Bass-baritone
John Relyea continues to distinguish himself as one of the present day’s finest bass-baritones. He has appeared at many of the world’s most celebrated opera houses, among them the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera (where he is an alumnus of the Merola Opera Program and a former Adler Fellow), Seattle Opera, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the Opera de Paris, the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich and the Wiener Staatsoper. His repertoire includes Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro, the Four Villains in Les Contes de Hoffman, Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermoor, Giorgio in I puritani, Escamillo in Carmen, Don Basilio in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Colline in La boheme, Marke in Tristan und Isolde, Caspar in Der Freischutz, the title role in Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, Banco in Macbeth, Collatinus in The Rape of Lucretia and Garibaldo in Rodelinda.
John Relyea is in high demand throughout the concert world, often appearing with such orchestras as the Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Met Chamber Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic, the Montreal Symphony, La Monnaie Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic. He has also appeared at the Tanglewood, Ravinia, Blossom, Vail, Salzburg, Edinburgh, Lucerne and Mostly Mozart Festivals, as well as at the BBC Proms. In recital, he has performed at Weill Hall and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, Wigmore Hall in London, the University Musical Society in Ann Arbor and the University of Chicago Presents series.
The many conductors with whom John Relyea has collaborated with include Harry Bicket, Pierre Boulez, Sir Colin Davis, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Christoph Eschenbach, Bernard Haitink, Mariss Jansons, James Levine, Lorin Maazel, Sir Charles Mackerras, Sir Neville Marriner, Zubin Mehta, Kent Nagano, Sir Roger Norrington, Seiji Ozawa, Antonio Pappano, Sir Simon Rattle, Donald Runnicles, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Robert Spano, Wolfgang Sawallisch and Ilan Volkov.
Relyea’s most recent recording, Mahler’s Eighth Symphony with Sir Simon Rattle and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, was released on the EMI label. He has also recorded Idomeneo with Sir Charles Mackerras and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra for EMI, and he appears on the Metropolitan Opera’s DVD presentations of Don Giovanni and Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg, both released by Deutsche Grammophon.
In summer 2008, John Relyea returned to Covent Garden as Nick Shadow in a new production of The Rake’s Progress and he also appeared at the Ravinia and Lanaudiere festivals as well as with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. This season he returns to the Met as both Mephistopheles in a new production of La Damnation de Faust and as Alidoro in La Cenerentola. Both these productions will be broadcast in HD in cinemas around the world. He also returns to the Seattle Opera for Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, and he will be appearing at Santa Cecilia in a concert version of Norma in addition to performances with the London Symphony Orchestra and the symphony orchestras of Los Angeles, Minnesota and San Francisco.
John Relyea was the 2003 recipient of the Richard Tucker Award.