In December, Mr. Jagde makes his highly anticipated principal role debut at The Metropolitan Opera, singing Cavaradossi in Puccini’s Tosca. To ring in the New Year, Jagde debuts at the Teatro La Fenice in their annual Capodanno concerts, marking his first performances at the historic theater. In January 2022, Brian sings Des Grieux in Manon Lescaut at the Wiener Staatsoper, followed by a return to The Metropolitan Opera as Pinkerton in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. Two Puccini roles at the Deutsche Oper Berlin follow in the late spring, Cavaradossi and Pinkerton. Mr. Jagde will also return to the Arena di Verona throughout the summer, and he will make his role debut as Samson in Samson et Dalila at the Teatro di San Carlo in Fall 2022.
Read Full Bio... this performance abounded in crackling energy, sure-paced suspense, romantic reverie and thrilling singing from Radvanovsky and Jagde ... In Jagde she (Radvanovsky) had a tenor who could match her soaring power. It’s hard to believe that he spent almost 10 years early in his career as a baritone. On Thursday his enormous, vibrant voice was capped by exciting top notes ... it’s hard to complain when you have a singer with such a big, beefy instrument.
Those 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.
