Alasdair Kent

Alasdair Kent was born in Perth, Western Australia. He studied music and performance at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts and the University of Western Australia with mezzo-soprano Megan Sutton,[2] as well as English literature, and Italian, French and German languages.[2] He sang with the West Australian Opera Chorus for several seasons in various repertoire,[2] and also took part in the Lisa Gasteen National Opera Program.[3] In 2017, he received an Artist Diploma from the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia, where he studied with Bill Schuman and sang performances of Lindoro (L'italiana in Algeri), Ferrando (Così fan tutte), Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni) and Rinuccio (Gianni Schicchi).[4] He was an Emerging Artist with Opera Philadelphia,[5] and a Filene Young Artist with Wolf Trap Opera,[6] where he performed as Ritornello in Florian Leopold Gassmann's L'opera seria,[7] and Giocondo in Rossini's La pietra del paragone.[8] He also took part in the Martina Arroyo Foundation's Prelude to Performance[9] and the Merola Opera Program.[10]

Kent made his professional debut in Australia at the age of 25, as Don Ramiro in La Cenerentola with Opera Queensland in 2013.[11][12] While at AVA, he made his US concert debut with The Dallas Opera in 2015,[13] and his US operatic debut in 2016 with Opera Philadelphia in Cold Mountain, an operatic adaptation of Charles Frazier's novel composed by Grammy Award and Pulitzer Prize winner Jennifer Higdon.[14][15] His European debut followed in 2017, as Cavaliere Belfiore in Il viaggio a Reims for the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, marking the beginning of his international career.[16] Since then, he has sung at several important theatres, including the Teatro di San Carlo, the oldest continuously active opera theatre in the world, in performances of Rossini's Mosè in Egitto celebrating the two-hundredth anniversary of the opera's premiere at the San Carlo.[17]

A tenore di grazia frequently associated with bel canto,[11][18][19][20] his principal repertoire includes roles of Rossini, Mozart, Donizetti, Bellini, Bizet, and Verdi,[21] though he has also performed works by composers as diverse as Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky.[4] Of these composers, he has sung most frequently:

• Il barbiere di Siviglia, debuted with the Martina Arroyo Foundation’s Prelude to Performance, further performances with Theater Basel and the Orchestra Sinfonica G. Rossini, house debuts with Opernhaus Zürich and Oper Köln in 2021[22][23][24]
• L'italiana in Algeri, debuted with the Academy of Vocal Arts, further performances with the Hungarian State Opera in Budapest, Opéra de Toulon and the Opéra national de Montpellier[25][26][27]
• Così fan tutte, debuted with the Academy of Vocal Arts, further performances with the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, The Israeli Opera, the Rete Lirica delle Marche, and performances with the Opéra national de Bordeaux that were ultimately cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[28][29][30][31][21]

Other notable operatic performances include Paolino in Cimarosa's Il matrimonio segreto, with the Festival della Valle d'Itria and the Teatro Regio di Torino,[32][33][34] Tamino in Die Zauberflöte for the Royal Opera House Muscat,[35][36] Argirio in Rossini's Tancredi with the Teatro Petruzzelli,[37] and his debut as Arturo in I puritani with Ópera de Oviedo in 2020.[38][21] In concert and recital, the tenor's performances include various repertoire, ranging from Rossini's virtuoso Messa di Gloria[39] to Lili Boulanger's intimate song cycle Clairières dans le ciel.[40][41]

• Poul Ruders' The Thirteenth Child—Sarah Shafer (Princess Lyra), Tamara Mumford (Queen Gertrude), Ashraf Sewailam (Drokan), Matt Boehler (King Hjarne), Alasdair Kent (Prince Frederic), David Portillo (Benjamin), Alex Rosen (Corbin), Bridge Academy Singers & Odense Symfoniorkester, Benjamin Shwartz & David Starobin (conductors), Bridge Records, 2019.[49]

• Official website
• Management: AART Music
• Alasdair Kent Operabase
• "Languir per una bella" on YouTube, from L'italiana in Algeri (2018)