Opera Scotland

Kenneth Tarver Suggest updates

American tenor.

Kenneth Tarver is considered to be one of the outstanding belcanto tenore di grazia of his generation, specialising in the most technically demanding virtuosic operatic repertoire. He is a distinguished graduate of Interlochen Arts Academy, the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music and holds a Masters of Music Performance from Yale University School of Music, where he received the Dean’s Award for the Most Outstanding Student in the graduating class. He is a past winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and was a member of the Metropolitan Opera's Young Artist Development Program and the Staatsoper Stuttgart Ensemble.

Appearances at major houses include the Royal Opera House Covent Garden (Fenton, Ferrando, Don Ramiro, Roderigo in Rossini’s Otello); Vienna State Opera (Almaviva); Deutsche Oper Berlin (Ernesto, Italian Tenor Der Rosenkavalier, Tamino, Idreno in Semiramide); Staatsoper Berlin (Belshazzar); Bavarian State Opera Munich (Ferrando, Don Ramiro, Fenton); Dresden Semperoper (Lindoro in L’Italiana in Algeri); Liceu Barcelona (Il Viaggio a Reims); Opéra Comique París (Fra Diavolo); Trieste (Narciso Il Turco in Italia); La Monnaie Brussels (Idomeneo); Metropolitan New York (Almaviva, Don Ramiro); San Carlo Naples (Ferrando) and the Aix-en-Provence Festival (Don Ottavio).

Other successes include the role of Orfeo in Haydn’s L’Anima del Filosofo at the Budapest Festival conducted by Adam Fischer, Gluck’s Orphèe et Euridice at Staatsoper Stuttgart, Mozart’s Idomeneo at La Monnaie with Jeremie Rhorer, Haydn’s Orlando Paladino at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam with the Hilversum Radio Orchestra conducted by Alessandro De Marchi and Haydn’s L’Infedelta Delusa at the Musikverein Vienna conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt.

He has amassed an impressive repertoire of seldom performed masterpieces by Rossini, iincluding Moïse et Pharaon (Opera Royale de Wallonie, Liège); L’Inganno Felice, La Gazza Ladra (Rossini Festival Wildbad); La Scala di Seta (Deutsche Oper); Adelaide di Borgogna (La Coruña) and Armida and La donna del lago (Edinburgh Festival). With Sir Colin Davis and the LSO he worked on concerts of important Berlioz works - Les Troyens, Roméo et Juliette and Béatrice et Bénédict, all of which were recorded.