From: Petawawa, Ontario, Canada. LA Opera: Orpheus in Eurydice (2020, debut).
Canadian baritone Joshua Hopkins was chosen by Opera News as one of 25 artists poised to break out and become a major force in the coming decade. He has been hailed as having “…a glistening, malleable baritone of exceptional beauty, and…the technique to exploit its full range of expressive possibilities from comic bluster to melting beauty.” (Opera Today)
He will return to the Metropolitan Opera for three leading roles during the 2020/21 season: the title role in Billy Budd, Figaro in The Barber of Seville, and Mercutio in Romeo et Juliette.
In the 2018/19 season, Joshua Hopkins made his San Francisco Opera debut as Harry Bailey in Jake Heggie’s It’s a Wonderful Life. He also revisited the role of Valentin in Faust with Washington National Opera. Role debuts of the season included Malatesta in Don Pasquale with Pittsburgh Opera, as well as the title role of Billy Budd with Central City Opera. Concert engagements included Handel’s Messiah with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Jane Glover, and with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Matthew Halls, as well as Haydn’s Creation with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, also under the baton of Matthew Halls.
In the 2017/18 season, Joshua Hopkins made his house debut at the Norwegian National Opera as Figaro in The Barber of Seville and returned to Lyric Opera of Chicago as Guglielmo in Così fan tutte. In the spring, he returned to the Metropolitan Opera as Mercutio in Roméo et Juliette, conducted by Plácido Domingo. Mr. Hopkins finished the season with a return to the Glimmerglass Festival in a new production of The Barber of Seville. Mr. Hopkins’s recent seasons have featured the roles of Count Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro at the Glyndebourne Festival, Verbier Festival, Dallas Opera, Houston Grand Opera and Washington National Opera; Figaro in The Barber of Seville with the Canadian Opera Company, Vancouver Opera, Lyric Opera of Kansas City and Opera Lyra Ottawa; Guglielmo in Così fan tutte at Oper Frankfurt; Papageno in The Magic Flute at Canadian Opera Company, Washington National Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Vancouver Opera, Opera Lyra Ottawa and Arizona Opera, and Marcello in La Bohème at the Canadian Opera Company and Houston Grand Opera.
