Biography

This season, baritone Michael Todd Simpson makes his European debut at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence as Escamillo in a new production of Carmen, and returns to the Metropolitan Opera as Marcello in La Bohème. His many roles include the title role in Eugene Onegin, Count in Le nozze di Figaro, Guglielmo in Così fan tutte, Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor, Silvio in Pagliacci, Zurga in The Pearl Fishers, Hermann and Schlemil in Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Lescaut in Manon, Demetrius in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Jaufré Rudel in Kaija Saariaho's L’Amour de Loin, Ravenal in Show Boat, Billy Bigelow in Carousel, and the Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance. He has appeared at the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, New York City Opera, Washington National Opera, Dallas Opera, Seattle Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Cleveland Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Opera North (UK), Opera Australia (in Australia and Taiwan), and the NCPA in Beijing. Mr. Simpson stars as Ravenal in the newly-released DVD of the San Francisco Opera’s production of Show Boat. He sang the role of Tooley in the US premiere of Richard Rodney Bennett’s The Mines of Sulphur at the Glimmerglass Festival, which was recorded and released by Chandos Records in 2005. A native of Gastonia, NC, Mr. Simpson holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in vocal performance from Erskine College in Due West, SC, and earned his Master of Music degree at the College-Conservatory of Music of the University of Cincinnati. He is also a graduate of the Seattle Opera Young Artists Program and the Glimmerglass Opera Young American Artists Program. He was a regional winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, and he received the Spanish Prize in the 2007 José Iturbi International Music Competition, first prize in the first annual Marguerite McCammon Voice Competition, the Sara Tucker Study Grant awarded by the Richard Tucker Foundation, and the Richard F. Gold Career Grant. He made his SFS debut in 2011.

(January 2018)