Tenor
BEN
BLISS
Mr. Bliss returns to the stage for the 2020-2021 season at Opernhaus Zürich as Flamand in Strauss' Capriccio. He was most recently praised for his "splendid Don Ottavio" (Platea Magazine) in Don Giovanni at the Liceu Opera Barcelona.
UP NEXT: OPERNHAUS ZURICH
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CAPRICCIO
MAY-JUNE, 2021
A NEW PRODUCTION
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: HARRIMAN-JEWELL SERIES
HOLIDAY BLISS
DECEMBER 12, 2020
LIVESTREAM CONCERT
Join star tenor Ben Bliss, his musical family including the band Barnaby Bright, and special guests in HOLIDAY BLISS, a free livestream concert presented by the Harriman-Jewell Series at 7 p.m. Saturday, December 12, 2020, performed at the 1900 Building, Mission Woods, Kansas. The livestream concert is not ticketed and will not have an in-person audience.
"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."
MET HD BROADCAST
COSI FAN TUTTE
MARCH 31, 2018 (Met hd)
July 29, 2018 (pbs)
Mr. Bliss appeared alongside a winning cast for Phelim McDermott’s clever vision of Mozart’s comedy about the sexes, set in a carnival-esque, funhouse environment inspired by 1950s Coney Island—complete with bearded ladies, fire eaters, and a Ferris wheel. This production featured the Don Alfonso of Christopher Maltman and the Despina of Tony Award–winner Kelli O’Hara, with Amanda Majeski, Serena Malfi, Ben Bliss, and Adam Plachetka as the pairs of young lovers who test each other’s faithfulness. David Robertson conducted.
PBS showcased this spring's Metropolitan Opera production of Così fan tutte as part of its Great Performances series. Enjoyed by thousands of viewers in cinemas all over the world in Met HDLive this spring, Mr. Bliss's performance as Ferrando was hailed for his "ideally sweet voice and boyish earnestness" (The New York Times).
This production was broadcast live in select cinemas across the world on March 31, 2018, and on PBS on July 29, 2018. The broadcast will be available via the MetHD Player in the coming months.