by Catherine Zachary
The Department of Music is thrilled to announce that North Carolina native, Grammy® Award-winning baritone Lucas Meachem, will be Artist in Residence with us from February 24 through March 1. Beginning on Sunday Evening, Feb. 24, in recital with Carolina Performing Arts in Moeser Auditorium, Meachem will spend a week coaching students privately and in public masterclasses. From studio to stage, Meachem’s stunning voice and sparkling personality inspire all who hear him. Join us for a week of breathtaking music and exhilarating learning.
Grammy® Award-winning baritone Lucas Meachem is one of the most accomplished, in-demand singers of the moment, captivating audiences around the world with his “earnest appealing baritone” (The New York Times) and “commanding presence” (San Francisco Chronicle). “A rock star of opera” (Opera Pulse), Meachem’s 2018-19 season includes three highly anticipated North American house debuts with Washington National Opera, Canadian Opera Company, and Michigan Opera Theatre.
Meachem’s 2018 summer season included a performance of Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder with the Prague Philharmonia, as well as house debuts at Salzburger Festspiele with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal in Penderecki’s St Luke’s Passion, being a featured soloist at Classical Tahoe, and at the Grafenegg Music Festival with Britten’s War Requiem.
Meachem starts the 2018-19 season with his house debut at Washington National Opera as Germont in La Traviata, before moving on to sing Figaro, his “signature role” (Houstonia) in Barber of Seville for his second house debut at Michigan Opera Theatre. He returns twice to the Metropolitan Opera this season to sing his “refined and robust” (Parterre) Marcello in La bohème, following a pair of acclaimed runs last season, and will also make his staged role debut as Robert in Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta. Meachem finishes the season with a debut recital at Carolina Performing Arts in his home state of North Carolina, and a house debut at the Canadian Opera Company as Marcello.
Named the winner of San Francisco Opera’s inaugural “Emerging Star of the Year” Award in 2016, notable performances in Meachem’s American career include Chorèbe in Les Troyens, Athanaël in Thaïs, Demetrius in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Valentin in Faust at Chicago Lyric Opera; Eugene Onegin, Don Giovanni, and Il barbiere di Siviglia, Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro, and Fritz/Frank in Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt at San Francisco Opera; Silvio in Pagliacci and Mercutio in Roméo and Juliette at the Metropolitan Opera; Don Giovanni with Santa Fe Opera, New Orleans Opera, and Cincinnati Opera; Zurga in Les pêcheurs de perles at the Florida Grand Opera; Il barbiere di Siviglia at San Diego Opera, Opera Colorado, and Los Angeles Opera where he also gave his Grammy® Award-winning performance of Figaro in The Ghosts of Versailles.
A regular performer across Europe, Meachem has performed the title role in Il barbiere di Siviglia with the Vienna Staatsoper, Royal Opera House, Houston Grand Opera, Den Norske Opera; the title role in Don Giovanni at Glyndebourne Festival and Semperoper Dresden; the title role in Britten’s Billy Budd at Opéra National de Paris; as Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro at Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich and Royal Opera House; Wolfram von Eschenbach in Tannhäuser at the Saito Kinen Festival in Japan under the baton of Seiji Ozawa; the title role in Eugene Onegin with Opéra national de Montpellier; with the Teatro Real de Madrid in the world premiere of El Viaje a Simorgh as well as Oreste in Iphigénie en Tauride; and a European tour with Anna Netrebko as Robert in Iolanta with 11 performances at Europe’s most important musical centers and venues including Vienna, Munich, Paris, Berlin, and Amsterdam.
Meachem made his Hollywood Bowl debut in 2014 as Silvio in Pagliacci with Gustavo Dudamel. He has sung with the New York Philharmonic in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion under Kurt Masur; the Saint Louis Symphony in Carmina Burana and Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony; the San Francisco Symphony in concert performances of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe; the American Symphony Orchestra in the United States premiere of Ferdinand Hiller’s oratorio The Destruction of Jerusalem at Avery Fisher Hall; with the Saint Louis, Pittsburgh, and Seattle Symphonies in performances of Carmina Burana; and with soprano Hei-Kyung Hong for a duet concert at Walt Disney Concert Hall.
Born in North Carolina, Lucas Meachem studied music at Appalachian State University, the Eastman School of Music, and Yale University before becoming an Adler Fellow with the San Francisco Opera.
Check back each week for a new video or story about Lucas Meachem as we anticipate his residency this semester! And for more information or to purchase tickets for his recital with Carolina Performing Arts on February 24, click here.