In October, Brian Jagde made his house debut at the Wiener Staatsoper as Turiddu in Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana, followed by his first collaboration with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and Maestro Long Yu to record Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde for a Deutsche Grammophon release. Additional season engagements include his debuts with Opera Philadelphia singing Cavaradossi in outdoor performances of The Dream of Tosca and as Turiddu in Michigan Opera Theatre’s Cavalleria rusticana at the Meadowbrook Amphitheater, and a return to the Bayerische Staatsoper to sing Calaf in Puccini’s Turandot.
Read Full BioThose operas and others vanished with the final eight weeks of the Met’s season. So we asked some of the singers who had been waiting years to perform them to give us some musical phrases that they — and we — lost. Here are their voices, and edited excerpts from the conversation
Seattle Weekly called him a “heroic, Italian-style tenor to the marrow,” declaring his voice, “bold, bright, resonant and effortlessly hall-filling.” He’s easily among the top tenors on the operatic stage today with a voice that is expansive, powerful and full of color and depth. New York City native Brian Jagde is a supernova among the celestial bodies swirling about the operatic universe today.
Jagde’s voice, with its coppery ring, seemingly effortless high notes and extraordinary lyric spin given its heft, cannot help but please, even in phrases where his character is most heartless. His palpable pain as he discovers what his callousness has wrought is a top-drawer effort by an artist who seeks to humanize his character.
The first thing to know about Brian Jagde is that his name is pronounced "Jade," like the jewel. He is definitely sparkling, in personality and in talent. Though the prizewinning tenor's earlier education included computer science and business, Jagde seemed destined to be an opera singer.
