Matthew Polenzani, tenor
Julius Drake, piano

American tenor Matthew Polenzani is one of the most gifted and distinguished lyric tenors of his generation. His elegant musicianship, innate sense of style, dramatic commitment, and timeless artistry have established his continued presence at leading operatic, concert, and recital venues worldwide.

Matthew Polenzani begins the 2022-23 season starring as Giasone in Cherubini’s rarely performed masterpiece Medea at the Metropolitan Opera. After his successful role debut as Verdi’s titular Don Carlos last season, he performs the role in Italian at Teatro di San Carlo and later sings the title role of Massenet’s Werther at Houston Grand Opera. At Staatsoper Hamburg, he stars as The Duke of Mantua in Verdi’s Rigoletto and Hoffmann in Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann. He makes two highly anticipated role debuts: first as Jean in a concert performance of Massenet’s Hérodiade at Deutsche Oper Berlin and then as Orombello in Bellini’s Beatrice di Tenda at Teatro di San Carlo. On the concert stage, Mr. Polenzani reunites with tenors Michael Fabiano and Bryan Hymel for their “Three American Tenors” program with the Fort Worth Symphony, led by Robert Spano.

Last season, Mr. Polenzani returned to the Metropolitan Opera for Verdi’s Requiem, led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. Additionally, he starred in three productions at the Met Opera: Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (Tamino), Puccini’s La Bohème (Rodolfo), and the title role of Don Carlos, marking his role debut. New York Classical Review praised his performance saying, “this star tenor managed to combine pure beauty and sweetness with a sense of maturity and even heroism,” and the production was featured on PBS’ Great Performances. Mr. Polenzani returned to the Opéra national de Paris as Nemorino in Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’amore and later made his debut at the Canadian Opera Company as Alfredo in Verdi’s La Traviata. He made his debut as Cavaradossi in Puccini’s Tosca at the Savonlinna Opera Festival. He concluded the season with performances as Tito in Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito at the Ravinia Festival under the baton of James Conlon.

Career highlights from previous Metropolitan Opera seasons include the premieres of Bartlett Sher’s production of L’Elisir d’Amore, which opened the 2012 season, Sir David McVicar’s production of Maria Stuarda (issued on DVD by Erato), as well as McVicar’s new production of Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux, which was featured on PBS’ Great Performances at the Met. Further highlights include his role debut as Vaudémont in Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta, Penny Woolcock’s production of Les Pêcheurs de Perles (issued on DVD by Erato), Willy Decker’s production of La Traviata, Robert Carsen’s production of Der Rosenkavalier (issued on DVD by Decca), Julie Taymor’s legendary staging of Die Zauberflöte (DVD available from The Metropolitan Opera), and revivals of Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Rigoletto, Don Pasquale (Deutsche Grammophon DVD release), Don Giovanni, Roméo et Juliette, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Così fan tutte, Falstaff, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (DVD available from Deutsche Grammophon), and L’Italiana in Algeri. To date, he has starred in more than 300 performances at The Met.

Mr. Polenzani is continuously in demand for concert engagements with the world’s most influential conductors, including James Conlon, Sir Colin Davis, Riccardo Frizza, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Louis Langrée, Jesús López-Cobos, Riccardo Muti, Sir Antonio Pappano, Sir Simon Rattle, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Leonard Slatkin, Sir Jeffrey Tate, Michael Tilson Thomas, Franz Welser-Möst, David Zinman, Riccardo Chailly, and Daniel Harding. He frequently performs with premiere ensembles in the United States and Europe, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, Orchestra del Santa Cecilia, Orchestre National de France, and the Münchner Philharmoniker.

In recital, Matthew Polenzani has appeared in numerous venues across America with pianist Julius Drake and at London’s Wigmore Hall (available on CD from the Wigmore Hall label). He has also appeared with noted pianist Richard Goode in a presentation of Janáček’s The Diary of One Who Vanished at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall and in recital at the Verbier Festival with pianist Roger Vignoles (commercially available on CD from VAI). Mr. Polenzani was honored to have sung on all three stages of Carnegie Hall in one season: in concert with the MET Chamber Ensemble at Zankel Hall, in a solo recital in Weill Hall, and a Schubert Liederabend on the stage of Isaac Stern Auditorium.

Matthew Polenzani was the recipient of the 2004 Richard Tucker Award, The Metropolitan Opera’s 2008 Beverly Sills Artist Award, and a 2017 Opera News Award. An avid golfer, he makes his home in suburban New York with his wife, mezzo-soprano Rosa Maria Pascarella, and their three sons.

The pianist Julius Drake lives in London and enjoys an international reputation as one of the finest instrumentalists in his field, collaborating with many of the world’s leading artists, both in recital and on disc. The New Yorker has described him as the “collaborative pianist nonpareil.”

He appears regularly at all the major music centers and festivals: the Aldeburgh, Edinburgh, Munich, Schubertiade, and Salzburg Music Festivals; Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center New York; The Royal Concertgebouw, Amsterdam and Philharmonie, Berlin; the Châtelet and Musée du Louvre Paris; La Scala, Milan and Teatro de la Zarzuela, Madrid; Musikverein and Konzerthaus, Vienna; and Wigmore Hall and BBC Proms London.

Director of the Perth International Chamber Music Festival in Australia from 2000-2003, Julius Drake was also musical director of Deborah Warner’s staging of Janáček’s Diary of One Who Vanished, touring to Munich, London, Dublin, Amsterdam, and New York. Since 2009 he has been Artistic Director of the Machynlleth Festival in Wales.

Julius Drake’s passionate interest in song has led to invitations to devise song series for Wigmore Hall, London, the BBC and The Royal Concertgebouw, Amsterdam. His annual series of song recitals – Julius Drake and Friends – in the historic Middle Temple Hall in London, has featured recitals with many outstanding vocal artists including Sir Thomas Allen, Olaf Bär, Ian Bostridge, Angelika Kirchschlager, Iestyn Davies, Veronique Gens, Sergei Leiferkus, Dame Felicity Lott, Simon Keenlyside, Christopher Maltman, Mark Padmore, Christoph Prégardien, Amanda Roocroft and Sir Willard White.

Julius Drake is frequently invited to perform at international chamber music festivals – most recently, Lockenhaus in Austria; West Cork in Ireland; Oxford in England; Boswil in Switzerland and Delft in the Netherlands. He holds a professorship at Graz University for Music and the Performing Arts in Austria, where he has a class for song pianists, and is professor of collaborative piano at the Guildhall School of Music in London. He is regularly invited to give master classes worldwide; recently in Aldeburgh, Brussels, Utrecht, Cincinnati, New York, Toronto, Minneapolis, Ann Arbor, Vienna, and at the Schubert Institute in Baden bei Wien.

Julius Drake’s many recordings include a widely acclaimed series with Gerald Finley for Hyperion, from which the Barber Songs, Schumann Heine Lieder and Britten Songs and Proverbs won the 2007, 2009 and 2011 Gramophone Awards; award winning recordings with Ian Bostridge for EMI; several recitals for the Wigmore Live label, with among others Alice Coote, Ian Bostridge, Joyce DiDonato, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Christopher Maltman and Matthew Polenzani; recordings French Sonatas for Virgin Classics with Nicholas Daniel; of Kodaly and Schoeck sonatas with the cellists Natalie Clein and Christian Poltéra for the Hyperion and Bis labels; Tchaikovsky and Mahler with Christianne Stotijn for Onyx; English song with Bejun Mehta for Harmonia Mundi; and Schubert’s ‘Poetisches Tagebuch’ with Christoph Prégardien, which won the Jahrespreis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik 2016.

Julius Drake’s most recent CDs have been widely critically acclaimed and include Janacek’s ‘Diary of One who Disappeared’ with the Scottish tenor Nicky Spence (Hyperion), winner of a 2020 Gramophone Award and a 2020 BBC Music Magazine Award; ‘Paradise Lost’ (Alpha) with the Austrian soprano Anna Prohaska; and Vol. 6 of the Liszt Complete Songs (Hyperion) with the German soprano Julia Kleiter. The second CD in this Liszt series with Angelika Kirchschlager won the BBC Music Magazine Award in 2012. Concerts in the current and coming seasons include a series to celebrate the Beethoven anniversary at the 92nd St Y in New York, a Mahler series at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and a two-season series at the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin. Other highlights include recitals at La Scala, Milan with Aleksandra Kurzak, at Wigmore Hall with Alice Coote, in Barcelona with Sarah Connolly, at the Schubertiade, Austria with Christoph Prégardien and Ian Bostridge, tours in Europe with Anna Prohaska and Eva-Maria Westbroek, and recitals at the 2021 Salzburg Festival and Edinburgh Festival with Gerald Finley.