Paul Austin Kelly (born 1960) is an American singer. A former rock musician who has sung opera, the tenor also writes, records and performs music for children.
Kelly attended Rondout Valley High School in Accord, New York and the Hartt School of Music in West Hartford, Connecticut. When he began his music career he fronted bands with names such as Legend, Black Dog and Guilded Spice. Kelly sang an eclectic mix of rock, pop music, folk and jazz. It wasn't until he went to music school that the operatic potential of his voice was discovered.
Kelly has sung with the Metropolitan Opera, [1] the Royal Opera at Covent Garden, [2] and La Scala in Milan, Italy. [3] The role of Count Almaviva in Rossini's The Barber of Seville has become his signature role.
Kelly has also made numerous live performances on BBC Radio.[ citation needed ]
Kelly is an artist on the Opera Rara music label, [4] the Telarc label and the Decca label. [5]
In 2003 he launched the Walking Oliver children's music label. The label won the National Parenting Publications Award (NAPPA) in the children's music category for the CD Hello Michael Rosen. The recording featured the poetry of children's literature icon Michael Rosen set to original music by Kelly. On the Walking Oliver CD titled Dreams, Kelly provided music and vocals for poems composed by primary school children from across the UK who had been chosen as winners of the first Walking Oliver Poetry in Song Contest.[ citation needed ]
In 2008 Kelly recorded the CD "The Song Is You" with British jazz pianist and producer Kenny Clayton. The CD contains popular music from the Great American Songbook by such composers as Rodgers and Hart, Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II.
In 2009 Kelly recorded "Where Did The Dinosaurs Go?" a CD recorded on the Walking Oliver label. The CD won an iParenting Media Award for Outstanding Audio.
Kelly lives in Lewes in southern England. It was while performing with the nearby Glyndebourne Opera early in his career that he became enamored of the local area and decided to settle there with his wife, Carol. He still returns to his native country.
Frederica "Flicka" von Stade Gorman OAL is a semi-retired American opera singer. Since her Metropolitan Opera debut in 1970, she has performed in operas, musicals, concerts and recitals in venues throughout the world, including La Scala, the Paris Opera, the Vienna State Opera, the Salzburger Festspielhaus, Covent Garden, Glyndebourne and Carnegie Hall. Conductors with whom she has worked include Abbado, Bernstein, Boulez, Giulini, Karajan, Levine, Muti, Ozawa, Sinopoli, Solti and Tilson Thomas. She has also been a prolific and eclectic recording artist, attracting nine Grammy nominations for best classical vocalist, and she has made many appearances on television.
Otello is an opera in three acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Francesco Berio di Salsa after William Shakespeare's play Othello, or The Moor of Venice; it was premiered in Naples, Teatro del Fondo, 4 December 1816.
Juan Diego Flórez is a Peruvian operatic tenor, particularly known for his roles in bel canto operas. On June 4, 2007, he received his country's highest decoration, the Knight Grand Cross in the Order of the Sun of Peru.
L'esule di Granata is a melodramma serio in two acts by Giacomo Meyerbeer. The Italian libretto was by Felice Romani based on the rivalries between the Zegridi and the Abenceraggi factions in the last days of the kingdom of Granada. It is the fifth of Meyerbeer's Italian operas but had only three confirmed stagings in the 19th century. The world premiere took place at La Scala, Milan, on 12 March, 1822.
William Matteuzzi is an Italian operatic tenor renowned for his impressive vocal range and prominent upper register, reaching a high F in full voice, which enabled him to participate in the recent revival of the tenore contraltino repertoire. He is also admired as a fine musician and elegant vocalist.
Rockwell Blake is an American operatic tenor, particularly known for his roles in Rossini operas. He was the first winner of the Richard Tucker Award.
Nuccia Focile is an Italian operatic soprano.
Ildebrando D'Arcangelo is an Italian opera singer. He has been called a bass-baritone, though he prefers the term basso cantabile.
Joyce DiDonato is an American lyric-coloratura mezzo-soprano. She is notable for her interpretations of operas and concert works in the 19th-century romantic era in addition to works by Handel and Mozart.
William L. Lewis is an American operatic tenor and academic.
Lawrence Brownlee is an American operatic tenor particularly associated with the bel canto repertoire. Describing his voice, Speight Jenkins, general director of the Seattle Opera, said: "There are other singers that sing this repertory very well, but I don't think anyone else has quite as beautiful a sound and as rounded a tone," and praise his "incredible top notes", adding about his high F (F5) in "Credeasi, misera": "With him it's not a scream, it's a beautiful sound." Mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato adds: "He is always in service of the music. His natural instrument is just incredibly beautiful. The word 'honey' comes to mind. He also has technical prowess and agility."
Francesco Meli is an Italian operatic tenor particularly associated with the bel canto repertoire. He began his vocal studies at age 17 with Norma Palacios at the Conservatorio di Musica "Niccolò Paganini" in Genoa. He later became a pupil of mezzo-soprano Franca Mattiucci. In 2002 he debuted in Verdi's Macbeth and as the tenor soloist in Rossini's Petite Messe Solennelle and Puccini's Messa di Gloria, broadcast by RAI from the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto. He has gone on to sing leading roles in La Scala, The Metropolitan Opera, Teatro Regio di Torino, London's Royal Opera House, Opéra National de Lyon, Zurich Opera, and the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro. In 2017, he will make his debut as Verdi's Don Carlo at La Scala and as Radames in Salzburg next to Anna Netrebko's Aida.
Barry Banks is an English lyric tenor who, after a long association with The Metropolitan Opera and English National Opera, has achieved acclaim as one of finest interpreters of the Italian bel canto repertoire.
Frank Lopardo is an American operatic tenor who was born in Brentwood, New York. He specialized in the repertoire of Mozart and Rossini early in his career and has since transitioned to the works of Puccini, Verdi, Donizetti, and Bellini.
Ildar Amirovich Abdrazakov is a Russian bass opera singer.
Alastair Miles is a British operatic and concert bass who has had an international career since the late 1980s.
Ugo Benelli is an Italian operatic tenor. Born in Genoa and trained at La Scala, Benelli had an international career singing leading tenore di grazia roles from the early 1960s through the 1980s. In his later years he sang character roles and began a career as a singing teacher. He retired from the stage in 2004.
Simone Alberghini is an Italian operatic baritone, known especially for his interpretations of belcanto operas of Mozart and Rossini.
Josep Bros i Jiménez and primarily performing under the name José Bros, is a Catalan operatic tenor particularly known for his performances in the bel canto repertoire both on stage and in full-length opera recordings.
Michael Spyres is an American operatic tenor. He is particularly associated with the bel canto repertoire, especially the works of Rossini, and heroic roles in French grand opera.