John Osborn

The American tenor John Osborn is regularly invited to sing at the world’s leading opera houses. Primarily a specialist in French repertoire, he has sung such roles as Roméo (Roméo et Juliette) at the Salzburg Festival, at Bozar in Brussels and at the Arena di Verona, Léopold (La Juive) at the Paris Opéra, Dutch National Opera, Zurich Opera House and the Bavarian State Opera, Munich, Raoul (Les Huguenots) at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels, the Dresden Semperoper and the Grand Théâtre de Genève, Jean de Leyde (Le Prophète) at the Aalto-Musiktheater Essen and the Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse, the title role of Werther for Frankfurt Opera, Des Grieux (Manon) at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires and for Opéra de Lausanne, Hoffmann (Les Contes d’Hoffmann) at Paris’s Salle Pleyel, the Opéra National de Lyon, Dutch National Opera, the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples and the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Nadir (Les Pêcheurs de perles) at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, the title role of Gounod’s Faust at the Grand Théâtre de Genève, and also the title role of Benvenuto Cellini in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Paris and at the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome.

In addition, he has been heard as Arturo (I puritani) at the Teatro Campoamor in Oviedo and at Frankfurt Opera, as Pollione (Norma) at the Teatro Real, Madrid, and also as Fernand (La Favorite) at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice and at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo.

He has received particular acclaim for his interpretation of Arnold in Rossini’s Guillaume Tell, which he has sung at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, at Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera, New York, the Theater an der Wien, the Opéra de Lyon and at the Grand Théâtre de Genève, and also (in the Italian version) at the Teatro Regio in Turin, the Harris Theater in Chicago and at Carnegie Hall in New York.

Recent engagements include Hoffmann at the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía in Valencia, Riccardo Percy (Anna Bolena) at the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, the title role of Roberto Devereux at the Teatro Massimo and Arturo at Vienna State Opera.

John Osborn has won numerous prizes, among them the Premio Franco Abbiati, the Premio Aureliano Pertile, the Prix d’Amis of the Friends of Dutch National Opera, and the Premio Bellini d’Oro. In the 2016/17 season he was honoured by the Fondazione Arena di Verona with the Oscar della Lirica in the category ‘Best Tenor’.