Rod Gilfry, two-time Grammy nominee, singer and actor, has performed in all the world’s music capitals. His most recent Grammy nomination was for his 2008 performance in the title role of Messiaen’s monumental opera Saint François d’Assise in Amsterdam. Best-known as an opera singer, he is also an acclaimed recitalist and concert artist, and appears frequently in musical theater classics. His discography of 28 audio and video recordings includes the DVD and CD of his one-man show My Heart is So Full of You. His radio program, Opera Notes on Air, aired on K-Mozart 105.1 FM in Los Angeles for over three years. With a 77-role repertoire, Mr. Gilfry sings music from the Baroque to that composed expressly for him. He was brought to worldwide attention when he created the role of Stanley Kowalski in the 1998 premiere of André Previn’s A Streetcar Named Desire at the San Francisco Opera, opposite Renée Fleming. Other world premieres: Nicholas in Deborah Drattel’s Nicholas and Alexandra (Los Angeles, opposite Placido Domingo); Nathan in Nicholas Maw’s Sophie’s Choice (London, Washington D.C.); Jack London in Libby Larsen’s Every Man Jack (Sonoma, CA); Edward Gaines in Richard Danielpour’s Margaret Garner (Detroit, Cincinnati, Philadelphia). the title role in Marc-André Dalbavie’s Gesualdo (Zurich), Master Chen in Christian Jost’s Die Rote Laterne (Zurich). He created his eighth world premiere in Boston in 2015 in the role of Walt Whitman in Matthew Aucoin’s Crossing.
In the 2017-2018 season, Mr. Gilfry returns to The Metropolitan Opera to sing Alberto Roc in the American premiere of Thomas Adès’s Exterminating Angel and to the Santa Fe Opera to sing the Musiklehrer in Ariadne auf Naxos. He will also reprise his acclaimed performance as Walt Whitman in Matthew Aucoin’s Crossing at the Los Angeles Opera and Brooklyn Academy of Music, as well as Claudius in Brett Dean’s Hamlet at the Adelaide Festival. In concert, he sings Elijah with the Phoenix Symphony and a Mozart arias concert with the San Bernardino Symphony.
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The 2016-17 season featured Mr. Gilfry in three world premiere operas. Mr. Gilfry began the season in David Lang’s one-man opera The Loser at BAM’s Next Wave Festival in Brooklyn. He then took part in the Houston Grand Opera’s world premiere of Jack Heggie’s It’s a Wonderful Life, based on the Frank Capra film. In the summer, he returned to the Glyndebourne Festival as Claudius in the world premiere of Brett Dean’s Hamlet. Other engagements included the Los Angeles Master Chorale in Walt Disney Concert Hall as the bass soloist in Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, and his first Wotan in Das Rheingold at the Biwako Hall Center for the Performing Arts in Shiga, Japan, under the direction of Michael Hampe.
Recent projects include Howard K. Stern in Turnage’s Anna Nicole with the New York City Opera and the Royal Opera Covent Garden, a return to the Metropolitan Opera as Danilo in a new production of The Merry Widow opposite Susan Graham, Peter in Hansel and Gretel with the Alabama Symphony, Don Giovanni and Così fan Tutte at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, concerts with the San Francisco Symphony in music of Thomas Adès and Felix Mendelssohn, performances with the Dallas Symphony as Lyndon Baines Johnson in Steven Stucky’s August 4th, 1964 in Dallas and at Carnegie Hall, and selections from Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn with the Grand Rapids Symphony. He sang the title role in Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris and with Opera Theater of St Louis, Frank Butler to Deborah Voigt’s Annie in Annie Get Your Gun at the Glimmerglass Festival, and Brahm’s Ein deutsches Requiem at the Oregon Bach Festival. He appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel for the final installment of their Mozart/Da Ponte Trilogy as Don Alfonso in Così fan Tutte, directed by Christopher Alden.
Mr. Gilfry devoted his entire 2009/10 Season to the music of Rodgers and Hammerstein, starring as Emile de Becque in the U.S. National Tour of the Lincoln Center Production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific, a production that garnered 7 Tony Awards in 2008. He also appeared as Captain von Trapp in the Théâtre du Châtelet production of The Sound of Music in Paris, with his daughter Carin Gilfry in the role of his daughter Liesl.
In addition to his full-time performance schedule, Mr. Gilfry is an Associate Professor of Vocal Arts at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music.
n, performances with the Dallas Symphony as Lyndon Baines Johnson in Steven Stucky’s August 4th, 1964 in Dallas and at Carnegie Hall, and selections from Mahler’s Des knaben Wunderhorn with the Grand Rapids Symphony. He sang the title role in Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris and with Opera Theater of St Louis, Frank Butler to Deborah Voigt’s Annie in Annie Get Your Gun at the Glimmerglass Festival, and Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem at the Oregon Bach Festival. He appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel for the final installment of their Mozart/Da Ponte Trilogy as Don Alfonso in Così fan Tutte, directed by Christopher Alden.
Mr. Gilfry devoted his entire 2009/10 Season to the music of Rodgers and Hammerstein, starring as Emile de Becque in the U.S. National Tour of the Lincoln Center Production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific, a production that garnered 7 Tony Awards in 2008. He also appeared as Captain von Trapp in the Théâtre du Châtelet production of The Sound of Music in Paris, with his daughter Carin Gilfry in the role of his daughter Liesl.
In addition to his full-time performance schedule, Mr. Gilfry is an Associate Professor of Vocal Arts at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music.
