Ravinia 2019, Issue 4, Week 8

PAULO SZOT, baritone Born in São Paulo to Polish immigrants, baritone Paulo Szot has earned international acclaim as both an opera singer and actor, having appeared with numerous major opera companies in Eu- rope, the United States, and his native Brazil. In 2008, he starred as Emile De Beque in the Broad- way revival of South Pacific and became the first Brazilian to win Best Actor honors at each of the Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and Theater World Awards. Over the past year, Szot has starred as Juan Perón in Evita with Opera Australia and Count Danilo in Lehár’s The Merry Widow at Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, and this fall he will appear as Sharpless in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly at the Met. Last season he portrayed Don Alfonso in Mozart’s Così fan tutte with Paris National Opera, Count Almaviva inMozart’s The Marriage of Figaro withMichigan OperaTheatre, and Frank Mourrant in Kurt Weill’s Street Scene at Madrid’s Teatro Real, as well as the Celebrant in Bernstein’s Mass in concert with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Ravinia and the Nation- al Youth Orchestra of Great Britain at London’s Royal Festival Hall. Recent highlights have in- cluded creating the roles of Alexander Hamilton, Bill Clinton, and Dick Cheney in Mohammed Fairouz’s The New Prince with Dutch Nation- al Opera, appearing on the New York Philhar- monic’s televised New Year’s Eve gala with Alan Gilbert and Joyce DiDonato, and giving a solo recital at Madrid’s Teatro Real saluting Frank Sinatra’s recordings of Antônio Carlos Jobim’s bossa novas. Szot’s credits also include Lescaut in Puccini’s Manon Lescaut (Theatro Municipal de São Paulo) and Massenet’s Manon (Metropolitan Opera); Dr. Falke in Strauss’s Die Fledermaus , the Captain in John Adams’s The Death of Kling- hoffer , and Kovalev in Shostakovich’s The Nose (Metropolitan Opera); Escamillo in Bizet’s Car- men (Glyndebourne Festival, Metropolitan Op- era, and San Francisco Opera); the title roles of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin (Opera Australia) and Mozart’s Don Giovanni (Washington Na- tional Opera and Dallas Opera); and Filippov in Alexander Raskatov’s A Dog’s Heart (La Scala). Paulo Szot made his Ravinia and CSO debuts last season and will return to the festival in August as Sam in Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti . RYAN SPEEDO GREEN, bass-baritone A native of Virginia, Ryan Speedo Green re- ceived the Marian Anderson Vocal Award last fall and was a winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2011. He has also earned a George London Foundation Award, an Annenberg Foundation Grant, and first prize in the Gerda Lissner Foundation Competition, all in 2014, as well as both a Richard and a Sara Tucker Grant from the Richard Tucker Founda- tion, and he holds a master’s degree from Flori- da State University and a bachelor’s degree from the Hartt School of Music. Green is the subject of the 2016 bestselling biography Sing for Your Life , which chronicles the singer’s journey from juvenile detention to the Met. The coming year will include his fourth consecutive season on the iconic New York stage, making his role debut as Jake in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess , and his sixth as a member of the Vienna State Opera, including appearances as Ferrando in Verdi’s Il trovatore , Raimon- do in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor , and Banquo in Verdi’s Macbeth . This past season he portrayed the King in Verdi’s Aida at the Met and Sarastro in Mozart’s The Magic Flute , the One-Armed Man in Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten , and Lodovico in Verdi’s Otello in Vienna. Green’s Met highlights also include his role debut as Oroe in Rossini’s Semiramide ; the Puccini roles Colline in La bohème , the Mandarin in Turandot , and the Bonze in Madama Butterfly ; and Rambo in the company premiere of John Adams’s The Death of Klinghoffer . In 2017 he made role and house debuts as Escamillo in Bizet’s Carmen with Opera San Antonio and Osmin in Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio with Houston Grand Opera. On the concert stage, Green has been a soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, and Chicago Symphony Orchestra (at Ravinia) in Beethoven’s Ninth Sym- phony, the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast , and the Cleveland Orchestra in Strauss’s Daphne , and he recently gave a gala performance of Verdi’s Requiem at Tanglewood. Ryan Speedo Green made his Ravinia debut in 2017 and last season returned for his CSO debut. RAVINIA MAGAZINE | JULY 22 – JULY 28, 2019 104