John Relyea
Relyea has appeared in many of the world's most celebrated opera houses including the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera (where he is an alumnus of the Merola Opera Program and a former Adler Fellow), Lyric Opera of Chicago, Seattle Opera, Canadian Opera Company, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Paris Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, Vienna State Opera, Theater an der Wien, and the Mariinksy Theater. His roles include the title roles in Attila, Le Nozze di Figaro, Bluebeard's Castle, Don Quixotte, Attila, and Aleko; Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermoor, Colline in La Bohème, Don Alfonso in Lucrezia Borgia, Don Basilio in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Alidoro in La Cenerentola, Giorgio in I puritani, Banquo in Macbeth, Garibaldo in Rodelinda, Méphistophélès in both Faust and La Damnation de Faust, the Four Villains in Les Contes d'Hoffmann, Escamillo in Carmen, Marke in Tristan und Isolde, Caspar in Der Freischutz, Nick Shadow in The Rake's Progress, Collatinus in The Rape of Lucretia, and King René in Iolante.
Relyea also remains in high demand throughout the concert world where he appears regularly with orchestras such as the Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, and the Berlin Philharmonic. He has also appeared at the Tanglewood, Ravinia, Blossom, Cincinnati May, Vail, Lanaudière, Salzburg, Edinburgh, Lucerne and Mostly Mozart festivals, and in the BBC Proms. In recital, he has been presented at Weill Hall and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Wigmore Hall in London, the University Musical Society in Ann Arbor, and the University of Chicago Presents series.
The many conductors with whom Relyea has worked with include Harry Bicket, Pierre Boulez, Sir Colin Davis, Christoph von Dohnányi, Gustavo Dudamel, Christoph Eschenbach, Valery Gergiev, Bernard Haitink, Mariss Jansons, James Levine, Lorin Maazel, Sir Charles Mackerras, Sir Neville Marriner, Zubin Mehta, Kent Nagano, Sir Roger Norrington, Seiji Ozawa, Antonio Pappano, Sir Simon Rattle, Donald Runnicles, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Robert Spano, Wolfgang Sawallisch, and Ilan Volkov.
Relyea recordings include the Verdi Requiem (LSO Live), Idomeneo with Sir Charles Mackerras and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (EMI), Mahler's Symphony No. 8 with Sir Simon Rattle and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (EMI), and the Metropolitan Opera's DVD presentations of Don Giovanni, I Puritani and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Deutsche Grammophon), and Macbeth (Metropolitan Opera HD Live Series).
This season, Relyea returns to the Royal Opera House as Betram in Roberto le Diable , the Metropolitan Opera as Méphistophélès in Faust, and the Bayerische Staatsoper as the Four Villains, and makes his role debut as Zaccaria in Nabucco at the Minnesota Opera. He also appears in concert performances of Tristan und Isolde with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and tours Europe in concert performances of Parsifal conducted by Thomas Hengelbrock.
Mr. Relyea is the winner of the 2009 Beverly Sills Award and the 2003 Richard Tucker Award.