St. Matthew Passion

During the 2020/21 season, British-American tenor Joshua Blue will sing Rinuccio in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. He was scheduled to make a return to Washington National Opera to sing the role of Jacquino in Beethoven’s Fidelio conducted by Robert Spano and directed by Francesca Zambello; perform Beethoven’s Symphony #9 at the Lensic Performing Arts Center and Oberlin Conservatory of Music; and sing Orff’s Carmina Burana with the Jacksonville Symphony and Eugene Symphony led by Francesco Lecce-Chong.

In the 2019/20 season, Mr. Blue performed Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Thomas Wilkins, for the opening festival of The Reach at the Kennedy Center. Opera engagements featured role debuts as Tamino in the Maurice Sendak production of The Magic Flute with Washington National Opera in addition to scheduled roles of Alfred in Die Fledermaus at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni with the Berkshire Opera Festival. Additional performances at Washington National Opera included singing the role of the Philistine Messenger in Samson and Delilah, conducted by John Fiore, and a contract to perform Man 1 in the D.C premiere of Jeanine Tesori’s Blue directed by the work’s librettist, Tazewell Thompson. Concerts last season marked a return to Carnegie Hall to join Musica Sacra for Handel’s Messiah; his first performances in Stravinsky’s Pulcinella with the Florida Orchestra; and the premiere of a fascinating new program called T'ain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do: Songs from Gay Harlem with the New York Festival of Song with pianist Steven Blier.

​Highlights of the 2018/19 season for Mr. Blue included debuts at the Kennedy Center as Alfredo in La Traviata with Washington National Opera led by Renato Palumbo and Act I of La Bohème in concert with the National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Gianandrea Noseda. He joined Wolf Trap Opera to sing the role of Harlekin in Ullmann’s Der Kaiser von Atlantis conducted by Geoffrey McDonald and traveled to Japan to cover the role of Monsieur Triquet in Eugene Onegin conducted by Fabio Luisi and directed by Peter McClintock at the Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival. Mr. Blue was tenor soloist in Verdi’s Requiem with the Oratorio Society of New York at Carnegie Hall and the Cleveland Chamber Orchestra under conductor James Gaffigan. Mr. Blue also sang the American premiere of the rarely heard Franz Liszt opera Sardanapalo at the Library of Congress. Additional roles with Washington National Opera included Monsieur Triquet in Eugene Onegin; Hippo/Holy man/Dog/Water Seller in Tesori’s The Lion, The Unicorn, and Me; and David in Benavides’s Pepito as part of the American Opera Initiative Festival.

Mr. Blue’s previous seasons have included his debut at Carnegie Hall in Handel’s Messiah with the Oratorio Society of New York; performances in Moravec’s Sanctuary Road at Merkin Concert Hall with New York Festival of Song; the American premiere of Philip Glass’s The Trial at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis; and performing the roles of Scaramuccio in Ariadne auf Naxos with Austin Opera and Nemorino in L’elisir d’amore  with the Music Academy of the West. Mr. Blue was a semi-finalist of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and sang on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera in 2018. He has also received the Ellen Lopin Blair award for first place in the 2017 Oratorio Society of New York solo competition and was noted as an Emerging Artist in the 2017 Opera Index Competition in New York City.

Mr. Blue earned his bachelor’s degree from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and graduated from The Juilliard School with a master’s degree, studying voice with Dr. Robert C. White, Jr. In 2018, Mr. Blue was an Apprentice Singer with Santa Fe Opera’s summer festival. He is an alumnus of the Cafritz Young Artist program with the Washington National Opera.

Learn more at JoshuaBlueTenor.com.

In the 2021/22 season, Michael Sumuel's appearances include the King in Cendrillon at the Metropolitan Opera. He will return there in the 2022/23 season as Belcore in L'Elisir d'Amore. 

He began the 2020/21 season with his role and house debut at the Seattle Opera performing Leporello in Don Giovanni. (COVID cancellations include appearances with Opera Philadelphia as Angelotti in Tosca, with Bard SummerScape as Allan in Chausson’s King Arthur, and Beethoven’s Missa solemnis with the Kansas City Symphony, as well as a solo recital of Schubert lieder with the Schubert Club in Minneapolis.)

In the 2019/20 season, Michael Sumuel returned to San Francisco Opera to perform the title role in a new production of The Marriage of Figaro. Other operatic appearances included reprising Escamillo in Carmen with the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet, and joining the roster of the Metropolitan Opera in Agrippina. Concert engagements included the Cleveland Orchestra for Mozart’s Mass in C minor, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, the Pittsburgh Symphony and Grant Park Music Festival for Beethoven’s Missa solemnis, St. Matthew Passion with the Washington National Cathedral, and the St. John Passion with Florida Orchestra.

In the 2018/19 season, Michael Sumuel performed Marcello in La Bohème at Houston Grand Opera, and Alidoro in La Cenerentola at Norwegian National Opera and Ballet. On the concert stage, Mr. Sumuel sang Haydn’s Theresienmesse with the Grant Park Music Festival in Chicago, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, Puccini’s Messa di Gloria with the San Diego Symphony, and participated in a Schubertiade at Wolf Trap in Vienna, Virginia. He also joined the Phoenix Symphony for performances of Messiah and Mercury Houston for Bach’s Magnificat.

In the 2017/18 season, Michael Sumuel returned to Glyndebourne Festival Opera to perform Sharpless in Madama Butterfly and made his debut at Teatro Massimo di Palermo performing Theseus in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Concert appearances included debuts with the BBC Proms, singing Kate Whitley’s “I am I say” with the Multi-Story Orchestra at Eastgate Centre Rooftop Car Park, Mozart’s Mass in C minor with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, conducted by Pablo Heras-Casado at Carnegie Hall, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with Seattle Symphony, Handel’s Messiah with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Bach’s St. John Passion with Music of the Baroque in Chicago, conducted by Jane Glover, and a return to Mercury Houston to perform the bass solos in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion.

Previous seasons have included his Lyric Opera of Chicago debut as Masetto in a new production of Don Giovanni, conducted by Sir Andrew Davis, as well as his San Francisco Opera debut as Tom in the world premiere of Christopher Theofanidis’ Heart of a Soldier in Francesca Zambello’s production. Subsequent appearances included Escamillo in Calixto Bieito’s production, Masetto, conducted by Marc Minkowski, and Elviro in Handel’s Xerxes. At Houston Grand Opera, he has performed Belcore in L’elisir d’amore, Papageno in The Magic Flute, Frank in Die Fledermaus, Masetto, Sharpless, and Schaunard in John Caird’s new production of La Bohéme, a role that also served as his European debut with Glyndebourne Festival Opera. He subsequently returned there to sing Junius in The Rape of Lucretia and Theseus. At Norwegian National Opera and Ballet, he performed Alidoro and Escamillo, and made his role debut as Figaro in The Marriage of Figaro with Dayton Opera, later reprising the role for his company debut with Central City Opera. At Opera Southwest, Wolf Trap Opera and Juilliard Opera, in cooperation with the Metropolitan Opera, Mr. Sumuel performed the role of Selim in Rossini’s Il Turco in Italia.

Notable concert appearances include Messiah with San Francisco Symphony, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Houston Symphony, Louisiana Philharmonic, United States Naval Academy, and University Musical Society in Ann Arbor. He later returned to San Francisco Symphony to perform Copland’s Old American Songs. He made his European concert debut with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic in Mozart’s Mass in C minor at the Concertgebouw, conducted by Speranza Scappucci.  With the Cleveland Orchestra, he performed Pilatus in Bach’s St. John Passion, conducted by Franz Welser-Möst, as well as Mozart’s Requiem with the North Carolina Symphony and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the American Classical Orchestra at David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City. He has made multiple appearances with Mercury Houston, including a Haydn’s Paukenmesse and excerpts from Rameau’s Les Indes galantes and Thétis, a concert of select Bach cantatas, and Messiah. He has also appeared with Da Camera of Houston for a program of Brahms and Schönberg lieder in a multi-media project called “In the Garden of Dreams” and the Santa Barbara Symphony for selected scenes from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess.

Mr. Sumuel’s competition accolades include being awarded a Richard Tucker Career Grant, Metropolitan Opera National Council audition Grand Finalist and a winner of the Dallas Opera Guild Vocal Competition. A Texas native, he is an alumnus of the Houston Grand Opera Studio, Merola Opera Program at San Francisco Opera and the Filene Young Artist program at Wolf Trap Opera.

The 2016 recipient of the prestigious Richard Tucker Award, soprano Tamara Wilson is quickly gaining international recognition for her interpretations of Verdi, Mozart, Strauss and Wagner. Other recent honors include a 2016 Olivier Award nomination and receipt of the "Revelation Prize" by the Argentine Musical Critics Association. Ms. Wilson is also a Grand Prize Winner of the Annual Francisco Viñas Competition held at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona.

Her engagements for the 2022/23 season include Elvira in Ernani with Lyric Opera of Chicago.

Her 2019/20 season includes performances with the Canadian Opera Company, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Oper Frankfurt and the Santa Fe Opera. In concert, she will sing Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in a special Christmas performance and television broadcast with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and debut the role of Isolde with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.

Opera performance highlights in Tamara Wilson's 2018/19 season included a return to the Metropolitan Opera as the title role in Aida, the role of Leonora in Il Trovatore at Lyric Opera of Chicago, Desdemona in Otello at the Canadian Opera Company, the title role in Ariadne auf Naxos at Teatro alla Scala, and Chrysothemis in Elektra at Opernhaus Zurich. In concert Ms. Wilson presented Mahler's Symphony No. 8 at the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall and at the Edinburgh International Festival, as well as with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. She also sang Bruckner's Te Deum at Teatro alla Scala, and Ariadne in Ariadne auf Naxos with the Cleveland Orchestra. She performed her signature role of Aida at Arena di Verona followed by a special guest performance at the Santa Fe Opera's summer gala and a recital at the Song Source Festival.

Tamara Wilson opened the the 2017/18 season as the title role in Aida at the Washington National Opera in a production by Francesca Zambello. She then returned to her home company of Houston Grand Opera for her role debut as Chrysothemis in Elektra. She also made her New York Philharmonic debut in Bernstein’s Kaddish Symphony (Symphony No. 3) with Leonard Slatkin in celebration of Bernstein's Centennial.

Ms. Wilson made her acclaimed Metropolitan Opera debut in Aida and London debut in Calixto Bieto’s new production of La Forza del Destino at the English National Opera, for which she received an Olivier Award nomination. She also inaugurated the new opera house in Kyoto, Japan with Seiji Ozawa as Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus.

She made her LA Opera debut in 2009 as the First Lady in The Magic Flute, returning in 2011 as Miss Jessel in The Turn of the Screw .

Learn more at TamaraWilsonSoprano.com.

"A VOICE OF STEELY BEAUTY AND GREAT POWER"

—The Houston Chronicle

She was heard at Oper Frankfurt for her first performances as the Empress in Die Frau ohne Schatten conducted by Sebastian Weigle and subsequently released by Oehms Classics. She recently debuted at the Bayerische Staatsoper and Opernhaus Zürich conducted by Fabio Luisi, both as Elisabetta di Valois in Don Carlo. She debuted at the Deutsche Oper Berlin as Amelia in Un ballo in maschera, triumphed in Act 3 of Die Walküre as Brünnhilde with Mark Wiggleworth and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales at Royal Albert Hall, and debuted with the Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev in Act 3 of Die Walküre as Sieglinde.

A noted interpreter of Verdi roles, she has been seen as Elisabeth de Valois in the five-act French Don Carlos (Houston Grand Opera); Amelia in Un ballo in maschera (Washington National Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Florida Grand Opera, and Teatre Principal de Maó in Menorca); Elvira in Ernani (Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse); Elisabetta in Don Carlo (Bayerische Staatsoper, Zurich Oper, and Oper Frankfurt); Lucrezia Contarini in I due Foscari (Théâtre du Capitole, Teatro Municipal de Santiago and Netherlands Radio Orchestra); Leonora in Il trovatore (Gran Teatre del Liceu, Houston Grand Opera, Théâtre du Capitole under Daniel Oren and Palma de Mallorca); Desdemona in Otello (Cincinnati Symphony and James Conlon); Alice Ford in Falstaff (Washington National Opera debut); Amelia Grimaldi in Simon Boccanegra (Canadian Opera Company); the title role in Aida (Opera Australia, Teatro de la Maestranza, and Teatro Municipal de Santiago); Marchesa del Poggio in Un giorno di regno (Wolf Trap Opera); and Gulnara in Il corsaro (Washington Concert Opera). Other notable performances include her debut in Norma at Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona; Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus at the Canadian Opera Company; her German debut at Oper Frankfurt in concert performances of Wagner’s early opera Die Feen as Ada under Sebastian Weigle; Elettra in Idomeneo under Harry Bicket at the Canadian Opera Company and under James Conlon at the Ravinia Festival; Donna Anna in Don Giovanni under James Conlon and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, as well as with Edo de Waart and the Milwaukee Symphony.

On the concert stage, Ms. Wilson debuted with the Cleveland Orchestra in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 under Franz Welser-Möst, the National Symphony in Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 2 (“Lobgesang”) with Matthew Halls and with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in Verdi’s Messa da Requiem conducted by Marin Alsop at the BBC Proms, which was recorded for commercial release.

Susan Graham – hailed as “an artist to treasure” by the New York Times – rose to the highest echelon of international performers within just a few years of her professional debut, mastering an astonishing range of repertoire and genres along the way. Her operatic roles span four centuries, from Monteverdi’s Poppea to Sister Helen Prejean in Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, which was written especially for her. A familiar face at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, she also maintains a strong international presence at such key venues as Paris’s Théâtre du Châtelet, Santa Fe Opera and the Hollywood Bowl. She won a Grammy Award for her collection of Ives songs, and has also been recognized throughout her career as one of the foremost exponents of French vocal music. Although a native of Texas, she was awarded the French government’s prestigious “Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur,” both for her popularity as a performer in France and in honor of her commitment to French music.

Engagements for the truncated 2019/20 season included her celebrated portrayal of Mrs. Patrick De Rocher, mother of the convicted murderer, in Lyric Opera of Chicago’s company premiere of Dead Man Walking. She also starred as Madeline Mitchell in Jake Heggie's Three Decembers with Opera San José. In concert, she sang excerpts from Les Troyens with Donald Runnicles and the orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin at the Berlin Musikfest.

For the 2018/19 season, Graham joined Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony for Mahler’s Third Symphony at London’s BBC Proms and in Berlin, Leipzig, Vienna, Lucerne, and Paris. She made her role debut as Humperdinck’s Witch in Hansel and Gretel at LA Opera, hosted “An Evening with Susan Graham” at Dallas’s Meyerson Symphony Center, sang Canteloube’s Chants d’Auvergne with David Robertson and the Sydney Symphony, headlined the Mayshad Foundation’s season-closing gala concert in Marrakech, and returned to Carnegie Hall, first with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and then with Alec Baldwin and Leonard Slatkin for the Manhattan School of Music’s Centennial Gala Concert. To mark the 150th anniversary of Berlioz’s death, she performed Les nuits d’été with the Houston Symphony and made her New Zealand debut in La mort de Cléopâtre with the New Zealand Symphony under Edo de Waart. Other highlights of recent seasons include starring in Trouble in Tahiti at Lyric Opera of Chicago to honor the Bernstein Centennial, making her title role debut opposite James Morris in Marc Blitzstein’s 1948 opera Regina at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, and appearing alongside Anna Netrebko, Renée Fleming and a host of other luminaries to celebrate the Metropolitan Opera’s five decades at its Lincoln Center home.

Graham’s earliest operatic successes were in such trouser roles as Cherubino in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro. Her technical expertise soon brought mastery of Mozart’s more virtuosic roles, like Sesto in La clemenza di Tito, Idamante in Idomeneo and Cecilio in Lucio Silla, as well as the title roles of Handel’s Ariodante and Xerxes. She went on to triumph in two iconic Richard Strauss mezzo roles, Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier and the Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos. These brought her to prominence on all the world’s major opera stages, including the Met, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Covent Garden, Paris Opera, La Scala, Bavarian State Opera, Vienna State Opera and the Salzburg Festival, among many others. In addition to creating the role of Sister Helen Prejean at San Francisco Opera, she starred in Washington National Opera’s recent revival of Dead Man Walking, making her triumphant role debut as the convict’s mother. She also sang the leading ladies in the Met’s world premieres of John Harbison’s The Great Gatsby and Tobias Picker’s An American Tragedy, and made her Dallas Opera debut as Tina in a new production of The Aspern Papers by Dominick Argento. As Houston Grand Opera’s Lynn Wyatt Great Artist, she starred as Prince Orlofsky in the company’s first staging of Die Fledermaus in 30 years, before heading an all-star cast as Sycorax in the Met’s Baroque pastiche The Enchanted Island and making her rapturously received musical theater debut in a new production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s The King and I at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris.

It was in an early Lyon production of Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict that Graham scored particular raves from the international press, and a triumph in the title role of Massenet’s Chérubin at Covent Garden sealed her operatic stardom. Further invitations to collaborate on French music were forthcoming from many of its preeminent conductors, including Sir Colin Davis, Charles Dutoit, James Levine and Seiji Ozawa. New productions of Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride, Berlioz’s La damnation de Faust and Massenet’s Werther were mounted for the mezzo in New York, London, Paris, Chicago, San Francisco and beyond. More recently, she made title role debuts in Offenbach’s comic masterpieces La belle Hélène and The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein at Santa Fe Opera, as well as proving herself the standout star of the Met’s star-studded revival of Les Troyens, which was broadcast live to cinema audiences worldwide in the company’s celebrated “Live in HD” series. Graham’s affinity for French repertoire has not been limited to the opera stage, also serving as the foundation for her extensive concert and recital career. Such great cantatas and symphonic song cycles as Berlioz’s La mort de Cléopâtre and Les nuits d’été, Ravel’s Shéhérazade and Chausson’s Poème de l’amour et de la mer provide opportunities for collaborations with the world’s leading orchestras, and she makes regular appearances with the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Orchestre de Paris and London Symphony Orchestra.

Graham recently expanded her distinguished discography with Nonesuch Records’ DVD/Blu-ray release of William Kentridge’s new treatment of Berg’s Lulu, which captures her celebrated role debut as Countess Geschwitz at the Met. She has also recorded all the works described above, as well as appearing on a series of lauded solo albums, including Virgins, Vixens & Viragos on the Onyx label, featuring songs and arias by composers from Purcell to Sondheim; Un frisson français, a program of French song recorded with pianist Malcolm Martineau, also for Onyx; C’est ça la vie, c’est ça l’amour!, an album of 20th-century operetta rarities on Erato; and La Belle Époque, an award-winning collection of songs by Reynaldo Hahn with pianist Roger Vignoles, from Sony Classical. Among the mezzo’s numerous honors are Musical America’s Vocalist of the Year and an Opera News Award, while Gramophone magazine has dubbed her “America’s favorite mezzo.”

Learn more at SusanGraham.com.

American tenor Ben Bliss, whom the New York Classical Review called “one of the leading Mozartian tenors,” has gained a reputation as one of the most valuable and versatile performers of his generation. He is a 2021 winner of the Metropolitan Opera's Beverly Sills Artist Award.

In the 2021/22 season, he will return to the Metropolitan Opera as Tom Rakewell in The Rake's Progress. Engagements for the 2022/23 season include Chevalier de la Force in Dialogues of the Carmelites at San Francisco Opera and Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni and Tamino in The Magic Flute at the Metropolitan Opera.

In the 2020/21, he performed Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona. He also sang Handel’s Messiah at the United States Naval Academy, as well as Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with the Handel & Haydn Society in Boston. He had also been scheduled to return to the Metropolitan Opera to sing Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and to make his house debut at Opernhaus Zürich as Flamand in Capriccio. 

In the 2019/20 season, Mr. Bliss returned to the Metropolitan Opera as Ferrando in Così fan tutte, conducted by Harry Bicket, and made his debut at Lyric Opera of Chicago as Don Ottavio. He also sang Tom Rakewell in The Rake’s Progress at the Glyndebourne Festival and Belmonte in The Abduction from the Seraglio at his hometown Lyric Opera of Kansas City. In concert, he sang Handel’s Messiah in debuts with the San Francisco Symphony under Michael Tilson Thomas and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. He also sang Carmina Burana for his debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Alain Altinoglu, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, featuring performances both in Atlanta and New York City at Carnegie Hall, Bernstein’s Songfest with the Seattle Symphony, and the Steersman in The Flying Dutchman, again with the San Francisco Symphony.

In the 2021/22 season, Kristinn Sigmundsson joins the Enescu Festival as the Chamberlain in The Dwarf, the Royal Opera House Muscat as Monterone in Rigoletto, New National Theatre Tokyo for Baron Ochs in Der Rosenkavalier, and returns to the Bavarian State Opera for La Roche in Capriccio. He returned to Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie as Ghost in Dusapin’s Macbeth Underworld, and joined Indiana University Opera for Gurnemanz in Parsifal. Mr. Sigmundsson also recently returned to Houston Grand Opera for the Commendatore in Don Giovanni and Daland in The Flying Dutchman, to San Francisco Opera for Vodnik in Rusalka, Den Norske Opera for Dansker in Billy Budd, the Edinburgh International Festival for the Commendatore in Don Giovanni, and Atlanta Opera for Daland in The Flying Dutchman.

Other recent performances include returns to Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie for La Roche in Capriccio, Staatsoper Hamburg to reprise Melchthal in Guillaume Tell, Teatro Regio Torino for Sarastro in The Magic Flute and the London Philharmonic Orchestra for Rocco in Fidelio. He also sang Bartolo in The Marriage of Figaro with Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Commendatore in Don Giovanni with Budapest Festival Orchestra, and Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Sigmundsson recently joined the Dallas Symphony Orchestra for Hunding in excerpts of Die Walküre, Staatsoper Hamburg for Melchthal in Guillaume Tell and the Grand Inquisitor in Don Carlos, the Caramoor International Music Festival for Rocco in Fidelio, the Icelandic Opera for Don Basilio in The Barber of Seville, the Grant Park Music Festival for Méphistophélès in La Damnation de Faust, and returned to the Cincinnati May Festival for Music Director James Conlon’s final season for Dvořák’s Stabat Mater. He also joined LA Opera for its trilogy of Beaumarchais operas as he sang Don Basilio in The Barber of Seville, Louis XVI in Corigliano’s 2017 Grammy-winning The Ghosts of Versailles, and Doctor Bartolo in The Marriage of Figaro. He also recently sang King Philip in Don Carlo with the Icelandic Opera and returned to both the Ravinia Festival as Daland in The Flying Dutchman and the Cincinnati May Festival for Haydn’s Creation.

As one of the world’s most sought after basses, Mr. Sigmundsson has sung nearly his entire repertoire with the Opéra National de Paris. His performances at the Metropolitan Opera include Baron Ochs in Der Rosenkavalier, Osmin in The Abduction from the Seraglio, Hunding in Die Walküre, Rocco in Fidelio, Frère Laurent in Roméo et Juliette, and Vodnik in Rusalka. He has sung leading roles regularly with the Staatsoper Wien, Bayerische Staatsoper, and Semperoper Dresden, where his most recent performances include Méphistophélès in La Damnation de Faust. Other appearances include the Commendatore in Don Giovanni in Munich, Berlin and New York; Baron Ochs in Der Rosenkavalier, König Heinrich in Lohengrin and Pogner in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg in Berlin; Rocco in Fidelio in New York and Houston; Daland in The Flying Dutchman in San Francisco and Strasbourg; Fasolt in Das Rheingold in Houston; Creonte in Medea in Salzburg; Gurnemanz in Parsifal in Cologne and Florence; Zaccaria in Nabucco in Copenhagen and Beijing, King Heinrich in Lohengin in Madrid, San Fancisco, Los Angeles, and with the Bayerische Staatsoper both in Munich and on tour to Japan; King Marke in Tristan und Isolde in Santiago, Dallas, and Berlin; Hunding in Die Walküre in Naples, Venice and Cologne; Hermann in Tannhäuser in Geneva, Amsterdam, and Tokyo; Méphistophélès in La Damnation de Faust; La Cuisinière in The Love of Three Oranges in Florence; King Marke in Tristan und Isolde, Sparafucile in Rigoletto, the Commendatore in Don Giovanni, and Baron Ochs in Der Rosenkavalier in San Francisco; King Heinrich in Lohengrin and Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermoor in Munich; Osmin in The Abduction from the Seraglio in Naples; the Commendatore in Don Giovanni and Bartolo in The Marriage of Figaro and Walter in Luisa Miller at the Cincinnati May Festival; and Sarastro in The Magic Flute in Houston, San Francisco, Toulouse, and Santiago.

His concert performances include collaborations with many of the world's leading conductors including James Levine, Riccardo Muti, James Conlon, Colin Davis, Bernard Haitink, Charles Mackerras, Christoph von Dohnányi, Jeffrey Tate, Christoph Eschenbach, Ivor Bolton, and Marc Minkowski. He recently joined the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Cincinnati May Festival, and the Budapest Festival Orchestra on tour at Avery Fisher Hall for Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and sang Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius with the Hamburger Symphoniker, and Dvořák’s Requiem with the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale. Also with the Cincinnati May Festival, he sang Tchaikovsky’s Ode to Joy and Mahler’s Symphony No. 8. Among his discography are commercial recordings of Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute with Arnold Östman (Decca) and Schreker's Die Gezeichneten (Deutsche Grammophon). With Frans Brueggen he has recorded both Bach’s St. John Passion and the St. Matthew Passion (Phillips). He has recorded Schumann's Faustszenen with Philippe Herreweghe (Harmonia Mundi) and Fidelio with the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Colin Davis.

In the early part of his career he performed principally in his native Iceland before joining the Hessische Staatstheater in Wiesbaden. His initial training was as a biologist and he taught for a few years before becoming a singer, studying first at the Reykjavik Academy of Singing and then at the Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna, Austria.

He is the 2021 Los Angeles District Winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.

In the summer of 2022, he performs the title role of Don Giovanni and Ford in Falstaff (opposite Bryn Terfel in the title role) with Aspen Opera Theater. His engagements for the 2022/23 season include a recital with pianist Sandra Leary at SUNY at Fredonia's Rosch Recital Hall, a role debut as Dr. Buchanan in Lee Hoiby's Summer and Smoke at Hillman Opera, and a role debut as Papageno in The Magic Flute with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by JoAnn Falletta.

In the summer of 2021, he returned to Santa Fe Opera as Demetrius in A Midsummer Night's Dream. In 2019, he made his role debut as Escamillo in Carmen with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. He also appeared in Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony and in the U.S. premiere of Korngold's Das Wunder der Heliane with the Bard Music Festival.

Other recent appearances include the First Officer and Croupier in Candide at Santa Fe Opera; the Cobbler in Philip Glass's The Juniper Tree at Wolf Trap Opera; Nardo in La Finta Giardiniera, Professor Bhaer in Mark Adamo's Little Women, Curio in Giulio Cesare and Betto in Gianni Schicchi with the Shepherd School Opera; the Reverend Olin Blitch in Susannah and Dandini in La Cenerentola with the Hillman Opera; the title role in Don Giovanni and Sam in Trouble in Tahiti with the WNY Chamber Orchestra.

He received his master’s degree in May 2018 from Rice University, where he studied with Stephen King. In 2018, he was a finalist in Houston Grand Opera's Eleanor McCollum Competition Concert of Arias; in the summer of 2018, he joined the Apprentice Singer Program at Santa Fe Opera, where he covered the title role of J. Robert Oppenheimer in the new production John Adams' Doctor Atomic, directed by the librettist Peter Sellars. In the summer of 2017, he joined the Wolf Trap Opera Studio, covering the role of Pacuvio in Rossini's La Pietra del Paragone and singing in Four of a Kind, a recital with Steven Blier and Joseph Li.

Learn more at MichaelJHawkBaritone.com.

James Martin Schaefer has an active performing career throughout the United States. He has received wide acclaim in such operatic roles as Escamillo in Carmen, Masetto in Don Giovanni and Belcore in The Elixir of Love. He has appeared as a soloist with the LA Philharmonic, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, Pacific Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops Esplanade! Orchestra, Pacific Chorale, Long Beach Symphony, Les Grande Ballet Canadiens de Montreal, Opera San Luis Obispo, Distinguished Concerts International in New York, Young Musician’s Fund Debut Orchestra, California Quartet, Opera Pacific, Bakersfield Symphony, Roswell Symphony Orchestra and the Long Beach Camerata. Learn more at JamesMartinSchaefer.com.

The Hamburg Ballet has achieved a phenomenal reputation as one of the world’s most outstanding dance companies. International tours have made it not only a highlight of the international ballet scene, but also one of Germany’s most important cultural ambassadors. The Hamburg Ballet has achieved a phenomenal reputation as one of the world’s most outstanding dance companies. International tours have made it not only a highlight of the international ballet scene, but also one of Germany’s most important cultural ambassadors.

The heart of the company is Artistic Director and Chief Choreographer John Neumeier, who has directed the company since 1973. Mr. Neumeier is a master at combining classical ballet tradition with contemporary forms in his works, while developing a unique personal choreographic language. Mr. Neumeier’s lecture demonstrations are a special feature of the Hamburg Ballet’s tradition. During these matinees, which take place on the stage of the Hamburg State Opera several times per season since 1973, Mr. Neumeier, with his company, explains specific aspects of ballet history – the themes of current repertoire or the technical and historical background of traditional ballets.

Since 1975 the dance festival Hamburg Ballet Days has provided the high point and finale of every season. The festival traditionally opens with a premiere of a new work and ends with the Nijinsky Gala, featuring international guest stars as well as the entire Hamburg Ballet ensemble. Although the company performs at the Hamburg State Opera, its creative home, rehearsal venue, and educational center is a separate building, the Hamburg Ballet Center opened in 1989. Founded in 1978, the ballet school with its integrated boarding facilities, a pre-ballet department, eight professional classes, and a final two-year “Theater Class” program trains the next generation of dancers. The Ballet Center is also the home of the National Youth Ballet, founded by John Neumeier in 2011.

Since his debut that year with La Traviata, he has conducted 66 different operas and more than 420 performances to date with the company. Highlights of recent seasons include the 2020 company premiere of The Anonymous Lover (L'Amant Anonyme) by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, and the 2021 company premiere of Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex.

(Click here to visit James Conlon's Corner, where you can find essays, videos and conversations he has created especially for LA Opera.)

One of today’s most versatile and respected conductors, James Conlon has cultivated a vast symphonic, operatic and choral repertoire. He has conducted virtually every major American and European symphony orchestra since his debut with the New York Philharmonic in 1974. He has conducted more than 270 performances at the Metropolitan Opera. Through worldwide touring, an extensive discography and videography, numerous essays and commentaries, frequent television appearances and guest speaking engagements, Mr. Conlon is one of classical music’s most recognized interpreters.

In September 2021, he became Artistic Advisor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

He has been Principal Conductor of the RAI National Symphony Orchestra in Torino, Italy (2016–20); Principal Conductor of the Paris Opera (1995–2004); General Music Director of the City of Cologne, Germany (1989–2003), simultaneously leading the Gürzenich Orchestra and the Cologne Opera; and Music Director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra (1983–91).

Mr. Conlon has served as the Music Director of the Ravinia Festival, summer home of the Chicago Symphony (2005–15), and is now Music Director Laureate of the Cincinnati May Festival―the oldest choral festival in the United States―where he was Music Director for 37 years (1979–2016), marking one of the longest tenures of any director of an American classical music institution. As a guest conductor at the Metropolitan Opera, he has led more than 270 performances since his 1976 debut. He has also conducted at leading opera houses and festivals including the Vienna State Opera, Salzburg Festival, La Scala, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Mariinsky Theatre, Covent Garden, Chicago Lyric Opera, Teatro Comunale di Bologna, and Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.

As LA Opera's Music Director since 2006, Mr. Conlon has led more performances than any other conductor in the company’s history—to date, over 420 performances of more than 60 different operas by over 20 composers. Highlights of his LA Opera tenure include conducting the company’s first Ring cycle, recently re-aired in a marathon webcast celebrating the performances’ tenth anniversary; initiating the groundbreaking Recovered Voices series, an ongoing commitment to staging masterpieces of 20^th-century European opera that were suppressed by the Third Reich; and spearheading Britten 100/LA, a city-wide celebration honoring the centennial of that composer’s birth. During the period in which Dorothy Chandler Pavilion was closed due to the pandemic, Mr. Conlon conducted LA Opera’s live-streamed, socially distanced production—staged at the Colburn School—of The Anonymous Lover by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, a prominent Black composer in 18^th-century France. The performance was presented as an online-only event in fall 2020 and marked the work’s West Coast premiere. The Pavilion reopened in June 2021 with Mr. Conlon conducting the company premiere of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex, with which LA Opera became the first major American opera company to perform live in its own theater since the coronavirus outbreak. The performance was subsequently released online for at-home viewing. During LA Opera’s 2021/22 season, Mr. Conlon conducts three operas long absent from the company’s repertory: Verdi’s Il Trovatore, which opens the season; Wagner’s Tannhäuser; and Verdi’s Aida. He also conducts John Neumeier’s ballet adaptation of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, performed at LA Opera for the first time.

John Neumeier is the Artistic Director and Chief Choreographer of the Hamburg Ballet. Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1939, he studied in his native city as well as in Chicago, Copenhagen and London. In 1963 John Cranko invited him to join Stuttgart Ballet, where he progressed to soloist and continued his choreographic development. Appointed Director of Ballet Frankfurt in 1969, he soon caused a sensation with his new interpretations of such well-known ballets as The Nutcracker and Romeo and Juliet. In 1973, he became Director and Chief Choreographer of the Hamburg Ballet. Under his direction, the Hamburg Ballet became one of the leading ballet companies on the German dance scene and soon received international recognition.  

As a choreographer, Mr. Neumeier has continually focused on the preservation of ballet tradition, while giving his works a modern dramatic framework. His ballets range from new versions of full-length story ballets to musicals and symphonic ballets as well as choreographies to sacred music. His latest creations for the Hamburg Ballet are Ghost Light in 2020, Beethoven Project II, Hamlet 21 and the new version of The Sleeping Beauty in 2021. In addition to his great commitment to the Hamburg Ballet, he regularly works as guest choreographer with the most renowned international ballet companies. 

In 1975, John Neumeier conceived the Hamburg Ballet Days as a climax and end to each season. Three years later, he founded the School of the Hamburg Ballet. Today more than 80% of the company’s dancers are graduates from the school. In 2011, Neumeier founded Germany’s National Youth Ballet, a creative and young company that finds its performing spaces in schools, retirement homes and prisons. 

John Neumeier has received some of the most prestigious international awards. He holds the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany as well as the French Order of Arts and Letters and the Legion of Honor. In 2015, the Inamori Foundation presented John Neumeier with the Kyoto Prize for his contributions to the Arts and Philosophy. In 2017, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Awards of the Prix Benois de la Danse and the Prix de Lausanne as well as the Erich Fromm Prize. In 2019, he received the People's Republic of China Friendship Award. In 2021, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark awarded John Neumeier the Medal of Honor ›Ingenio et arti‹, a personal honor bestowed by the Danish royal house on outstanding personalities in the field of arts and scientists. 
In 2006 Mr. Neumeier established the John Neumeier Foundation with the aim of preserving and eventually making available to the public his collection of dance and ballet-related objects.  

Hailed for his adventurous and bold artistic leadership, and for eliciting technically precise and expressive performances from musicians, Grammy Award-winner Grant Gershon celebrated his 20th anniversary as Kiki & David Gindler Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Master Chorale in the 2021/22 season. The Los Angeles Times has said the Master Chorale "has become the most exciting chorus in the country under Grant Gershon,” a reflection on both his programming and performances. 
 
During his tenure, Gershon has led more than 200 Master Chorale performances at Walt Disney Concert Hall in programs encompassing a wide range of choral music, from the early pillars of the repertoire to contemporary compositions. He has led world premiere performances of major works by John Adams, Louis Andriessen, Eve Beglarian, Billy Childs, Gabriela Lena Frank, Ricky Ian Gordon, Shawn Kirchner, David Lang, Morten Lauridsen, Steve Reich, Ellen Reid, Christopher Rouse, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Chinary Ung, among many others.  

Gershon is committed to increasing representation in the choral repertoire, and in 2020 he announced that the Master Chorale will reserve at least 50% of each future season for works by composers from historically excluded groups in classical music. 
 
In July 2019, Gershon and the Master Chorale opened the famed Salzburg Festival with Lagrime di San Pietro, directed by Peter Sellars. The Salzburg performances received standing ovations and rave reviews from such outlets as the Süddeutsche Zeitung, which called Lagrime “painfully beautiful” (Schmerzliche schön). Gershon and the Master Chorale debuted the production in Los Angeles in 2016 and began touring the world with it in 2018. In its review of the premiere of Lagrime, the Los Angeles Times noted that the production “is a major accomplishment for the Master Chorale, which sang and acted brilliantly. It is also a major accomplishment for music history.”

He was the Resident Conductor of LA Opera from 2012 to 2022, and in this capacity conducted the West Coast premiere of Philip Glass’s Satyagraha in November 2018. He made his acclaimed debut with the company with La Traviata in 2009 and has subsequently conducted productions including Il Postino, Madama Butterfly, Carmen, Florencia en el Amazonas, Wonderful Town, The Tales of Hoffmann and The Pearl Fishers. In 2017, he made his San Francisco Opera debut conducting the world premiere of John Adams’s Girls of the Golden West directed by Peter Sellars, who also wrote the libretto, and made his Dutch National Opera debut with the same opera in March 2019. Gershon and Adams have an enduring friendship and professional relationship which began 27 years ago in Los Angeles when Gershon played keyboards in the pit for Nixon in China at LA Opera. Since then, Gershon has led the world premiere performances of Adams’ theater piece I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky, premiered his two-piano piece Hallelujah Junction (with Gloria Cheng), and conducted performances of Harmonium, The Gospel According to the Other Mary, El Niño, The Chairman Dances, and choruses from The Death of Klinghoffer. 

In New York, Gershon has appeared at Carnegie Hall and at the historic Trinity Wall Street, and he has performed on the Great Performers series at Lincoln Center and the Making Music series at Zankel Hall. Other major appearances include performances at the Ravinia, Aspen, Edinburgh, Helsinki, Salzburg, and Vienna festivals, the South American premiere of LA Opera’s production of Il Postino in Chile, and performances with the Baltimore Symphony and the Coro e Orchestra del Teatro Regio di Torino in Turin, Italy. He has worked closely with numerous conductors, including Claudio Abbado, Pierre Boulez, James Conlon, Gustavo Dudamel, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Simon Rattle, and his mentor, Esa-Pekka Salonen. 
 
His discography includes the 2022 Grammy Award-winning recording of Mahler's Symphony No. 8 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic as well as Grammy–nominated recordings of Sweeney Todd (New York Philharmonic Special Editions) and Ligeti’s Grand Macabre (Sony Classical); six commercial CDs with the Master Chorale, including Glass-Salonen (RCM), You Are (Variations) (Nonesuch), Daniel Variations (Nonesuch), A Good Understanding (Decca), Miserere (Decca), and the national anthems (Cantaloupe Music); and two live-performance albums, the Master Chorale’s 50th Season Celebration recording and Festival of Carols. He has also led the Master Chorale in performances for several major motion pictures soundtracks, including, at the request of John Williams, Star Wars: The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker. Gershon was named Outstanding Alumnus of the Thornton School of Music in 2002 and received the USC Alumni Merit Award in 2017.  

Grammy Award winner Fernando Malvar‐Ruiz is serving his fourth season as Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus, having commenced his tenure in 2018. He is an internationally regarded choral conductor, clinician, and educator who has worked with children’s and youth choirs his entire career. From 2004 to 2017, he was the Artistic Director of the American Boychoir, leading the ensemble in over 150 performances and up to five national and international tours annually. He has prepared choirs for appearances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, LA Opera, San Francisco Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic and London Symphony Orchestra, among others. He has worked with such conductors as Gustavo Dudamel, Marin Alsop, Pierre Boulez, Yannik Nézet-Seguin, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Valery Gergiev, as well as artists ranging from cellist Yo‐Yo Ma, trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, pop legends Billie Eilish, Beyoncé Knowles, Sir Paul McCartney, Josh Groban, and opera singers Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman. He conducted the American Boychoir on six recordings, led its performances on the Academy Awards and a 9/11 memorial service broadcast globally on CNN. Mr. Malvar-Ruiz was the music director on the film Hear My Song (Boychoir), starring Dustin Hoffman, Kathy Bates, Debra Winger, and Josh Lucas.

His discography includes the 2022 Grammy Award-winning recording of Mahler's Symphony No. 8 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Mr. Malvar‐Ruiz previously served as the American Boychoir’s Associate Music Director from 2000 to 2004 under James Litton. An expert in the adolescent voice, he has guest conducted children’s and youth choirs around the globe. He has a master’s degree in choral conducting from Ohio State University and completed the coursework toward a doctoral degree in choral music from the University of Illinois.