Center in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, the Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow, the National Auditorium of Madrid and the Palau de la Música, as well as to the Festival Handel in Halle, the Salzburg Festival, the Aix-en-Provence Festival, the Innsbruck Early Music Festival, the Dresdner Musikfestspiele, the Karlsruhe Handel Festival and the Ambronay Festival of Baroque Music. He was awarded the Ópera Actual Award in 2013 and the Premi Tendències d'el Mundo award in 2014.
His extensive discography with important labels such as Virgin Classics/EMI, Decca, Harmonia Mundi Iberica and Aparté includes recordings of Handel's operas Faramando, Arminio, Ottone, the international award-winning recording of Alessandro which received eleven awards, as well as Tamerlano in which Xavier Sabata is the lead role. His solo album Bad Guys received resounding praise from the press: ‘It is among the most intelligent and surprising recital albums of recent years’ (The Guardian, London), just like his albums “I dilettanti” and his latest solo album, Catarsis, focusing on opera oddities from the 18th century. He also participated in the Gala Night of Countertenors, together with Max Emanuel Cencic, Yuriy Mynenko and Franco Fagioli, premiered by DECCA.
In addition to his performances on opera stages, Xavier is a devotee of Lied, and recently performed Winterreise by Schubert in Barcelona and Girona, a cycle that he recently recorded and will release at the end of this season.