Paul La Rosa

American baritone Paul La Rosa's "dark hued baritone [has] brought vocal glamour" (Opera News) to both sides of the Atlantic while continuing to earn critical praise for his "strong and beautiful voice, and the dancing skills that one typically encounters on Broadway." In the 2023-2024 season, Mr. La Rosa sang the title role in Rigoletto with Holy City Arts & Lyric Opera. During the 2022-23 season, Mr. La Rosa made his Opera Delaware debut singing Guglielmo in Cosi fan tutte, sang Barber's Dover Beach and Ravel's Don Quichotte songs with the Berkshire Symphony, sang the bass solos in Mozart's Coronation Mass with Saratoga Voices and in Verdi's Requiem at the University of Missouri, and returned to Opera Columbus as El Payador in Maria de Buenos Aires. He also covered the role of Michele in Il Tabarro with On Site Opera.

In the 2021-22 season, he made a role/company debut with the Opera Company of Middlebury as Lionel in The Maid of Orleans, reprised Germont with Opera Columbus and Out of the Box Opera, sang the Wolf and Cinderella's Prince in Into the Woods with Annapolis Opera, and covered the Four Villains in Les Contes d'Hoffmann with Opera Tampa. In 2020, Mr. La Rosa joined Rutgers Opera Theater as a guest artist singing the Four Villains in Les Contes d'Hoffmann,and was slated to make his Bard Symphony Orchestra debut as the 2nd Nazarene in Salome.

In 2019, Mr. La Rosa made his role and company debut with Gulfshore Opera (Malatesta in Don Pasquale and Germont in La traviata), his debut with Angel's Share as Aeneas in a site-specific production of Dido and Aeneas in Brooklyn's Greenwood Cemetery, and his Fort Worth Opera debut reprising the role of Enrique in Martinez's El  pasado nunca se termina, which he created in 2015. In the summer, Mr. La Rosa joined Greylock Opera Collective/Mass MoCA for the world premiere of The Weeping Woman in the role of Pablo Picasso. In 2018, he returned to San Diego Opera and made his debut with Eugene Opera as El Payador in the respective company premieres of Piazzolla's tango-opera Maria de Buenos Aires, as well as his Princeton Festival debut as Sharpless in Madama Butterfly. In 2017, Mr. La Rosa made his debut with the Brooklyn Art Song Society at the Marcella Sembrich Opera Museum performing excerpts from Mahler's Das Knaben Wunderhorn, and rejoined the company in the fall for a French melodie program dedicated to Chausson and Duparc.  e also debuted with Bare Opera as Figaro in the Mozart/Rossini pastiche Figaro/Figaro!

Recent seasons have witnessed return engagements with Lyric Opera of Chicago (Cascada in The Merry Widow, Jud Fry in Oklahoma!) and Chicago Opera Theater (Boris in Shostakovitch's Moscow, Cheryomushki), in addition to debuts with Los Angeles Opera (First Mate in Billy Budd, directed by Francesca Zambello), Lyric Opera of Kansas City (Falke in Die Fledermaus, directed by Tomer Zvulun), and Central City Opera (Jud Fry in Oklahoma!)  As Enrique in the world premiere production of Jose "Pepe" Martinez's El pasado nunca se termina, he appeared at Lyric Opera of Chicago and made his company debuts with San Diego Opera and Houston Grand Opera.

Committed to the performance of new works as well as to the revival of long-unheard works, in 2011, Mr. La Rosa made his debut with Chicago Opera Theater as Oronte in the Midwest premiere of Charpentier's 1693 masterpiece Médée and his debut with Opera Theater of St. Louis as Rambo and First Officer in the second fully-staged US production of John Adams' The Death of Klinghoffer. Mr. La Rosa enjoyed a long association with the late Lorin Maazel and was a frequent guest artist at the Castleton Festival, performing Le fauteuil in L'enfant et les sortileges, Don Quixote in de Falla's El retablo de Maese Pedro, Jack Rance in La fanciulla del west  (all under the maestro's baton), and Mercutio in Roméo et Juliette, as well as concert appearances with Maestro Maazel including his role debut as Jack Rance at Spain's Palacio de la Opera de A Coruña and his Roman debut as the baritone soloist in Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. Additional concert credits include debuts as Maximilian in Candide with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the Tanglewood Festival and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and with the Cleveland Orchestra in a program of Copland's Old American Songs.

Mr. La Rosa received national recognition through America's most prestigious training programs. Between 2009 and 2012 he fulfilled a young artist residency in the Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago, where he performed Hermann in Les contes d'l-loffmann, Bello in La fanciulla del west, Silvano in Un hallo in maschera, Morales in Carmen (conducted by Alain Altinoglu), Cascada in The Merry Widow (conducted by Emmanuel Villaume), and Kuligin in Katya Kabanova (his company debut, conducted by Markus Stenz) and covered Ravenal in Show Boat, Papageno in Die Zauberflote, Harlekin in Ariadne auf Naxos, Demetrius in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Le Dancaïre in Carmen. Mr. La Rosa has also apprenticed with Glimmerglass Opera (performing Curio and covering Achilla in Giulio Cesare in Egitto), San Francisco Opera's Merola Opera Program (Dandini in La Cenerentola), and the Juilliard Opera Center (the boxer Adam Ochsenschwanz in Ernst Krenek's Schwergewicht oder die Ehre der Nation under James Conlon, Ford in Falstaff in a production by Stephen Wadsworth conducted by Keri-Lynn Wilson, as Rambo in The Death of Klinghoffer under the baton of the composer, and as Raimbaud in Le comte Ory.) Mr. La Rosa earned his MM and Artist Diploma from the Juilliard School and a BA from Williams College, where he double majored in Philosophy and English.

Mr.LaRosa is Co-Director of the Williams Opera Workshop at Williams College where he is an Artist Associate teaching voice. He has taught Masterclasses at colleges around the country and has been guest faculty at the Mediterranean Opera Studio and Festival in Caltagirone, Sicily where he directed their 2022 production of Rigoletto.