Bass baritone
A New Zealand born Samoan, Jonathan Lemalu’s operatic roles include Papageno Die Zauberflöte, Figaro Le nozze di Figaro, Leporello and Masetto Don Giovanni, Rocco Fidelio, Bottom A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Colline La bohème, Porgy Porgy and Bess, Basilio Il barbiere di Siviglia, Neptune Idomeneo, Saul Saul, Zaroastro Orlando, Duke Bluebeard’s Castle. He has received great critical acclaim for his creation of the role of Queequeg in Jake Heggie’s Moby Dick in Dallas, San Diego, Adelaide and San Francisco. Other opera houses where he has worked include the Royal Opera House Covent Garden; Opera de Lyon, The Lyric Opera of Chicago, The Metropolitan Opera, Baden-Baden, the Munich and Hamburg Staatsoper, and the Glyndebourne, Salzburg, Styriarte, Edinburgh and Gergiev Festivals.
He has appeared in concert and recital at the Berlin, New York, Rotterdam and Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the New Zealand, London, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Toronto, Paris and Tokyo Symphony Orchestras with conductors that include Davis, Dutoit, Gergiev, Harding, Harnoncourt, Mackerras, Mehta, Norrington, Pappano and Rattle.
Engagements this season include Nourabad Pearl Fishers for Seattle Opera; concerts with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg and Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra; and a return to the Theater an der Wien.