Born Kansas.
American tenor.
Robert Dean Smith studied at Pittsburg State University under Margaret Thuenemann then with Daniel Ferro at the Juilliard School in New York. In Europe he worked with Janice Harper. He initially trained as a baritone before restudying as a tenor.
He made a sensational debut at the Bayreuth Festival in 1997 as Walther von Stolzing, returning for. Siegmund, Rienzi, Tristan and Lohengrin. At Munich he has sung Florestan, Max, Lohengrin, Tristan, Walther, Radamès and Des Grieux (Manon Lescaut). Appearances at other German houses include Dresden (Walther) and Berlin Deutsche Oper (Walther, Parsifal). At the Vienna Staatsoper his roles include Florestan, Walther and Des Grieux.
In the UK he has appeared several times with the Royal Opera (Walther, Lohengrin, Boris Kátya Kabanová, Bacchus) and made his Edinburgh Festival concert debut in 2017 in Elgar's King Olaf.
In the USA he has sung at the New York Met (Tristan, Bacchus, Pinkerton, Cavaradossi) and San Francisco (Walther). He has also appeared at La Scala Milan (Florestan, Lohengrin, Tannhäuser) and sang Parsifal in Madrid and Barcelona.
He appears widely in concerts, particularly of Beethoven's 9th Symphony and Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde.
(Source: Programme notes).
(Updated 2017).
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