Tenor
BEN
BLISS
Mr. Bliss was most recently praised as "a peer of the best Toms in the opera’s seven-decade history" (Voix des Arts) in The Rake's Progress at the The Metropolitan Opera, where he returns for the 2024-2025 season in Grounded and Die Zauberflöte. He will make his operatic debut with Opéra National de Paris, as well as appearances with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Met Orchestra Chamber Ensemble, and more.
UP NEXT: OPERNHAUS ZURICH
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CAPRICCIO
MAY-JUNE, 2021
A NEW PRODUCTION
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The question of the value relationship between sound and word in opera is as old as the genre itself – and at the heart of Richard Strauss’ conversation piece Capriccio. It is his last opera, written when he was nearly 80. Capriccio, however, is anything but dry discourse about the dominance of language or music in opera. Rather, it is an ambiguous game that virtuously links the characters’ discussions of art with their erotic entanglements. In a salon near Paris, a theater director, a poet, a composer, and actress, and the count who loves her passionately discuss the nature of various artistic genres. The count suggests performing an opera about the very topic of their discussion, about themselves, about «the events of the day today, what we experienced». Mr. Bliss appears as Flamand.
UP NEXT:THE ThEAtre des Champs-ElysEes
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SEMELE
FEBRUARy 6 - 15, 2025
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Semele is the fullest expression of the oratorio form which is a feature of Handel’s last compositions. In the early 1740s, Italian opera in London fell out of fashion just as Handel was embarking on his final works. He composed Saul, L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, The Messiah, and Samson. Semele was his last oratorio in 1744 and was performed as written, without any staging or set, using the large choruses typical of the genre. However, a leopard does not change its spots, and everything about Semele shrieks opera, from the tragi-comic libretto and clever succession of scenes to the virtuosity of the arias for soloists. This is an opera that dare not speak its name, but which upholds the legacy of a lifetime of composition. Mr. Bliss makes his Théâtre des Champs-Elysées debut.
"Ben Bliss is wonderful as Ferrando, with an ideally sweet voice & boyish earnestness."
THE
NEW
YORK
TIMES
March 16, 2018
NEW
YORK
CLASSICAL
REVIEW
March 16, 2018
"Bliss’s graceful, flowing performance of “Un’aura amarosa” was the most musically compelling moment of the performance."
THE METROPOLITAN OPERa presents:
DIE
ZAUBERFLÖte
March 23 - April 26, 2025
Simon McBurney’s uproarious full-length German-language production of Mozart’s beloved fable—with its ingenious theatrical concoction of projections, puppetry, and special effects—returns to the Met stage following its celebrated 2023 premiere. Tenor Ben Bliss and soprano Golda Schultz are the noble lovers Tamino and Pamina, and baritone Thomas Oliemans repeats his animated portrayal of the outlandish bird catcher Papageno. Soprano Kathryn Lewek reprises her hair-raising turn as the Queen of the Night, Stephen Milling is the priest Sarastro, and Evan Rogister conducts.