Don Carlo

Ramón Vargas is one of the leading tenors of our time and one of the most sought-after worldwide. 

His international debut took place in 1992, when the Metropolitan Opera asked him to sing Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor opposite June Anderson, substituting for Luciano Pavarotti. This was soon followed by a debut on the stage of La Scala, in 1993, where he performed Fenton in a new production celebrating the centenary of Falstaff, conducted by Riccardo Muti.

He now regularly performs at all the major opera houses all over the world to great acclaim:

Buenos Aires Teatro Colón (La Favorita), London Royal Opera House (Un Ballo in Maschera, La Bohème, Rigoletto, La Traviata), Milan's La Scala (Falstaff, Rigoletto, La Traviata), Metropolitan Opera (Attila, La Bohème, The Barber of Seville, La Cenerentola, L'Elisir d'Amore, Lucia di Lammermoor, Rigoletto, Der Rosenkavalier), Madrid Teatro Real (Werther), Paris Opéra-Bastille (Rigoletto, La Traviata), San Francisco Opera (Un Ballo in Maschera, L'Elisir d'Amore, Lucia di Lammermoor), Vienna State Opera (La Bohème, L'Elisir d'Amore, Lucia di Lammermoor, Maria Stuarda, Roberto Devereux), Arena di Verona (The Barber of Seville, Rigoletto), and others.

Grammy Award winner Ana María Martínez is considered to be one of the foremost sopranos of her time, with an international career that spans the world’s most important opera houses and concert halls.

A winner of the 15th Annual Opera News Awards, her repertoire encompasses opera’s most intriguing and diverse leading ladies, and she engages her audiences season after season with signature roles, spellbinding debuts, and a myriad of captivating recordings.  In addition to a full calendar of performances, Ms. Martínez continues to explore all aspects of her career, both on and off stage, highlighted by such diverse opportunities as voicing the role of opera singer Alessandra in season three of Amazon’s Mozart in the Jungle, to proudly representing her birthplace of Puerto Rico as an honoree and performer in the 62nd Annual Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York City, and all the while maintaining her commitment as a leader in the industry and as an advocate and educator to the next generation of musicians. 

In 2019 Ms. Martínez joined Houston Grand Opera as their first-ever Artistic Advisor where she works with the artistic team on casting and production decisions, adjudicates the annual Concert of Arias competition, mentors and coaches HGO Studio artists, and engages with the larger Houston community on behalf of the Opera.  Equally exciting, following a two year appointment as Artist-in-Residence at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, in July 2021 she became a professor in their Department of Voice.

Her appearances in the 2022/23 season will include Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni at the Metropolitan Opera.

Performance highlights of the 2021/22 season include the title role in Florencia en el Amazonas with Lyric Opera of Chicago and a role debut as Despina in Cosi fan tutte with Washington National Opera. On stage during the 2020/21 season, in the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Ms. Martínez was thrilled to join San Diego Opera as Mimi in their production of La Bohème, in the world’s first-ever drive-in opera production.  Virtual performances during the season included a “Living Room Recital” with LA Opera performed in Ana María’s home and available digitally.  She curated two Spanish-themed virtual programs, the first for Lyric Opera of Chicago with pianist Craig Terry, was entitled Pasión Latina and featured a dynamic selection of music from Puerto Rico, Mexico, Cuba, Guatemala, Argentina and Spain. The second program, created by Ana María for Houston Grand Opera, entitled Suite Española, featured music of Spain, including zarzuela, and stared Ana María alongside HGO Studio artists.  Additional performances during the season included her role debut in the title role of Tosca with Opera Philadelphia, which she performed again later in the season with Cincinnati Opera, as well as Nedda in Pagliacci with Palm Beach Opera. 

Learn more at AnaMariaMartinez.com.

He has sung more than 150 different roles to date, with more than 3900 total career performances. An integral part of LA Opera since its earliest days, he served as the company's general director from 2003 to 2019.

His more than 100 recordings of complete operas, compilations of arias and duets, and crossover discs have earned him 12 Grammy Awards, including three Latin Grammys, and he has made more than 50 music videos and won two Emmy Awards. In addition to starring in three feature opera films—Carmen, La Traviata and Otello—he voiced the roles of Monte in Beverly Hills Chihuahua and Skeleton Jorge in The Book of Life, and also appeared as himself on Sesame Street and The Simpsons. His telecast of Tosca from the authentic settings in Rome was seen by more than one billion people in 117 countries. He subsequently took the title role in a 2010 live telecast of Rigoletto from Mantua, Italy, the city in which the opera’s story takes place. In 1990, he and his colleagues José Carreras and the late Luciano Pavarotti formed the Three Tenors, performing with enormous success all over the world and attracted millions of new fans to opera.

He has conducted more than 500 opera performances and symphonic concerts with the Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden, Vienna State Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Chicago Symphony, Vienna Philharmonic, Montréal Symphony, National Symphony, London Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic and Berlin Philharmonic. In 2018, he made his debut at the Bayreuth Festival as a conductor, leading performances of Die Walküre. In 1993, he founded the international voice competition Operalia.

One of the most exciting Verdi mezzos on the international scene, she possesses a true dramatic Verdi mezzo-soprano voice, in the tradition of Simionato, Cossotto and the young Obratzsova. Born in Moscow to a family of musicians, she studied at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow. She made one of her very first operatic appearances on the stage of the Teatro alla Scala in 2007 as the Principessa in Adriana Lecouvreur. Within two years of this debut, she was engaged to debut in every major opera company in the world.

One of the greatest basses of our time, Ferruccio Furlanetto is one of the most sought after singers in the world. The critics praise him for his vast range, thundering vocal power, and excellent acting ability. His international career began with the role of King Philip II in Don Carlo at the Salzburg Easter Festival under the baton of Herbert von Karajan in 1986. In the same year he debuted at the Salzburg Summer Festival with the role of Figaro in The Marriage of Figaro. His debuts on the leading opera stages happened earlier: Teatro alla Scala (1979), Metropolitan Opera (1980), Vienna State Opera (1985).

He has collaborated with some leading orchestras and conductors such as Herbert von Karajan, Carlo Maria Giulini, Sir Georg Solti, Leonard Bernstein, Valery Gergiev, Lorin Maazel, Claudio Abbado, Bernard Haitink, Daniel Barenboim, Georges Prêtre, Semyon Bychkov, Daniele Gatti, Riccardo Muti, Mariss Jansons and Vladimir Jurowski. He performs in concerts and recitals at the leading world’s concert halls, in the repertory ranging from Verdi’s Requiem to Russian songs and Schubert’s Winterreise. He has made numerous recordings of opera on CD and DVD, and his performances were broadcasted internationally over the radio and television. He feels equally at home at many opera houses such as La Scala in Milan, London's Royal Opera House, the Vienna State Opera, the Opera National de Paris, and the Metropolitan Opera as well in Rome, Turin, Florence, Bologna, Palermo, Buenos Aires, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Moscow. At the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, he has become the first Italian bass to appear in the title role of Boris Godunov. He also performed the role on the stage of Bolshoi Theater with great critical and public acclaim last season, becoming the only western artist who sang Boris Godunov on both historical main stages of Russia.

Ferruccio Furlanetto is Honorary Ambassador to the United Nations as well as Kammersänger and Honorary Member of the Vienna State Opera.

Mr. Furlanetto made his LA Opera debut in 2006 as King Philip II in Don Carlo, a role he reprised in 2018.

Engagements for the 2022/23 season include Prince Gremin in Eugene Onegin with San Francisco Opera.

He most recently returned to LA Opera as King Philip II in Don Carlo. He has worked with many leading conductors including Gustavo Dudamel, Daniel Barenboim, Kent Nagano, Vladimir Jurowski, Lorin Maazel, Mariss Jansons, Zubin Mehta, Placido Domingo, Valery Gergiev, Philippe Jordan, Antonio Pappano, Semyon Bychkov, Yuri Temirkhanov, Vasily Petrenko, Dmitrij Kitajenko, Helmuth Rilling and Myung-Whun Chung.

His appearances for the 2017/18 season include a series of company debuts, beginning at LA Opera as Escamillo in Carmen, continuing to the Metropolitan Opera for Lucia di Lammermoor and Luisa Miller, and the Bavarian State Opera for Carmen. He also appeared in Don Carlo at Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, Valencia; Simon Boccanegra at Staatsoper Hamburg, Faust in Jerez, The Marriage of Figaro at the Bolshoi, and Ernani at Opéra de Marseille.

On the concert platform, he debuted with the Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España in Rachmaninov’s The Bells, which he reprised later with the Orchestre de Paris and Giannandrea Noseda. Further engagements include Shostakovich Symphony No. 13 with Poznan Philharmonic as well an AIDS Gala at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein.

Morris Robinson is considered one the most interesting and sought-after basses performing today.

Her mainstage appearances during the 2018/19 season include Tebaldo in Don Carlo, the Sandman in Hansel and Gretel and Annio in The Clemency of Titus. Additionally, she was the mezzo-soprano soloist for the world premiere of Joby Talbot's new score for Vampyr at the Theatre at Ace Hotel, and she appeared as Jocabed in the world premiere of Henry Mollicone's Moses at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. Her LAO appearances for the 2019/20 season included the Third Lady in The Magic Flute.

In March 2022, she will make her North Carolina Opera debut in Sanctuary Road by Paul Moravec and Mark Campbell. In the 2022/23 season, she will make her debut with San Francisco Opera as Charmian in Antony and Cleopatra, followed by appearances there as Sister Mathilde in Dialogues of the Carmelites and as Flora in La Traviata.

In the summer of 2019, she returned to Wolf Trap Opera Company as a Filene Artist to perform the roles of Rosina in The Barber of Seville and Concepción in Ravel's L’heure espagnole.

In 2018, she appeared with Wolf Trap Opera Company as Gertrude in Romeo et Juliette. Ms. Raven was a Pittburgh Opera Resident Artist in the 2016/17 season, where she performed as Oronte in Handel’s Riccardo Primo and as "Hannah after" in Laura Kaminsky's As One for its Pennsylvania premiere. In 2016, Ms. Raven performed in the Schwabacher Summer Concert with San Francisco Opera's Merola Opera Program. She recently performed the role of Marian Anderson in Deep River: Marian Anderson's Journey with Virginia Opera. As a Young Artist with Central City Opera in 2015, Ms. Raven was seen in scenes from Carmen, Street Scene and The Ballad of Baby Doe.