Richard Croft

Tenor

Biography

American tenor Richard Croft is internationally renowned for his performances with leading opera companies and orchestras around the world, including the Metropolitan Opera, Vienna Staatsoper, Teatro alla Scala, Opera National de Paris, Berlin Staatsoper, the Salzburg Festival, and Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, as well as the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, and Boston Symphony Orchestra. His clarion voice, superlative musicianship, and commanding stage presence allow him to pursue a wide breadth of repertoire from Handel and Mozart to the music of today’s composers.

He begins the 2023/24 season with the role of Abbe Faria in the world premiere performances of Toby Talbot and Gene Scheer’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly at Dallas Opera.

Operatic highlights of Mr. Croft’s past seasons include Captain Vere in Billy Budd for Deutsche Oper Berlin; Handel’s Jeptha directed by Claus Guth and conductor Ivor Bolton at Dutch National Opera; Idomeneo with the Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa;  the title role of Mozart’s Idomeneo at the Teatro alla Scala, Theater an der Wien, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Ravinia Festival, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, and Mozarteum’s Mozartwoche in Salzburg; Hyllus in Handel’s Hercules at the Canadian Opera Company and Lyric Opera of Chicago; Jupiter in Handel’s Semele at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées; Captain Vere in Britten’s Billy Budd at Los Angeles Opera; the title role in La Clemenza di Tito with the Wiener Staatsoper; Lurcanio in Handel’s Ariodante with the San Francisco Opera; Don Ottavio in Mozart’s Don Giovanni with the Seattle Opera; Ubaldo in Haydn’s Armida and the title role of Mozart’s Mitridate at the Salzburg Festival; Mamud in Vivaldi’s La Verità in Cimento with Opernhaus Zürich; and M. K. Gandhi in a new production of Philip Glass’s Satyagraha at the Metropolitan Opera, which was broadcast on the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning Live in HD series to movie theatres around the world.

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Reviews

“Mr. Croft gives an outstanding portrayal of the ruler incapable of action while deploying his velvety tenor with regal stylishness. His delivery of the challenging “Fuor del mar” is technically stunning, yet the aria emerges as the recognizable product of a tormented soul.”

George Looomis

New York TImes

“Richard Croft is everything you could want, combining emotional depth with musical refinement and precisely the vocal agility the part demands.”

Shirley Apthorp

Financial Times

More Reviews

“Mr. Croft gives an outstanding portrayal of the ruler incapable of action while deploying his velvety tenor with regal stylishness. His delivery of the challenging “Fuor del mar” is technically stunning, yet the aria emerges as the recognizable product of a tormented soul. “

George Looomis. New York TImes 

“Richard Croft is everything you could want, combining emotional depth with musical refinement and precisely the vocal agility the part demands.”

Shirley Apthorp, Financial Times 

“Friday’s opening performance (a Sunday matinee also was offered) was dominated by Croft’s towering performance as Idomeneo. A deeply expressive singer and a compelling stage presence, the American tenor caught the heroic, tragic dimension of his role. In his big showpiece aria in the second act, “Fuor del mar,” he made each embellishment speak volumes about the terrible emotional conflicts raging within the king.”

Chicago Tribune, John von Rhein 

“Richard Croft sings with outstanding beauty and artistry”

DAVID SHENGOLD, Opera News 

“Richard Croft gave an indelible performance as Gandhi [in Philip Glass’s ‘Satyagraha’], his fine-grained tenor at once fragile and commanding–limitless power within a slender frame.”

Alex Ross, The New Yorker

“Croft [is] unforgettably expressive and dulcet in this role debut”

David Shengold, Gay City News 

“Richard Croft had deepened his already profound Gandhi, singing with a beauty befitting Monteverdi: this was surely some of the most gorgeous male vocalism in recent Met decades.”

David Shengold, Opera Magazine 

“And at a long evening’s end, when the American tenor Richard Croft cast a neo-Wagnerian spell, he did so to offer guidance for enriching the wayward world that we were about to reenter…Croft’s Verdian rapture and Mozartian purity were just the beginnings of his creation of an imagined character.”

Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times 

“The first impression is of simple beauty: a tenor voice, cushioned by the ebb and flow of repeating cadences from the orchestra… [Richard] Croft gave himself utterly to Gandhi, investing the role with a fitting, radiant simplicity… The final act is a masterpiece of the power of simplicity. At the very end, while Croft embarked on a pure, ascending line, sung over and over, and the figure of Martin Luther King Jr., taking up Gandhi’s ideas, mimed his own great speech behind him, the back of the stage was filled with a pure blue sky…”

Anne Midgette, The Washington Post 

“Heading the cast is Richard Croft, singing Gandhi. He is one of the finest lyric tenors of our time. Richard is pretty much unbeatable in Handel and Mozart. And he may be modest by nature (although not modestly talented). Faced with wild applause on Friday night, he would barely bow, eager to join his castmates in the line. The part of Gandhi tests the middle and lower registers of a tenor’s range, and Mr. Croft’s were not found wanting. And his higher notes were exemplary. In addition, Mr. Croft has the ability to sing in a fashion both lyrical and clarion. That is a rare and valuable trick.”

Jay Nordlinger, The New York Sun

“That warmth provided a sensitive foundation to support a cast headed by Richard Croft as Gandhi. His subtly shaded tenor and exquisite phrasing communicated deeply, and he brought a transfixing, golden tone to the final passage, when Gandhi sings an ascending scalelike melody 30 times — as haunting as any coda I know in music.”

Tim Smith, The Baltimore Sun

“The tenor Richard Croft, whose beautiful vocalism is so suited to Mozart and Handel, made an ideal Gandhi, giving the character a single-minded intensity that was both practical and saintly.”

Heidi Waleson, The Wall Street Journal 

“The tenor Richard Croft brought aching poignancy to the role of Gandhi.”

Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times 

“The great Mozart tenor Richard Croft, as Ubaldo, treated us to the evening’s most distinguished singing. “

Hugh Canning, Opera magazine 

” Richard Croft’s Idomeneo [is] sung with ravishing beauty of tone and a sure sense of style. “

Michael Kennedy, Sunday Telegraph 

“…Richard Croft’s noble Idomeneo rank(s) with the best on disc. “

Hugh Canning, Sunday Times.

“…a favourite for his agile, superbly clear voice, wedded to apt style, and for his intelligence and commitment. “

David Shengold, Opera magazine.