Luis Ledesma | Visiting Tutor
LUIS LEDESMA
Mexican baritone Luis Ledesma has established a reputation as a "rich and well controlled baritone" (Opera News). He frequently portrays the heroes and villains of Puccini, Verdi and the bel canto masters as well as roles in recent new works in Spanish including Florencia en el Amazonas and El pasado nunca se termina.His operatic and concert career has advanced in Europe, the United States and South America and includes theaters such as Teatro alla Scala (Luisa Fernanda), the Liceu in Barcelona (Alphonse in La favorite, Riccardo in I puritani and Marcello in La bohème), Klangbogen Festival in Vienna (Leoncavallo's La bohème), Wexford Festival (Don Pasquale), Teatro Municipal de Santiago (Escamillo), Semperoper in Dresden (Marcello), several roles for Koeln Oper (including Don Carlo and Germont), Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires (Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia),
Bellas Artes in Mexico City (Marcello, Germont, and Escamillo ), Macau Festival (Sharpless), Teatro Nacional de Sao Carlos (Marcello), Graz Oper (Escamillo), L’opera de Montreal (Jack Rance in La fanciulla del West), Manitoba Opera (Escamillo), Opera Lyra Ottawa (Tonio), the Philadelphia Orchestra (Marcello in a concert version of La boheme and Beethoven Nine) and the Savonlinna Opera Festival (Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor and Escamillo), Bucharest National Opera (Scarpia) and Hungarian State Opera (Alfio and Tonio).
In the United States, Mr. Ledesma has sung with many companies, including Houston Grand Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Diego Opera, Palm Beach Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Washington Opera, New York City Opera, Arizona Opera, Michigan Opera Theatre, Atllanta Opera, Santa Barbara Opera, Anchorage Opera, Santo Domingo, Madison Opera, Nashville Opera, Portland Opera, Indianapolis and Connecticut Opera, Opera Pacific, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Opera Carolina, Memphis Opera, San Antonio Opera, New Jersey Opera, Minnesota Opera, Florentine Opera, and Hawaii Opera. He also sang two tours with Andrea Bocelli, performing in famous venues such as Madison Square Garden, Hollywood Bowl, Hard Rock Café in Hollywood, Florida, and the Auditorio Nacional Mexico City.
The 2017-2018 season begins with performances of Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia for the Astoria Music Festival. Mr. Ledesma will make two new role debuts in the fall, Zurga in Les Pêcheurs de Perles with Toledo Opera followed by El Duende in Piazzola's Maria de Buenos Aires for Nashville Opera. Last season featured performances of Florencia en el Amazonas with NYCO and Sinfonica Nacional del Estado de Mexico, Madama Butterfly for Palm Beach Opera and Il barbiere di Siviglia in San Antonio.
Mr. Ledesma made his Carnegie Hall debut in the Faure Requiem and returned for Dvorak’s Te Deum. He has sung Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at the Mann Music Center with The Philadelphia Orchestra and with The Chamber Orchestra ofPhiladelphia. He has performed a variety of orchestral repertoire including Mozart's Coronation Mass, Orff's Carmina Burana with the Louisville Orchestra, a series of Christmas concerts in Hannover with the NDR Radiophilharmonie and a Verdi concert presented in Die Alte Opera Frankfurt. He also performed Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony for the Filarmonica de Jalisco and Gala concerts with Tampa Opera and with Festival Cultural Zacatecas, and a solo recital with Festival Classique des Hautes-Laurentides inMont-Tremblant, Canada. His concert performances include La bohème (Marcello) at the Vail Festival and the Mann Music Center with The Philadelphia Orchestra and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Handel’s Messiah in Spain with the Orquesta Sinfonica de Asturias.
