Department:
Voice & Opera

Contact:
jopalach@esm.rochester.edu
(585) 274-1607

Mr. Opalach is one of America's most versatile performers on the operatic and concert stage today.

He has been a principal artist of the New York City Opera since 1980. He recently had a major critical success singing the title role of G. Verdi’s Falstaff during the 2008 Spring season. Among the roles he has performed with the company are the title role in Le nozze di Figaro, Dulcamara in L’elisir d’amore, Leporello in Don Giovanni, Bartolo in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Wesener in A. Zimmerman’s Die Soldaten and the Forester in The Cunning Little Vixen. He has appeared with the Metropolitan Opera (War and Peace), Opera Theater of St. Louis (Nixon in China), Santa Fe Opera (La Boheme), Seattle Opera (Cosi fan tutte), Washington Opera (Cendrillon), Canadian Opera Company (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Netherlands Opera (L’italiana in Algeri), and Sweden's Drottningholm Royal Court Theater (L. Rossi’s Orfeo).

Among the many conductors with whom Mr. Opalach has collaborated are Marin Alsop, Daniel Barenboim, Herbert Blomstedt, Semyon Bychkov, Charles Dutoit, Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, Sir Simon Rattle, Robert Shaw, Leonard Slatkin, Edo de Waart and David Zinman.

He has won the prestigious Walter M. Naumburg Vocal Competition, Metropolitan Opera National Auditions, International Vocalisten Concours of s'Hertogenbosch, Netherlands, as well as a National Endowment for the Arts Soloist Recital Grant.