Manfred Schwaiger was born in Vienna and started his artistic career relatively late, after completing a commercial education and working for ten years in office jobs. He studied singing at the Conservatory of the City of Vienna in the solo singing class of Christine Schwarz and also attended the opera school with KS Waldemar Kmentt, as well as the operetta course with Lucia Meschwitz. After completing his studies with a diploma in 2000, he worked as a freelance comic bass-baritone in many productions across opera, operetta, and musical genres.
Among other engagements, he performed as a soloist at the Operettenwochen Bad Ischl, the Laxenburger Kultursommer, with the Opera Pannonica in Lockenhaus, with the Neue Oper Wien, at the Klangbogen Festival in the Rathaus Wien, in the Stadttheater Baden (Bühne Baden), at the Römersteinbruch at the St. Margarethen Opera Festival (including as Papageno in Die Zauberflöte), at MuTh with the Vienna Boys' Choir (including as Black Bob in The Little Sweep), and at the Wald4tler Hoftheater (including as Leopold in The White Horse Inn). Numerous tours took him across Europe with musicals (Konzertdirektion Landgraf) and operettas (Schlote-productions Salzburger Operettentheater). He achieved great success, including as Tevye in the musical Anatevka and as Frosch in the operetta Die Fledermaus.
He makes his debut at the Gran Teatre del Liceu.