Samuel Youn studied voice in Seoul, in Milan, and at the Cologne University of Music under Arthur Janzen.
At Cologne he has sung among other roles Kaspar in Der Freischütz, Jochanaan in Richard Strauss' Salome, Escamillo in Bizet's Carmen, and the Wagnerian roles of Donner and Gunther in Der Ring des Nibelungen, Kurwenal in Tristan und Isolde and the Dutchman in Der fliegende Holländer; he has also made many guest appearances in various countries, including as the Wanderer/Wotan in Wagner's Siegfried, his début in the role, in Lisbon,[1] and Mephisto in Gounod's Faust in Treviso and Rovigo, his first appearances in Italy.
[1] In 2012 Youn became the first Korean to sing the Dutchman in Der Fliegende Holländer at Bayreuth, as a short-notice replacement for Yevgeny Nikitin, who withdrew days before the opening of the festival because he had a tattoo that was said in German media to resemble a swastika.
[5] In 2016 Youn sang Scarpia in Puccini's Tosca at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden,[6] and also performed for the first time in the US, as Alberich in Wagner's Das Rheingold with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, his first performance in the role.
[7][8] Youn was the first recipient of the Offenbach Prize of the Freunde der Oper Köln e. V., in 2005.