Blessed with a golden age voice that routinely inspires comparisons to “legendary singers from earlier eras: Jussi Björling, Beniamino Gigli, even Enrico Caruso” (Associated Press), the Maltese-born Joseph Calleja has become one of the most sought-after tenors on both sides of the Atlantic. At only 33 years of age, he has sung 28 principal roles and performed on most of the world’s leading opera stages, including New York’s Metropolitan Opera, London’s Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, and the Vienna Staatsoper. An exclusive recording artist for Decca Classics, his third solo album, The Maltese Tenor, debuted as the best-selling vocal album on the core classical charts in the U.K. and Germany when it was released earlier this year; it will be released in the U.S. this fall. Joseph Calleja begins the 2011-12 season with recitals in Eastern Europe — at the Ljubljana Festival in Slovenia, and at the Dvořák Prague Festival in the Czech Republic — and will embark on a concert tour in Korea. He follows this with concerts in Paris, Munich, and Vienna, performing repertoire from The Maltese Tenor and will take part in a performance of Verdi’s Requiem in Cologne. In December, Calleja will appear with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic at the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Stockholm, a performance which will be broadcast on international television. Returning to the opera stage at the end of the year, the tenor sings Nadir in Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. He kicks off 2012 performing the title character in a new production of Gounod’s Faust at the Metropolitan Opera, then returns to Europe for the title roles in Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux at Munich’s Bayerische Staatoper, and Mascagni’s L'amico Fritz at the Frankfurt Opera. In the spring, in a highly anticipated return to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Calleja sings Rodolfo in La bohème. He concludes the season with a concert at the famous Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen; singing Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor in a return to the Deutsche Oper Berlin; and appearing once more as Rodolfo at the Munich Opera Festival. Last season, Joseph Calleja took on three signature roles at the Met: Rodolfo in La bohème, Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor, and the Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto (the role in which he made his house debut in 2006.) Also at the Met, he debuted in the title role of Bartlett Sher’s new production of Tales of Hoffmann, where he “gave his all, singing with ardor, stamina, and poignant vocal colorings and winning a rousing ovation” (New York Times). Other recent successes include the role of Pinkerton in a new, season-opening production of Madama Butterfly at the Houston Grand Opera, and a role debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, where, almost “steal[ing] the show” (Independent), he proved himself a “thrilling Adorno” (Financial Times) opposite Plácido Domingo in Simon Boccanegra. Born in Malta in 1978, Joseph Calleja began singing at the age of 16, inspired by the film The Great Caruso starring Mario Lanza. After singing in his church choir, he began formal training with Maltese tenor Paul Asciak. Calleja made his professional debut in Malta in 1997 as Macduff in Macbeth, and later that year won an award in the Belvedere Hans Gabor competition, launching his international opera career. He went on to win the 1998 Caruso Competition in Milan and was a prizewinner in Domingo’s Operalia the following year. Calleja made his Covent Garden debut as the Duke of Mantua, and soon returned to sing Alfredo, Macduff, and Adorno, and sang in a concert performance as Nicias in Massenet’s Thaïs. At the Vienna Staatsoper – in addition to his celebrated Verdi roles – he has portrayed Elvino in Bellini’s La sonnambula and Arturo in I puritani; Nemorino in Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore and the title role of Roberto Devereux. At Vienna’s Konzerthaus, he sang Tebaldo in Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi alongside Anna Netrebko and Elīna Garanča, in concert performances recorded by Deutsche Grammophon and released in early 2009. He sang Tebaldo again in concert performances at the Salzburg Festival, and appeared as Verdi’s Duke and Bellini’s Elvino at the Zurich Opera. The Duke of Mantua was also the vehicle for debuts with the Bayerische Staatsoper, the Netherlands Opera, the Welsh National Opera, and Deutsche Oper Berlin, where he gave his first performances as the lead in Gounod’s Faust. Audiences at Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu got their first impression of him as Nemorino, and he debuted as Rodolfo at Dresden’s Semperoper and at the Frankfurt Opera – where he also returned for role debuts as Roméo in Roméo et Juliette and Ruggiero in La rondine. Calleja’s German debut was as Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni at the Regensburg Festival, a role he reprised for his debut with the Teatre Principal de Palma, Majorca. His first appearance at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro was in the role of Lind in the world premiere of Azio Corghi's Isabella. In addition, he has sung Alfredo in a new production of La traviata at the Opera National du Rhin, Strasbourg; Ernesto in Don Pasquale in Brussels; Almaviva in Il barbiere di Siviglia in Liège; Fenton in Falstaff at the Teatro Regio di Torino; Edoardo di Sanval in Verdi’s Un giorno di regno in Bologna; Verdi’s Duke in Rotterdam and Copenhagen; Rodolfo at the Bregenz Festival; and Leicester in Maria Stuarda in Stockholm and Parma. Calleja made his U.S. debut as Rinuccio in Gianni Schicchi at the Spoleto Festival. He appeared as Macduff with the Seattle Opera; debuted with both the Los Angeles Opera and the Lyric Opera of Chicago as Alfredo in La traviata; and has sung numerous roles at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Further U.S. appearances have included Almaviva in Il barbiere di Siviglia, the Duke of Mantua for the Washington Opera, and Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor for the Minnesota Opera. In 2000, when he was just 22, he made his Canadian debut in Toronto as Rodolfo in La bohème. An exclusive Decca Classics recording artist since 2003, his first two albums of opera arias, The Golden Voice and Tenor Arias, captured both critical and popular acclaim, and both were named Editor’s Choice in Gramophone magazine. On his new solo recording, The Maltese Tenor, Calleja sings some of the most favored Italian and French arias in his repertoire, including "E lucevan le stelle" from Tosca, the ballad of Kleinzach from The Tales of Hoffmann, and arias from La bohème, Simon Boccanegra, Faust, Manon, The Pearl Fishers, and more. In great demand as a concert artist, Calleja has toured throughout Germany both as a soloist and with soprano Anna Netrebko. Additionally, he has appeared in opera galas in Leipzig, the Hampton Court and Faenol Festivals in the UK with Bryn Terfel, and at the Sejong Cultural Center in Seoul, South Korea. Calleja has sung in Rossini’s Stabat Mater at the Festival de Música de Canarias; Verdi’s Requiem at London’s BBC Proms; and Haydn's Lord Nelson Mass at the Salzburg Easter Festival. As a recitalist, he has appeared in France, Romania, Japan, and his native Malta.
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About Joseph Calleja
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Blessed with a golden age voice that routinely inspires comparisons to “legendary singers from earlier eras: Jussi Björling, Beniamino Gigli, even Enrico Caruso” (Associated Press), the Maltese-born Joseph Calleja has quickly become one of the most acclaimed and sought-after tenors today. At only 35 years of age, he has sung an impressive 28 principal roles. His frequent appearances on the world’s leading opera and concert stages as well as his expansive discography have prompted NPR to hail him as “arguably today’s finest lyric tenor” and led to him being voted Gramophone magazine’s 2012 Artist of the Year. A Grammy-nominated recording artist for Decca Classics, Calleja releases his fifth solo album for the label, Amore, later this year.
Calleja was only 19 when he made his operatic debut as Macduff in Verdi’s Macbeth at the Astra Theatre in Malta, shortly before winning an award in the Hans Gabor Belvedere competition that launched his international career. He went on to win the 1998 Caruso Competition in Milan and was a prize winner in Domingo’s Operalia in 1999, the year of his U.S. debut at the Spoleto Festival. Since then Calleja has gone on to appear with most of the world’s great opera companies, including the Metropolitan Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, Vienna State Opera, Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu, Dresden’s Semperoper, Frankfurt Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, and Munich’s Bavarian State Opera. Among the tenor’s signature roles are Verdi’s Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto and Alfredo in La traviata; Puccini’s Rodolfo in La bohème and B. F. Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly; Donizetti’s Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor, Nemorino in L’elisir d’amore, and Leicester in Maria Stuarda; the title characters of Gounod’s Faust and Roméo et Juliette; Bellini’s Tebaldo in I Capuleti e i Montecchi; and Mozart’s Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni. Calleja also created the role of Lind in the world premiere production of Azio Corghi’s Isabella at Pesaro’s Rossini Opera Festival.
Joseph Calleja appears extensively in concert throughout the world, singing with leading orchestras, at summer festivals including Salzburg and London’s BBC Proms, and in outdoor concerts in front of tens of thousands of people in Malta, Paris, and Munich. He was the featured soloist at the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Stockholm, was selected by the Maltese President to perform a private concert for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, and toured Germany with soprano Anna Netrebko. As a recitalist, he has appeared in Japan and throughout Europe.
Since making his house debut in Rigoletto in 2006, Calleja has become a mainstay at the Metropolitan Opera. His numerous Met engagements include the title role in Des McAnuff’s new production of Faust in 2011-12, and his role debut as the title character of Tales of Hoffmann in a new staging by Bartlett Sher. Verdi’s Duke of Mantua was the vehicle for Calleja’s debut at Covent Garden, where his many subsequent appearances include Alfredo in La traviata opposite Renée Fleming and Adorno in Simon Boccanegra alongside Plácido Domingo. At the Vienna Staatsoper, in addition to his celebrated Verdi roles, Calleja has portrayed Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux and Nemorino, Puccini’s Pinkerton, and Bellini’s Elvino in La sonnambula and Arturo in I puritani. A fixture at Munich’s Bavarian State Opera, he most recently starred in a new staging of Rigoletto last season.
After co-headlining 2012’s Last Night of the BBC Proms, Calleja returns to the London festival this September for two performances to close out the summer. First he performs a gala concert at the Royal Albert Hall to celebrate Verdi’s 200th birthday, and then marks the Last Night of the Proms in an open-air concert at Hyde Park, where he joins violinist Nigel Kennedy and Bryan Ferry. The tenor’s other notable concert engagements over the coming season include Verdi arias with Daniele Gatti and the Orchestre National de France at Paris’s Théâtre des Champs-Elysées; a program of arias with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at London’s Royal Festival Hall; a gala concert at Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Concert Hall; and performances of Verdi’s Requiem with Antonio Pappano leading the Santa Cecilia Orchestra in London and Birmingham. On the opera stage, the coming season sees Joseph Calleja return to the Lyric Opera of Chicago in a new production of La traviata and to the Metropolitan Opera for reprise performances as Rodolfo in Franco Zeffirelli’s classic production of La bohème. In Europe, he sings Adorno opposite Thomas Hampson in Simon Boccanegra at the Vienna State Opera; heads a stellar cast that includes Netrebko, Simon Keenlyside, and Bryn Terfel in Faust at Covent Garden; and portrays five leading men at the Bavarian State Opera: the Duke, Hoffmann, Pinkerton, Alfredo, and Macduff. In addition to his upcoming solo disc, Amore, Decca will also release a full-length opera recording of Calleja and Hampson in Simon Boccanegra to coincide with their Vienna appearances. In his forthcoming Hollywood debut, Calleja portrays legendary tenor Enrico Caruso in The Immigrant, a new film starring Marion Cotillard, Joaquin Phoenix, and Jeremy Renner.
As an exclusive Decca Classics recording artist since 2003, Calleja boasts an extensive discography that includes complete operas and concert repertoire, as well as four solo albums: The Golden Voice, Tenor Arias, The Maltese Tenor, and Be My Love: A Tribute to Mario Lanza. The tenor’s videography enjoys similar success, and it was his portrayal of Alfredo in the Royal Opera House’s DVD/Blu-ray release of La traviata, in which he co-stars with Renée Fleming and Thomas Hampson, that won Calleja his first Grammy nomination. Calleja’s rendition of the Verdi aria “La donna é mobile” is featured on the soundtrack of No Reservations, a 2007 motion picture starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Aaron Eckhart.
The tenor has been profiled in New York’s Wall Street Journal and London’s Times, among other places, and has graced covers of magazines such as Opera News. An increasingly frequent face on television, Calleja has made appearances on programs including CNN’s Business Traveller, BBC Breakfast, and the Andrew Marr Show and been featured as part of numerous internationally televised concerts.
Born in Malta in 1978, Joseph Calleja began singing at the age of 16, first in his church choir, and then in formal training with Maltese tenor Paul Asciak. One of his native land’s biggest celebrities, Calleja was selected to serve as Malta’s first cultural ambassador in 2012, and earlier this year he was named a brand ambassador for Air Malta. Calleja recently teamed up with Malta’s Bank of Valletta to form the BOV Joseph Calleja Foundation, which will serve to help children and families in need.