| Biography | Michael Chioldi (born May 24, 1970) is an American operatic baritone who has performed at many major American opera houses and festivals, including the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Washington National Opera, Houston Grand Opera, San Diego Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Palm Beach Opera, Long Beach Opera, Minnesota Opera, Spoleto Festival USA, Arizona Opera, Utah Opera, New York City Opera, Fort Worth Opera, Chautauqua Opera, Kentucky Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Hawaii Opera Theatre, Santa Fe Concert Association, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Chicago Opera Theatre and Austin Lyric Opera.
Chioldi's first appearance at the Metropolitan Opera was in April 1995 in the National Council Winners Concert. He made his official opera debut there as Fléville in Andrea Chénier in April 1996, and subsequently appeared as Pâris in Roméo et Juliette (1996), Wagner in Faust (1997), Yamadori in Madama Butterfly (1997), and Moralès in Carmen.
He made his San Francisco Opera debut as Dr. Falke in Die Fledermaus in 1996 and the following year appeared as Shaunard in La bohème and in the roles of Jack, Supervisor Kopp, and Stonewall Girl, in the West Coast premiere of Stewart Wallace's opera Harvey Milk, based on the life of the San Francisco politician and gay rights activist Harvey Milk, who was assassinated in 1978. (He also appears on the sole commercial recording of the opera.)
Chioldi made his debut with the Washington National Opera in 1995 in Il barbiere di Siviglia. He has appeared in Andrea Chenier, in Billy Budd, in the title role of Hamlet, as Sharpless in Madama Butterfly, and as Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor. Chioldi debuted at New York City Opera in 1999 in L'enfant et les sortilèges and was a regular performer with the company, most notably as Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro, Escamillo in Carmen, Doctor Malatesta in Don Pasquale, Belcore in L'elisir d'amore, Peter in Hansel and Gretel and Sharpless in the 2008 Emmy Award winning Madama Butterfly. He has also sung with the Opera Orchestra of New York in their concert performance of Der Freischütz, with Opéra Français de New York in Debussy & Poe: Fall of the House of Usher & Devil in the Belfry, with UrbanArias in its First Festival performance of Glory Denied, with Chicago Opera Theatre in Giovanna d'Arco, as Rodrigo in Austin Lyric Opera's Don Carlo and as Macbeth in Palm Beach Opera's Macbeth.
Internationally, Chioldi has appeared in the title role of Der fliegende Holländer at Germany's Pforzheim Opera, with Toronto's Opera Atelier as Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro, as Méduse in Lully's Persée, and in the title role in Don Giovanni. He has also appeared in Japan with Seiji Ozawa and the New Japan Philharmonic as Papageno in a touring production of Die Zauberflöte, in São Paulo, Brazil in the South American premiere of Lennox Berkeley's A Dinner Engagement, in France with the Opéra National de Montpellier for the concert performance and recording of Cilea's L'arlesiana, in Spain as Scarpia in Opera de Oviedo's Tosca, at the Macau International Music Festival as Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro with the San Francisco Opera, and at Royal Albert Hall, London as Marcello in La Boheme.
Orchestra appearances include the New York Philharmonic, Washington's National Symphony Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony, New Haven Symphony, and Houston Symphony. |