RYAN OPERA CENTER - RISIING STARS CONCERT
AMY MUNICE, PICTURE THIS POST
Hailed by the San Francisco Chronicle as “heroic” and “stentorian” and possessing an “imposing, mahogany voice” (Opera News), American bass-baritone David Weigel is a recent graduate of the Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago. During his tenure with the program, Mr. Weigel performed the roles of The Voice of Neptune in Idomeneo, Le Premier Ministre in Cendrillon, Dr. Grenvil in La traviata, First Prison Guard in Dead Man Walking, the Bonze in Madama Butterfly, and Sourin in The Queen of Spades. He also understudied a number of significant roles including Colline in La bohème, Fafner in Siegfried, Ferrando in Il trovatore, Don Basilio in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Count Walter in Luisa Miller, Warden George Benton in Dead Man Walking, and Leporello in Don Giovanni. Prior to the cancellation of the Lyric’s 2020-21 mainstage season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he was scheduled to sing Angelotti in Tosca, Leone in Attila, Antonio in Le nozze di Figaro, and Father Trulove in The Rake’s Progress but instead covered the role of Alberich in Lyric's drive-through production of Twilight: Gods.
In the 2021-2022 season, Mr. Weigel joined Mannes Opera in a workshop of a new opera by Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek, covered Masetto in Don Giovanni with Pacific Opera Victoria, and made his Sarasota Opera debut as Nourabad in Les pêcheurs de perles and Angelotti in Tosca. In the summer of 2022, Mr. Weigel makes his Wolf Trap Opera debut as a Filene Artist, singing Killian and the Hermit in Der Freischütz. Following this, he joins the roster of The Metropolitan Opera in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and Don Carlo. In the spring of 2023, Mr. Weigel will return to Sarasota Opera as the title role in Mozart’s Don Giovanni.
In the summer of 2019, Mr. Weigel sang the title role in Le nozze di Figaro at the Aspen Music Festival, for which Opera
News described him as an “impressive performer with a big, richly colored baritone.” He was a member of Merola Opera Program in 2017 and 2013, performing Death in Savitri and Collatinus in The Rape of Lucretia respectively. In 2015, Mr. Weigel performed the roles of Masetto in North Carolina Opera’s Don Giovanni and Sprecher in Piedmont Opera’s Die Zauberflöte. Additional roles include both the title role and Leporello in Don Giovanni, Frère Laurent in Roméo et Juliette, Colline in La bohème, Rambaldo in La rondine, Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Spencer Coyle in Owen Wingrave.
Concert appearances include the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and the Harris Theater’s Beyond the Aria series. Mr. Weigel has also sung Bach’s Mass in B Minor, Handel’s Messiah, the Requiems of Mozart, Verdi, and Fauré, Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem, Debussy’s L’enfant prodigue, and Vaughan Williams’s Dona Nobis Pacem. He has been featured prominently as part of the Ryan Opera Center’s Broadcast Recital Series on WFMT 98.7FM
Mr. Weigel has been the recipient of several esteemed awards including the Lola Fletcher Scholarship Award from the American Opera Society of Chicago, and the Richard F. Gold Career Grant from the Shoshana Foundation. He was a Michigan District Winner in 2016’s Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.
Mr. Weigel grew up in Asheville, NC and is an alumnus of Furman University (Bachelor of Music), The University of North Carolina Greensboro (Master of Music), the A.J. Fletcher Opera Institute at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (Professional Artist Certificate), and the University of Michigan (Doctor of Musical Arts).
