iorgos Kanaris was born in Athens and studied singing in Athens and Munich, where he was trained by Josef Metternich, Daphne Evangelatos and more at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich.

Since 2009, he has been a member of the Bonn Opera ensemble, where he has distinguished himself with a wide-ranging repertoire including roles such as Belcore (L’elisir d’amore), Don Giovanni (Don Giovanni), Count Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro), Guglielmo (Così fan tutte), Marcello (La Bohème), Papageno (The Magic Flute), Peter the Broom Maker (Hansel and Gretel), Mandryka (Arabella), and Sharpless (Madama Butterfly). He has received great acclaim for his interpretations of major Verdi roles such as Rigoletto, Renato (Un ballo in maschera), Giorgio Germont (La Traviata), Rodrigo di Posa (Don Carlo) and Don Carlo di Vargas (La Forza del destino).

Further highlights of his career include roles such as Baron Scarpia in Puccini’s Tosca (2023) and Onegin in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin (2024) at Theatre Bonn. In their 2025/2026 season, he will make his debut as Barak in Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten and in the world premiere of Awakening, directed by Vasily Barkhatov, as the Messenger of Sickness / A Priest in Fiery Robe at Theater Bonn. He will also be debuting the role of Lescaut in Puccini‘s Manon Lescaut at Theater Heidelberg.

Giorgos Kanaris has worked with renowned conductors such as Will Humburg, Dirk Kaftan, Nicholas Carter, Jacques Lacombe, Mino Marani, Hermes Helfricht and Stephan Zilias, as well as directors including Stephen Langridge, Jens-Daniel Herzog, Dietrich Hilsdorf, Philipp Himmelmann, Josef Ernst Köpplinger, Marco Arturo Marelli, Peter Konwitschny, Sir David Pountney, Silviu Purcărete, Roland Schwab, Friederike Blum and Aron Stiehl. Guest engagements have taken him to the Greek National Opera in Athens, the Margravial Opera House Bayreuth, Bühnen Bern, Theater Bremen, the Opera Houses in Dortmund, Essen, and Gelsenkirchen, Cairo Opera House, Stadttheater Klagenfurt, Theater Luzern, and Staatstheater Nürnberg.

He is also in great demand as a concert singer and has an extensive concert and oratorio repertoire ranging from Schumann, Debussy, Duparc, Ibert, Beethoven, Schubert, Pfitzner, and Ravel to Strauss and Carl Orff. In 2017, his recording Songs of Yearning – Sehnsuchtslieder, featuring songs by Schubert and Beethoven, was released on Hänssler Classic. This was followed in 2020 by another Hänssler Classic recording, Invitation au Voyage, featuring Don Quixote and French songs accompanied by Thomas Wise.

Internationally recognized, he received a special award in the Oratorio/Song category at the International Maria Callas Grand Prix in 2005 and was subsequently engaged for various concerts with Helmuth Rilling. He was a prize winner at the Schloss Laubach Competition in 2009. In 2010, he received the Prize of the Friends of the Bonn Opera, and in 2011 he was a scholarship holder of the Richard Wagner Association Bonn.