Talking with singers: Matthew Polenzani

Jenna Douglas

Schmopera

The tenor, who is nominated for a 2017 International Opera Award in the Male Singer category, offers up not just quantity, but thoughtful and inspired quality onstage.

Freshly off an acclaimed run as the title role in Mozart’s Idomeneo at the Metropolitan Opera, star tenor Matthew Polenzani has little time to come down before diving into two more productions in New York. “I think there’s a sequence where I have a show on a Friday, a show on a Saturday, then the Met Gala which is on Sunday. So that’s going to be a little tiring,” he says, clearly happy in his busy schedule at one of the world’s top houses.

Between performances as Idomeneo, Polenzani began rehearsals for Der Rosenkavalier, where he sings the (much higher) role of the Italian Singer, opening April 13; running nearly concurrently will be his role as Don Ottavio in the Met’s Don Giovanni, which opens less than two weeks later. “These kinds of things, they don’t come up very often,” says Polenzani of his neatly stacked season of varied performances.

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