The Austrian tenor Bernhard Berchtold studied at the Mozarteum in Salzburg with Horiana Branisteanu and attended Hartmut Höll's lied class. Awarded several prizes at international singing competitions, he received one of his first engagements at the Handel Festival in Karlsruhe. From the 2003/04 season, Bernhard Berchtold's regular stage was the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, where he was able to cultivate a comprehensive repertoire, from Mozart roles such as Belmonte, Ferrando, Don Ottavio, Tamino and Idomeneo, to Aschenbach in Britten's "Death in Venice", or Adolar in Weber's "Euryanthe", but also Boris in Janácek's "Katya Kabanova" and Erik in "The Flying Dutchman”.
After leaving the Karlsruhe ensemble, Bernhard Berchtold sang Belmonte and Tamino in Essen, Vasco da Gama in the first staged performance of Giacomo Meyerbeer's opera "L'Africaine" at the Chemnitz Opera House, Luzio in Wagner's "Liebesverbot" at the Bayreuth Festival and Max in Nice, Tamino at the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari, Belmonte at the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz in Munich, Erik at the Semperoper in Dresden and in Bonn, Belmonte at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Tichon in Janáček's "Katja Kabanowa" at the Hamburg State Opera, Idomeneo at the Salzburger Landestheater and Don Ottavio, Belmonte and Tamino at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein. Bernhard Berchtold remained loyal to this house in the 2017/18 season and, in addition to his three Mozart roles, also took on Froh in the new production of Wagner's "Rheingold". This season, in addition to the St. John Passion at the Vienna Konzerthaus and various other concerts, he also sang Adolar in Weber's "Euryanthe" at the Dresden Philharmonic under Marek Janowski, Heinrich in Spontini's "Agnes von Hohenstaufen" at the Erfurt Opera and Caramello in Strauss' "Night in Venice" in Lyon and at the Royal Opera House Muscat.
Bernhard Berchtold made his debut at the Teatro de la Maestranza Sevilla and the Dresden Semperoper in the 2009/10 season as Henry in "Die schweigsame Frau" by Richard Strauss, staged by Marco-Arturo Marelli. Other guest engagements have taken him to the Teatro Comunale Bologna, the Teatro Carlo Felice Genova, the Hanover and Munich State Operas, the Opéra national de Lyon, La Scala Milan, the Teatro Verdi Trieste and the Theater an der Wien as well as the Salzburg Festival.
Bernhard Berchtold has sung in concert halls including with Howard Arman at the Handel Festival in Halle, with Christian Arming on tour in Japan with the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, with Nikolaus Harnoncourt at the Styriarte Graz and the Osterklang Vienna, with Ton Koopman on tour in France, Holland and Italy, with Simon Rattle in the Berlin Philharmonie and at the Salzburg Easter Festival, with Helmuth Rilling at the Bachakademie Stuttgart and the Stuttgarter Musiktage, with Sebastian Weigle at the Frankfurt Museum Concerts and with Masaaki Suzuki in Europe, South America and Japan in the "St. Matthew Passion" and in Bach cantatas.
In autumn 2022, Bernhard Berchtold made his role debut as Lohengrin at Theater Lübeck under the musical direction of GMD Stefan Vladar. In summer 2021, he sang the title role in "Zarewitsch" to mark the 60th anniversary of the Lehár Festival in Bad Ischl.
The 2021/22 season began for the singer at the Gießen Opera with a new production of Britten's "The Rape of Lucretia". This was followed by several performances of an opera gala at the Lübeck Opera and further performances of "Die Nase" and "Fidelio" at the Hamburg State Opera.
In 2019/20, Bernhard Berchtold gave concerts – such as scenes from Goethe's "Faust" by Schumann with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin under John Storgårds in the Berlin Philharmonie and Haydn's "Nelson" Mass under Kent Nagano in the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie – as well as two very important role debuts, namely as Florestan in Chemnitz and as Shostakovich's Nose at the Hamburg State Opera. In the 2018/19 season, Bernhard Berchtold's schedule included Froh and Tamino at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Froh at the Chemnitz Opera and Erik at the Opera di Firenze.