John Cheek

Taken in to the fold from the Metropolitan Opera prior to the age group of 30, this versatile bass baritone is continuing to grow from a appealing beginning to fulfilling artistic maturity. John Cheek’s small, finely focused device provides gained in thickness over time without shedding its firm, good-looking sound; certainly, his finest function provides arrive since he got into his forties, a period when a great many other basses and bass baritones already are showing proof vocal deterioration. His visual appearance have also offered to create his a highly effective stage existence. Often, he provides produced shows perceptibly better-sung and acted than those by performers a lot more aggressively marketed by recording businesses. Although Cheek provides frequently documented and provides primarily been noticed in leading assignments, stardom provides eluded him. Alternatively, listeners looking for vocal polish and creative sensitivity can see in him a vocalist who commands maximum respect. Created in SC, Cheek was raised in Wilmington, NC, and was students in the North Carolina College for the Arts. Upon graduation, he researched in the Manhattan College of Music and in Siena, Italy, where he underwent advanced teaching with Gino Bechi, the popular baritone who sang and documented in Italy through the 1940s and 1950s. Cheek’s Metropolitan Opera debut occurred on Oct 11, 1977, when he sang the Physician in Pelléas et Mélisande. In following months, he was noticed in even more prominent roles, such as for example Mozart’s Figaro, Ferrando in Il trovatore, Monterone, Pimen, Panthée (Les troyens), Wurm, Alfonso, Méphistophélès, as well as Klingsor. Cheek’s NEW YORK Opera debut arrived in 1986 and he offers since sung several leading roles for the reason that theatre. Cheek’s career offers taken him significantly beyond NY. In the 1990s only, he sang in Verdi’s Don Carlos in Great and performed Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust using the Minnesota Orchestra under Valery Gergiev. Through the 1993 – 1994 time of year, he once again performed La Damnation de Faust in concert, this time around singing Méphistophélès using the St. Louis Symphony and in European countries was noticed as Attila in Good and Zaccaria in Bregenz. The 1994 – 1995 time of year found Cheek time for Good for Boito’s Mefistofele and essaying Berlioz’s devil once again, this time around in Stockholm. Another time of year was significant for Cheek’s 1st Don Pasquale in the Cincinnati Summer time Opera, Don Giovanni with Milwaukee’s Florentine Opera, and Nick Darkness (his 1st on-stage) using the Berkshire Opera. For the 1997 – 1998 time of year, Cheek sang his 1st Vanderdecken in the Florentine Opera’s Soaring Dutchman, offered Gounod’s Méphistophélès in the Quebec Opera and portrayed Frère Lawrence in Pittsburgh. For 1998 – 1999, Cheek took his Dutchman to both Houston and Columbus, sang Ruler Philip in Montreal and bedeviled Gounod’s Faust in Seattle. As his profession crossed in to the fresh millennium, Cheek sang using the Dallas Civic Opera in La clemenza di Tito and sang Berlioz’s Méphistophélès in Helsinki. Cheek offers achieved equal variation around the concert stage, having sung with almost all the main American symphonies and several overseas. Under such estimable conductors as Leonard Bernstein, Sir Andrew Davis, Sir Colin Davis, Charles Dutoit, Adam Levine, Zubin Mehta, Leonard Slatkin, and Sir Georg Solti, he provides sung an eclectic range of the primary concert repertory aswell as functions by modern composers. Apart from such functions as Verdi’s Requiem, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, and Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder (documented), he premiered Tippett’s Cover up of your time (also documented) and continues to be acclaimed in Martinu’s Field Mass and Frank Martin’s In Terra Pax.