Kristian is an important international dramatic tenor who has performed in major theaters and opera houses worldwide.
In 2018, Kristian Benedikt made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York as Samson in Samson et Dalila and returned to the Met in 2019 for more performances of Samson et Dalila and for the role of Hermann in The Queen of Spades. In Bilbao, he first sang the role of Erik in The Flying Dutchman, and in 2022, he made his debut at the Grand Opera Houston as Calaf in Puccini's Turandot.
In 2023, he premiered at the St. Gallen festival in the title role of Umberto Giordano's Andrea Chenier and debuted in São Paulo as Erik in Wagner's The Flying Dutchman.
The signature role of the Lithuanian tenor is the title role in Verdi's Otello, which he has sung over 120 times. As Otello, he made his debut at the Vienna State Opera and the Semperoper Dresden in 2018. Prior to that, he had performed this role at the Verona Philharmonic Theatre, Vienna State Opera, Bavarian State Opera in Munich, Savonlinna Opera Festival, Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, Montreal Opera, Al Bustan Festival in Beirut, in Modena, Piacenza, Cagliari, Palermo, Yekaterinburg, Santiago de Chile, Vilnius, Graz, Basel, Stockholm, the Latvian Opera Festival, and the Pacific Opera Victoria.
Past season highlights include Eléazar in La Juive in Konstanz, Siegmund in Die Walküre conducted by Alexander Vedernikov in Odense, Hermann in The Queen of Spades at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Canio in I Pagliacci at London's Covent Garden conducted by Antonio Pappano, Samson in Samson et Dalila in Turin conducted by Pinchas Steinberg, Hermann in The Queen of Spades in Budapest and Lucerne, Don José in Carmen, Cavaradossi in Tosca, the title role in Lohengrin, Samson in Samson et Dalila, Calaf in Turandot at the National Opera of Macedonia, Siegmund in Die Walküre in Odense, Pinkerton in Madame Butterfly, as well as roles like Eléazar in La Juive, Manrico in Il Trovatore, Dick Johanson in La Fanciulla del West, the title roles in Andrea Chenier, Ernani, Rienzi, Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor or Hoffmann in Les Contes d’Hoffmann in Munich, Saint Petersburg, Santiago de Chile, Mexico City, Beijing, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Stockholm, Budapest, Amsterdam, Tallinn, Barcelona, Bergamo, Palermo, and other places.
Kristian Benedikt began his career at the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre, where he performed over 20 different roles. Starting his career as a lyric tenor, he had his first international experiences recording Ponchielli's La Gioconda conducted by Marcello Viotti alongside Plácido Domingo and in Don Carlo in Amsterdam conducted by Riccardo Chailly. He was later invited to perform at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg and almost all the opera houses in the Baltic countries.
He has performed under conductors such as Marcello Viotti, Riccardo Chailly, Maurizio Barbacini, Paolo Carigniani, Asher Fisch, Renato Palumbo, Valeri Gergiev, Alexander Vedernikov, and has worked with stage directors such as Willy Decker, David Alden, Calixto Bieito, Hugo de Ana, Dmitri Bertman, Eimuntas Nekrošius, and Pier Francesco Maestrini.
As a concert singer, he performs, among others, Verdi's Requiem, Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, Rachmaninov's The Bells, and Webber's Requiem.