Richard Tucker Award Winners Are Dominating New York City’s Fall Opera Season

January will mark the 50th anniversary of beloved tenor Richard Tucker’s sudden death at the age of 61. The foundation created soon after his passing has become one of the most important organizations supporting young American opera singers. Since 1978, the foundation has given out the Richard Tucker Award (now worth $50,000) to a talented performer well on the way to becoming a leading presence at opera houses worldwide. Beginning in 2000, dozens of the best and brightest have been supported by substantial career and study grants from the foundation. During the final week of October, performances at Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Opera amply demonstrated the ubiquity of Richard Tucker Foundation alumni.

Lisette Oropesa (Tucker Award recipient in 2019) made a rare New York City appearance for her Carnegie Hall recital debut at Zankel Hall late last month, collaborating with pianist Ken Noda in an attractive program of Spanish and Spanish-influenced music. To the frustration of her many U.S. fans, for the past decade, Oropesa has spent most of her time in Europe, where she has evolved into a major star specializing in bel canto and 19th-century French operas.

In the first half of her program, Oropesa visited Spain by way of Ravel, Delibes and Massenet. The soprano tossed off their dazzling florid writing with élan plus rows of effortless trills that many of her colleagues would kill for. Though the soprano has always shown a keen stylistic affinity for French music, on this occasion, her cloudy diction lacked hoped-for incisiveness, though this wasn’t an issue in her bewitching wordless Ravel “Vocalisse-étude en forme de habanera.”

In the familiar coloratura showpieces “Les filles de Cadix” and “Sevillana,” Oropesa eagerly seized on all the high acuti, though more often than not, they emerged jarringly pinched. Though it was a treat to hear the familiar Bolero from Verdi’s Les Vêpres Siciliennes in its original French, Oropesa’s bumpy rendition plodded rather than danced though she wisely didn’t attempt the high E-natural others have added at the end.

Beginning with four haunting selections by Joaquín Nin, after intermission, Oropesa relished subtle nuances in the Spanish selections, though once again, her words could have been clearer. Presumably, her status as a bel canto specialist leads her to choose music with lots of high notes. The most attractive part of her voice is its distinctive middle with its very individual quick vibrato.

The program concluded with Roig’s “Entrada de Cecilia,” one of the selections included in Oropesa’s new, remarkably brief CD (just 44 minutes!) of zarzuela arias. Her earnest renditions at Zankel and on the recording of the Roig and Chapi’s better-known “Carceleras,” however, lacked the necessary charm. However, for her encores, Oropesa turned to opera arias and revealed an intensity and emotional involvement that had been missing earlier. Her pleading “Robert, toi que j’aime” from Meyerbeer’s Robert le Diable built slowly to its shattering climax, while her surprising final number, a delicately spun  “Casta diva” from Norma, once again emphasized the beguiling elegance of the middle of her voice. One prays, though, that the rumors that she will soon take on the dramatic title role of Bellini’s Norma are untrue.

While Oropesa hasn’t appeared with the Met at Lincoln Center for several years, two other Tucker Award winners—Michael Fabiano and Jamie Barton—were on hand when Il Trovatore had its season premiere at the Saturday matinee. Also featured were Tucker grant winners Rachel Willis-Sørensen and Ryan Speedo Green, as well as Russian baritone Igor Golovatenko. All five were performing their roles at the Met for the very first time.

Thanks to Daniele Callegari’s vividly propulsive conducting, Verdi’s sometimes preposterous tale of doomed love and intractable vengeance whizzed by aided immeasurably by David McVicar’s intensely focused production (still his best Met work) in Charles Edwards’ evocative revolving set.

Continuing his exploration of a more demanding tenor repertoire, Fabiano brought his familiar arresting intensity to his first-ever Manrico. Though he has in the past appeared distractingly self-absorbed on stage, this time Fabiano brought a welcome warmth to Manrico’s fervent attachments to the women in his life. While he ably negotiated “Ah sì, ben mio,” the strenuous demands of its cabaletta “Di quella pira” (one verse only) found Fabiano stretched to his limits. The next day, we learned that he had sprained his ankle exiting after its exciting, if strained, final note.

Barton as his “mother” began the afternoon in restrained form. Though she skillfully recounted Azucena’s devastating narrative of her mother’s fiery death in “Condotta,” she sounded underpowered when duetting with Fabiano’s more vibrant “son.” After intermission, Barton bravely stood up to aggressive treatment by Golovatenko and Speedo Green and found her best form in the final act’s haunting nostalgic duet with Fabiano. Barton’s Azucena emerged less deranged and more maternal than many, but her final triumphant cry of vengeance boldly rang out as the lights went out.

One can often easily ignore Ferrando’s opening narrative while awaiting Leonora’s entrance, but Speedo Green told a transfixing, troubling tale. As the rabidly jealous di Luna, Golovatenko, so fine last season in the new La Forza del Destino, attacked his music with a careless brusqueness that blunted his character’s tender aria “Il balen.”

After being away for more than five years, Willis-Sørensen returned to the Met as Leonora. While her warmly dark soprano has grown since her previous Mozart appearances with the company, she uneasily launched into her first aria that rose to bright high notes quite different from the middle. She handily negotiated the coloratura in both her shortened cabalettas, and her low, fervent utterances during the “Miserere” were her finest moments. To face the violent world she inhabits, McVicar’s Leonora responds with nervous impetuosity, frequently falling or being thrown onto the ground. Willis-Sørensen’s coolly awkward portrayal proved jarringly at odds with Fabiano and Golovatenko’s brutal physicality.

I could have followed the afternoon’s Trovatore with more Met Verdi in the evening: Rigoletto again cast almost entirely with Tucker Award or grant winners: Nadine Sierra, J’Nai Bridges, Stephen Costello and Quinn Kelsey. I skipped it, and Costello canceled, but the other three turned up the next evening for the annual Richard Tucker Foundation Gala at Carnegie Hall.

Throughout most of its history, the gala was performed with orchestra and chorus. However, like many arts organizations, the Foundation was hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic; in order to conserve its financial resources, it has for the past two years presented its starry roster of singers accompanied by piano only, played this year by either Bryan Wagorn or Howard Watkins.

Though I missed Rigoletto, we were treated Sunday evening to Sierra and Kelsey’s intimately moving rendition of that opera’s second-act duet. Earlier Sierra previewed a new Puccini role with a tender “Mi chiamano Mimi” hindered by too much portamento. With his grandly commanding “Eri tu,” Kelsey reminded us that his betrayed Renato was the strongest feature of last season’s Met Un Ballo in Maschera.

Willis-Sørensen previewed her Norma, a new role she’ll attempt soon at the Berlin Staatsoper, first with a very slow “Casta diva” (like Oropesa’s without its recitative or cabaletta) during which she and Wagorn too often operated at different tempi. Then she joined Barton for a rousing yet more unified “Mira, o Norma.”

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The auditions for the Richard Tucker Career Grant and the Sara Tucker Study Grant take place each spring at the 92nd Street Y and are open to the public. I attended this year’s Career Grant auditions when many worthy singers offered their pair of arias. The decision by the judges must have been very difficult, but the three best singers (all under 30) did indeed win, and two joined Sunday’s gala lineup. Tenor Anthony Léon (who also won the worldwide Operalia competition) offered a winningly plangent “Una furtiva lagrima,” while Elena Villalón teased the Gavotte from Manon so seductively that the eager audience burst prematurely into applause TWICE before she reached her smashing final high note.

Villalón came to the gala directly from that afternoon’s Ainadamar at the Met, as did surprise guest Angel Blue (Tucker Award recipient in 2022), who brought a heartfelt “America the Beautiful” coupled with “Lady by the Harbor“ by Lee Hoiby. The encores included a cringe-worthy snippet of Anthony Roth Costanzo’s misbegotten Little Island Marriage of Figaro, though the ever-eager countertenor redeemed himself with a bouncy “I Got Rhythm” duet with Sierra that concluded with him hopping into her arms! Speedo Green’s moving a capella “Deep River” and Sierra’s luxurious “Beautiful Dreamer,” sung intimately on the piano bench to Wagorn, felt special, as did Barton’s sweetly endearing “It’s You I Like“ by Jake Heggie.

The night before Halloween, the Met continued its winning run of Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar in which Villalón remained a radiant Nuria, while Gabriella Reyes (2019 Career Grant and 2018 Study Grant winner) took over from Blue as Margarita Xirgu. Reyes had previously starred in her role in the same Deborah Colker production at the Detroit Opera. Xirgu dominates the opera of revolt and remembrance though Reyes at first was challenged by the opening scene’s low tessitura as well as by Miguel Harth-Bedoya’s aggressive conducting and Mark Grey’s complex sound design. Later, however, when placed closer to the audience and away from the microphones, the shimmering beauty of Reyes’s soprano stood out, and she gamely participated in Colker’s exciting choreography. Toward the end, Reyes blended divinely with Villalón and Daniela Mack as Lorca in a ravishing and stirring trio that transcended the similar, saccharine ensemble that concludes The Hours.

Clay Hilley, the Foundation’s 2024 Tucker Award winner, was conspicuously absent from this week’s New York City events because the rising heldentenor was performing Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde at the Berlin Deutsche Oper!