©Photo: Justin Hyer

©Photo: Eric Richmond

Lawrence Zazzo

Counter-tenor

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“Lawrence Zazzo’s outstandingly imperious title-hero is the best sung and acted countertenor performance of the part (Giulio Cesare) I’ve encountered.”
(Gramophone)

American countertenor Lawrence Zazzo made his operatic debut as Oberon in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream while still a student at the Royal College of Music in London and has since performed the role extensively to great acclaim including at Canadian Opera Company, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Staatsoper Hamburg and, just last season, in Irina Brook’s exquisite new production at Wiener Staatsoper under the baton of Simone Young.

A diverse and thriving international opera career has taken Zazzo to most of the world’s leading opera houses and festivals appearing as Giulio Cesare at La Monnaie, English National Opera, Semperoper Dresden and Opéra national de Paris (released on DVD), Farnace in Mozart’s Mitridate, re di Ponto for Bayerische Staatsoper, and Tolomeo (Giulio Cesare) at the Metropolitan Opera. He has sung the title roles in Radamisto for English National Opera, Orlando for Welsh National Opera, Tamerlano for Oper Frankfurt and Solomon for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He has appeared as Orfeo (Orfeo ed Euridice) at Canadian Opera Company and Den Norske Opera, Bertarido in Claus Guth’s production of Rodelinda at Opéra national de Lyon, Ottone (Agrippina) at Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Goffredo (Rinaldo) at Staatsoper Berlin and Opernhaus Zürich, Arsamene (Xerxes) at Oper Frankfurt, and Ottone (L’incoronazione di Poppea) at Theater an der Wien, La Monnaie and Bayerische Staatsoper.

Highlights of the 2020/21 season include a new production by Robert Carsen of Handel’s Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno at the Salzburg Whitsun Festival conducted by Gianluca Capuano and of which there will be further performances at the Salzburg Festival. He also returns to the Wiener Staatsoper for performances of Irina Brook’s staging of A Midsummer Night’s Dream under Simone Young.

With a strong affinity for contemporary repertoire, Zazzo has created several contemporary characters including Mascha in Peter Eötvös’s Tri Sestri, the Refugee in Jonathan Dove’s Flight for Glyndebourne Festival Opera, and Trinculo in Thomas Ades’s The Tempest at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He gave the world premiere of Dove’s Hojoki with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under the late Jiří Bělohlávek, and created the role of Odysseus in the world premiere of Rolf Riehm’s Sirenen for Oper Frankfurt conducted by Martyn Brabbins.

The most recent addition to Zazzo’s impressive recording catalogue is Handel Uncaged a cycle of cantatas for alto voice and trio released on the Inventa label. Other discs in his extensive discography include Baroque Gender Stories, recorded with Lautten Compagney and Wolfgang Katschner (deutsche harmonia mundi), A Royal Trio (harmonia mundi USA) featuring works by Ariosti, Bononcinci and Handel with La nuova musica and David Bates, Mozart’s Apollo et Hyacinthus (Linn Records) and Mitridate, re di Ponto, both with Classical Opera and Ian Page, and the title role in Handel’s Giulio Cesare with Le Concert d’Astrée and Emanuelle Haïm (Virgin Classics).

Gallery

Händel: Xerxes - Trailer © Oper Frankfurt

Festival d’Aix 2015 - Midsummer Night’s Dream © Festival d’Aix 2015

Handel: Giulio Cesare (excerpt) © Virgin Classics

Handel: Giulio Cesare (excerpt 2) © Virgin Classics

Mozart: Apollo et Hyacinthus (excerpt) © TallWall Media

Handel: Rinaldo (excerpt)

Vivaldi: Griselda (excerpt)

Mozart: Apollo et Hyacinthus (excerpt)

“Countertenor Lawrence Zazzo alone offers songs outside that cosy English style: he well conveys the irony of ‘God’s Love’ in Jonathan Dove’s setting of Vikram Seth; and the tart and expressive angularity of Iain Bell’s ‘Come away, Death’ is a relief after so much salted caramel sweetness.”

(BBC Music Magazine, May 2021)

“Lawrence Zazzo was an excellent and devoted Unulfo”

(Opera Magazine, May 2020)

“Weaving through gentle lyricism, strident anger, and spoken declamation, this was a performance which embraced an astonishing emotional gamut and did so with courage, commitment and impressive technical underpinning. Purity, power, presence: Zazzo evinced all three. What a show with which to return to the performing platform after months of lockdown and the silencing of one’s singing voice.”

(Opera Today, September 2020)

“Countertenor Lawrence Zazzo fully throws himself into the eccentric role and brilliantly brings out the wild, ludicrous nature of the character”

(Frankfurter Allgemeine, November 2019)

“Lawrence Zazzo’s performance is the main attraction of this reprise…From the outset [Zazzo] gives us a dazzling “Presti omai”, unpredictably eventful and rich in dynamic contrast. The same febrile inventiveness electrifyingly animates the Da Capo of “Va tacito e nascosto” and the vocalizations of “Al lampo dell’armi”, with a conquering rage. Zazzo takes the role of the latin lover to heart (“Se in fiorito”, “Bello / Bella”), but he also gives us “Aure, deh, per pietà” in a version which is both more carnal and poetic than we have ever heard; a visceral interpretation with a simultaneously overwhelming delicacy.”

(Forum Opera – April 2019)

“A vivid performance from Lawrence Zazzo who shone the title role”.

(Financial Times, October 2018)

“Zazzo gave the title role his all. Through gestures, facial expressions and vocal fire, I believed every twist of Orlando’s fate. He was convincing when mad, when fighting, even when sleeping on his feet.”

(The Times, February 2018)

“Lawrence Zazzo is a wonderfully helpless, languishing Arsamene”

(Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung, January 2017)

“The only countertenor this evening is Lawrence Zazzo, with a striking luster and brightness in the voice.”

(O-Ton, January 2017)

“The countertenor Lawrence Zazzo was equipped with the greatest Baroque experience in this cast, and showed his strengths in his organic ornamentation”

(Frankfurter Rundschau, January 2017)

“Lawrence Zazzo as Arsamene is an ardent countertenor with an attractively dark tone.”

(Stuttgarter Nachtichten, January 2017)

“Among the soloists, the countertenor Lawrence Zazzo stood out for his enchantingly beautiful voice in the role of Delio”

(Opernwelt, June 2016)

“Lawrence Zazzo was astounding: he excelled in the laments (essential in the largely plaintive role of Arsace), but displayed great vitality in the recitatives (and was the only performer who really enjoyed this part of the role)…Zazzo delivered the aria [“Furibondo spira il vento”] with power and impressive aplomb…and delivered the most convincing account of this famous aria that we’ve ever heard.”

(Forum Opéra, January 2016)

“Lawrence Zazzo, one of the great countertenors of the last decade, who not only has Arsace in repertoire [but] recorded the opera just ten years ago…Lawrence Zazzo was the star of the evening…His instrument carries an enviable volume…yet maintains its freshness and elasticity…No other countertenor shapes every word, every syllable…His initial aria “O Eurimene ha l’idea di Rosmira”, not a very interesting aria, is given new life in his hands…He conquers the impossible coloratura in “Fuirbondo spira il vento”, one of the most complicated of Handel’s, gets right to the heart in the desolate “Ma quai note di mesti lamenti”, and gives a tender rendition of “Ch’io parta? Si crudele” full of intense beauty”

(El arte de la fuga, January 2016)

“Zazzo (Arsace) sang with astounding expressivity…receiving a standing ovation from the audience.”

(Operaworld.es, January 2016)

“Athamas was portrayed by the American countertenor Lawrence Zazzo, singing his three arias with warm, gleaming tone.”

(Opera Magazine, December 2015)

“As the eponymous hero, Lawrence Zazzo was impressive. His sound – carefully varied – captured the edgy, tortured nature of the character, diminished by his mental state yet physically strong. Zazzo was also astute in husbanding his resources so that the long vocal stint that is his mad scene stood up as the high point of the opera.”

(Opera Magazine, December 2015)

“Lawrence Zazzo, that most manly and forthright of counter-tenors, as a handsome Orlando whose insanity was expressed with graphic and moving power.”

(The Telegraph, September 2015)

“Lawrence Zazzo’s Orlando cuts a striking figure. He projects his substantial but agile countertenor to good effect, often with touching expressiveness”

(The Guardian, September 2015)

“In the title role, Lawrence Zazzo’s rich countertenor turned from biting fury to melting beauty with ease…his portrayal of Orlando’s madness was one of enormous power.”

(The Times, September 2015)

“The stately beauty of Lawrence Zazzo’s Oberon is indisputable and he successfully interprets one of the strangest roles Britten wrote”

(Resmusica, July 2015)

“Lawrence Zazzo came, sang, and conquered.”

(Bachtrack.com, April 2015)

“Countertenor Lawrence Zazzo revealed a powerful, lithe voice as Semele’s rejected fiancé Athamas”

(NY Observer, March 2015)