American tenor Richard Croft is internationally renowned for his performances with leading opera companies and orchestras around the world, including the Metropolitan Opera, The Salzburg Festival, Opéra National de Paris, the Berlin Staatsoper, Opera Zurich, Glyndebourne Festival, The Cleveland Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, and The New York Philharmonic. 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.

Mr. Croft’s busy schedule has recently included the role of Don Ottavio in Mozart’s Don Giovanni with the Seattle Opera and a return to the Salzburg Festival in Haydn’s Armida, as well as Beethoven’s An die Ferne Geliebte at the University of North Texas, where he has been Professor of Voice since 2004. Upcoming engagements include Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with Leonard Slatkin and the National Symphony, Handel’s Ariodante with the San Francisco Opera, as well as his return to the Metropolitan Opera as M. K. Gandhi in a new production of Philip Glass’s landmark 1980 opera Satyagraha.

Richard Croft is renowned throughout North America. At the Metropolitan Opera he has sung Ferrando under the baton of James Levine, Belmonte in Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail, and Almaviva in Il Barbiere di Siviglia. He made his debuts with Houston Grand Opera and Washington Opera as Ferrando as well. He has performed Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito for Dallas Opera and Santa Fe Opera, where he has also sung Tom Rakewell in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress and Belmonte in Mozart’s Entführung aus dem Serail.

In Europe he has been heard at the Paris Opera as Don Ottavio at the Bastille and as Tacmas in Rameau’s Les Indes Gallantes at the Palais Garnier (DVD release 2006). At the Berlin Staatsoper he has been heard as Almaviva, Ferrando, as well as the Composer in Gassman’s Opera Seria. At the Zurich Opera he debuted as Abaris in Rameau’s Les Boréades in a new production by Laurent Pelly. At the Deutsche Oper Berlin he performed the role of Pelléas and has been seen in numerous leading roles at the opera companies of Hamburg, Cologne, Amsterdam, Toulouse, Nice, Lyon, Stockholm, Glyndebourne and Salzburg.

In concert, Mr. Croft debuted with the Cleveland Orchestra in the title role of Pelléas et Mélisande in concerts led by Pierre Boulez, where he was hailed as “impassioned, clear-toned and ideal”; made his Carnegie Hall début under Sir Neville Marriner in Mozart’s Requiem; and made his St. Louis Symphony début with Nicolas McGegan in Britten’s Serenade. He made his Boston Symphony Orchestra debut in Mozart’s Requiem with Bernard Haitink. His performance of Handel’s Jephtha at Alice Tully Hall with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment prompted Alan Kozinn of The New York Times to write. “…some of the most supple and emotionally resonant Handel singing I have ever heard.”

In Europe he has been heard in London at the Royal Albert Hall as Pelléas with Sir Andrew Davis, in Amsterdam at the Concertgebouw in Ariodante, at the Konzerthaus in Vienna as Hyllus in Handel’s Hercules, as well as at the Grosses Festspielhaus in Salzburg, as Orphee, in the Paris version of Gluck’s Orphée et Euridice with Marc Minkowski leading Les Musiciens du Louvre.

He has been twice Grammy-nominated, for his recordings of Handel’s Hercules with Anne Sophie von Otter (Deutsche Grammophon/Archiv) as well as Scarlatti’s Il Primo Omicidio with Dorothea Roshmann (Harmonia Mundi). Other recordings with Deutsche Grammophon include Handel’s Ariodante and the Paris version of Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice, both with Marc Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre. For Erato, he has recorded Handel’s Theodora with William Christie and Les Arts Florissants. His performance in Theodora was also released on DVD in Peter Sellars’ production from Glyndebourne, as have his early Drottningholm performances of Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail and La Finta Giardiniera on Phillips Classics, Rameau’s Les Indes Gallantes from the Paris Opera, his Almaviva from the Netherlands Opera in Dario Fo’s production of Il Barbiere di Siviglia, and as Cassio in Verdi’s Otello with Plácido Domingo and Renée Fleming from the Metropolitan Opera. His most recent release is in the title role of the critically acclaimed Mitridate from the Salzburg Festival. Future recording plans include Handel’s Semele for Chandos and the title role in Mozart’s Idomeneo with René Jacobs for Harmonia Mundi.

For more information, please visit www.richardcroft.net.