He has been praised in The Metropolitan Opera Guide to Recorded Opera for his performance in Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea as one of the finest Senecas on record with "a magnificent bass voice: firm and clear throughout its wide range".[1][2][3]
Biography
Gregory Reinhart was raised in upstate New York. In 1971, he entered Boston's New England Conservatory (NEC), where he studied voice with Mark Pearson and took master classes with Eleanor Steber. He graduated "with distinction" in 1974 and went on to receive his Master of Music Degree there in 1977. In 1976 he was a recipient of a fellowship award that also allowed him to train with Phyllis Curtin at the Tanglewood Music Center in Massachusetts. While at the NEC, he appeared in student performances of Ravel's L'heure espagnole and Donizetti's Don Pasquale.
Comte Ory (Rossini Festival, Pesaro, Italy) 1984Les Troyens (Opéra de Paris) 1990Dom Quixote (Teatro Municipal, Rio de Janeiro) 2016
He directed the choir of St. John the Baptist in Quincy, sang with Emmanuel Music, and appeared as a soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the Monteverdi Vespers, Bach's St. Matthew Passion and Tchaikovsky's opera Eugene Onegin. Another early venture into opera was his performance in Verdi's Giovanna d'Arco with Boston Concert Opera, where according to the Boston Globe critic, Richard Dyer, "he sang the guest-star New York contingent right off the stage".[4]
Reinhart then went on to train as an opera singer at the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, where he took further classes with Eleanor Steber and studied with the soprano Patricia Brinton who encouraged him to continue his preparation in Paris. He remained with her there for two years, thanks to a private donor from Quincy, Adelina Chella. During his years in Paris, he received the advice and encouragement of Pierre Bernac and Camille Maurane.
He met the French musicologist Jacques Chuilon in 1980.[5] Their collaboration developed a vocal technique that allowed Reinhart to perform a wide repertory from Bach and Mozart to the dramatic bass roles of Richard Wagner, meeting the vocal demands of modern music, and the subtleties of German Lieder and French Mélodie.
Reinhart was guest artist with the Opéra de Paris in more than 200 performances, displaying his versatily there in works by Handel, Cimarosa, Berlioz, Rossini, Strauss, Hindemith, Janacek, Manoury, Henze, Fénelon, and Dusapin. Notably, he was cast as Narbal and Panthée in Berlioz’s Les Troyens for the official opening of Paris’ Bastille Opera Theater in 1990.[6]
Although he continued to be based in France, Reinhart increasingly appeared in the United States. In 2002 he made his debut at New York City Opera as Claudius in Agrippina, followed by Pooh-Bah in The Mikado. His Washington National Opera debut followed in 2005 as The Old Hebrew in Samson et Dalila, conducted by Plácido Domingo. The following year he made his Metropolitan Opera debut as The Armoured Man in Die Zauberflöte. He continued as Principal Artist at the Met until 2017. Engagements followed in Portland, Pittsburgh, San Diego, San Francisco, and Carnegie Hall in New York.
In 2011, Reinhart made a local debut in São Paulo, Brazil, as Hunding in Die Walküre. He thus embarked upon an important chapter in that country which led to wide-ranging engagements including Hagen in Götterdämmerung, Osmin in Mozart’s Die Entfürung aus dem Serail, and the title role of Don Quichotte by Massenet. That signature role, in a co-production with the Theatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro, was named Best Production of the Year in 2016.[7][8]
In 2017 Gregory was inducted into the PCS Hall of Fame, in his home town of Pavilion, New York.[1][2]
World premiere performances
Bass soloist in Gilbert Amy’s Missa cum jubilo, Orchestre de Paris, Peter Eötvös, cond. (CD Erato)
Bass soloist in Volker David Kirchner’s Missa Moguntina, Mainzer Domorchester, Mathias Breitschaft, cond.
Handel:Saul (Kalpers, Jezovsek, Koch, Elwes, Kermes, Reinhart, Meier; Cologne Chamber Choir; Cartusianum Collegium; Peter Neumann, conductor). Label: MD&G Records
Monteverdi:Il ballo delle ingrate (Laurens, Visse, Mellon, Reinhart, Feldman, Junghänel; Les Arts Florissants; William Christie, conductor). Label: Harmonia Mundi.
Monteverdi:L'incoronazione di Poppea (Augér, Jones, Bowman, Reinhart, Watson, Beesley; City of London Baroque Sinfonia; Richard Hickox, conductor). Label: Virgin Classics
Fauré: Mélodies (with Dalton Baldwin, piano) Label: Harmonia Mundi
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↑ Jacques Chuilon is the author of Opéra Opinions (1994), Mattia Battistini: Le dernier divo (1996), and La voix qui chante (1998). The title "Mattia Battistini, King of Baritones and Baritone of Kings" was released in English (Scarecrow Press) in April 2009. See: www.chuilon.com
Riding, Alan, Making New Opera Unstylishly Melodic (review of the world premiere of The Picture of Dorian Gray), New York Times, May 22, 1996. Accessed December 4, 2008.
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