Jonathan Tetelman
Jonathan Tetelman is considered one of the most exciting young stars of our time and is praised for his “vocally magnificent, radiant and unmistakable tenor voice” (Opera Aktuell). The tenor, who was born in Chile and grew up in New Jersey, performs on the stages of renowned houses with world-famous orchestras and demonstrates his skills in a “dark-coloured tenor timbre” (SZ) and with “balmy verve” (Der Tagesspiegel).
On the opera stage, Jonathan Tetelman begins the 2023-24 season at the Deutsche Oper Berlin with two Puccini operas: in Pınar Karabulut’s new production of Il trittico (Il tabarro) as Luigi and in Madama Butterfly as Pinkerton. This will be followed by the role of Werther in Robert Carsen’s new production of Massenet’s Werther at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, as well as Rodolfo in La bohème at the Dortmund Theatre. The tenor will make his eagerly awaited house and role debut at the New York Metropolitan Opera in Puccini’s La Rondine (Ruggero) and can be seen immediately afterwards as Pinkerton in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. At the Aix-en-Provence Festival, he also takes on the role of Pinkerton and ends the season there on the opera stage. On the concert stage, he opens the Shenzhen Belt Road Music Festival at the Shenzhen Concert Hall in China together with soprano Angela Gheorghiu and other artists such as pianist Krzysztof Jablonski, violinist Tedi Papavrami and Azerbaijani tar player Sahib Pashazade. Back in Europe, he performs at the Berlin Konzerthaus together with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, gives a recital with Daniel Heide in Gstaad, Switzerland, and sings gala concerts with the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon. Further concerts will take him to the Borusan Festival in Istanbul for a New Year’s concert, to the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden and to the Rudolfinum in Prague.
In the previous season, Jonathan Tetelman made his eagerly awaited operatic debut at San Francisco Opera as Alfredo in Verdi’s La Traviata and made his debut at Houston Grand Opera in one of his signature roles, Cavaradossi in Tosca. In Europe, the tenor was heard as Rodolfo at the Semperoper Dresden, as Cavaradossi and as Paolo il Bello in Zandonia’s Francesca da Rimini at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, sang performances as Loris Ipanow in Fedora at the Ópera de Las Palmas on Gran Canaria and was heard in the role of Macduff in Verdi’s Macbeth at the Salzburg Festival. On the concert stage, the tenor appeared with the Houston Symphony Orchestra as the soloist in Verdi’s Requiem, sang together with Sylvia D’Eramo at the Tivoli Festival in Copenhagen and performed together with soprano Angela Gheorghiu in Brussels and Paris, among other places.
The previous seasons brought the tenor to the Opéra national du Rhin for his role debut as Stiffelio in Verdi’s work of the same name. He also sang the role of Jacopo Foscari in I due Foscari at the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino alongside Plácido Domingo, Loris Ipanow in Fedora at the Frankfurt Opera, made his house debut at the Vienna Theatre in a new production of Tosca and played the lead role of Rodolfo in Mario Martone’s operatic adaptation of La bohème, which was co-produced with Radiotelevisione Italiana (Rai) and Opera di Roma and was released in 2022. On the concert stage, Jonathan Tetelman presented a series of concerts in Austria, Spain and Latvia alongside maestro Karel Mark Chichon and superstar mezzo Elīna Garanča. He performed at the 169th birthday gala of the Tivioli Festival in Copenhagen, sang a gala concert in honour of Birgit Nilsson in Sweden and went to the Grand Teton Music Festival in Wyoming for concert performances of Puccini’s La bohème.
After completing his studies at the New School of Music, Mannes College, and the Manhattan School of Music, Jonathan Tetelman made a series of successful house and role debuts within a very short space of time: He made his debut at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden as both Alfredo in La traviata and Rodolfo in La bohème (January/February 2020), sang the role of Canio in Pagliacci (August 2021) and Cavaradossi in Tosca at the Teatro Regio Torino, made his role debut as B. F. Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly at the Opéra national de Montpellier (2019/20), sang Tosca and Madama Butterfly at the Semperoper Dresden (November 2019, September 2020) and Tosca at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona (June 2019). At the Opéra de Lille, he appeared as Cavaradossi in Tosca and as Don José alongside Elīna Garanča in a concert tour of Carmen through Eastern Europe, which was broadcast by Bartók Radio. The tenor has also appeared in Werther at the Gran Teatro Nacional de Lima and at the Opera del Teatro Solis in Montevideo (Uruguay), La bohème (Rodolfo) at the Komische Oper Berlin, the English National Opera in London and the Fujian Grand Theatre in China, as well as Rigoletto (Duca) at the Berkshire Opera Festival.
On the concert stage, Jonathan Tetelman sang Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra under the musical direction of Michael Tilson Thomas (September 2019) and with the Stuttgart Philharmonic under the baton of Dan Ettinger. He gave gala concerts with soprano Kristine Opolais in Moscow and with the Würth Philharmonic in Künzelsau, with the Copenhagen Philharmonic and sang Verdi’s Requiem with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Andris Nelsons at the 2019 Tanglewood Festival. Other orchestras he has worked with include the Milan Festival Orchestra, the Greenwich Village Orchestra and Orchestra Now, with whom he performed Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius. He sang both Dvorak’s Requiem and Stabat Mater with the St George’s Choral Society and gave a concert with soprano Nadine Sierra at the 2018 Napa Valley Festival.
Jonathan Tetelman is an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist and recorded Verdi and Versimo arias, a selection from the lyrical French repertoire and duets with the Lithuanian soprano Vida Miknevičiûtė for his debut album “Arias” (August 2022) together with the Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria and its chief conductor Karel Mark Chichon. His second album “The Great Puccini” will be released on 29 September 2023 and contains famous arias from nine Puccini operas, including “Nessun dorma”, “Che gelida manina” and “E lucevan le stelle”. For his album “Arias”, released in 2022, Jonathan Tetelman receives the Opus Klassik in the category Young Artist of the Year 2023.