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Charles Castronovo

Tenor

Charles Castronovo

Acclaimed internationally as one of the finest lyric tenors of his generation, Castronovo has also sung at most of the world’s leading opera houses such as the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Vienna State Opera, Berlin State Opera, Paris Opera, Bavarian State Opera, Munich, Theatre Royale de la Monnaie, Brussels, and many others including at the Salzburg and Aix en Provence Festivals. His repertoire spans from the great Mozart tenor roles in Don Giovanni, Così Fan Tutte and Die Zauberfloete, to Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor,  Nemorino in L’Elisir D’Amore and Alfredo in La Traviata. In recent seasons Castronovo has also won wide acclaim for his performances as the title role in Faust, Des Grieux in Manon, Romeo in Romeo et Juliette, the Duke in Rigoletto, Rodolfo in La Bohème and Tom Rakewell in The Rakes Progress.  He starred in the title role of Daniel Catan’s Il Postino opposite Placido Domingo in the work's world premiere in Los Angeles, as well as Paris and Santiago.



Castronovo began the 2013/2014 season at the Theatre du Capitole in Toulouse where he sang his first performances of Des Grieux in Manon opposite Natalie Dessay. He returned to the Royal Opera Covent Garden as Rodolfo in La Bohème and was heard at the Paris Opera as Tebaldo in Bellini’s I Capuleti e Montecchi and at Baden Baden in the title role of a new production of Faust. He also returned to the Vienna State Opera in L’Elisir D’Amore.  Castronovo sang his first Verdi Requiem in concerts with the StaatsKapelle Dresden at the SemperOper in Dresden under Christian Thielemann. He made his debut at the Verbier Festival in July of 2014 in Berlioz’s Damnation de Faust, a work he also sang in the fall in Valencia.



Castronovo began his 2014/2015 season with his debut at the Gran Teatro Liceo in Barcelona as Alfredo in La Traviata. He will make his debut at the Salzburg Easter Festival in Damnation de Faust under Sir Simon Rattle and will also sing this work at the Berlin Philharmonic. Castronovo will star in the Deutsche Oper Berlin’s new production of La Rondine, will sing in Romeo et Juliette at the Teatro Real Madrid, and makes his debut in the role of Lensky in Eugene Onegin at the Vienna State Opera. The artist also appeared at the Bavarian State Opera as Tamino in Die Zauberflöte, and will also perform as Nemorino in L’elisir d’Amore and Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni. He will also sing concert performances of Charles Gounod’s opera Cinq Mars in Vienna and Versailles, marking the work’s first performance in well over a hundred years.



Castronovo returned to the Metropolitan Opera in the 2012/2013 season as Don Ottavio. Highlights of the season included his debut in Amsterdam in a concert performance of Les Pecheurs de Perles at the Concertgebeouw, after which he returned to the Opera de Paris as Tom Rakewell in The Rake’s Progress.  Castronovo performed at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in two productions during the season: in April he was Tamino in Die Zauberflöte and in June he gave his first performances as Ruggero in La Rondine opposite Angela Gheorghiu. He also returned to the Berlin State Opera as Alfredo in La Traviata . In June of 2012 he sang his first Nerone in Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea at the Teatro Real in Madrid. Among his other engagements in the past season were La Traviata in Aix en Provence and Vienna opposite Nathalie Dessay,  Romeo in Romeo et Juliette at the Los Angeles Opera in November of 2011, and Così fan Tutte the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He made his long awaited debut at the Chicago Lyric Opera as Tamino in December of 2011.



Castronovo has also participated in many revivals of more rarely performed works. He starred as Mylio in the revival of Lalo’s Le Roi d'Ys at Toulouse, opened the 2010/2011 season at the Paris Opera as Vincent in Mireille and debuted at the Festival de Montpellier in July of 2012 in Massenet’s Therese. He also recorded Mercadante’s Virginia for Opera Rara and sang Rossini’s Ermione in Santa Fe. A frequent soloist on the concert stage, he has appeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic as well as in concerts in China, Japan, Russia, Sweden and Denmark.



Born in New York and raised in California, Castronovo began his career as a resident at the Los Angeles Opera. He was invited to join the Metropolitan Opera's Lindemann Young Artists Development Program and in the autumn of 1999 made his debut at the Metropolitan as Beppe in the opening night performance of I Pagliacci. In the first years of his career Castronovo built his repertoire with debuts as Tamino in Die Zauberflöte and Fenton in Falstaff in Pittsburgh, as Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni and Ernesto in Don Pasquale in Boston, and as Ferrando in Così Fan Tutte in Portland, where he also sang his first performances of Nemorino in L’Elisir D’Amore. His debut as Alfredo in La Traviata took place with the Minnesota Opera as Belmonte in Die Entfuehrung aus dem Serail with the Colorado Opera, and as Elvino in La Sonnambula for the Michigan Opera Theater. Castronovo made his European stage debut at the 2000 Savonlinna Festival in Don Giovanni. He subsequently debuted in Germany at the Berlin State Opera in the same work under Daniel Barenboim, in France as Fenton at the Theatre du Capitole in Toulouse, and in Great Britain at the London Proms of 2002 in Ravel's L'Heure Espagnole. In the 2003/2004 season he made his debuts at the San Francisco Opera, Paris Opera and Vienna State Opera as Tamino; in September of 2004 at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in September of 2004 as Ferrando. This was followed by his Italian stage debut as Alfredo at the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa. Other significant debuts included Alfredo at the Hamburg State Opera and at the Megaron in Athens, Fenton at the Theatre Royale Monnaie in Brussels. Ferrando at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. A regular guest at all these theatres, Castronovo has since been heard as Alfredo in Vienna, London, Berlin and Aix en Provence, as Nemorino in Paris, Vienna, Nice and Berlin, as Belmonte in Munich and Rome, as Tamino in San Francisco, as Don Ottavio in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Munich. He made his debut at the Salzburg Festival as Belmonte in Entfuerung.





 


Charles Castronovo