American baritone Paul La Rosa continues to gain recognition on the strengths of his vocal appeal and charismatic stage presence. He has earned critical praise for "a wonderful touch for physical comedy, a strong and beautiful voice, and the dancing skills that one typically encounters on Broadway". 2018 witnesses Mr. La Rosa's return to San Diego Opera and his debut with Eugene Opera, for the respective company premieres of Piazzolla's tango-opera María de Buenos Aires, in the role of El Payador, and his Princeton Festival debut as Sharpless in Madama Butterfly. Mr. La Rosa looks forward to his 2019 role and company debuts with Gulfshore Opera (Germont in La Traviata and Malatesta in Don Pasquale) as well as his Fort Worth Opera debut reprising the role of Enrique in Martinez's El pasado nunca se termina, which he created in 2015.
In the summer of 2017, Mr. La Rosa made his debut with the Brooklyn Art Song Society at the Marcella Sembrich Opera Museum in Bolton Landing, NY, performing excerpts from Mahler's Das Knaben Wunderhorn. Throughout the autumn, Mr. La Rosa rejoined Brooklyn Art Song Society for a French mélodie program dedicated to Chausson and Duparc, and bowed his debut with New York's Bare Opera as Figaro in the two-hour Mozart / Rossini pastiche Figaro/Figaro!
Recent seasons have witnessed return engagements with Lyric Opera of Chicago (Cascada in The Merry Widow, Jud Fry in Oklahoma!) and Chicago Opera Theater (Boris in Shostakovitch's Moscow, Cheryomushki), in addition to debuts with Los Angeles Opera (First Mate in Billy Budd, directed by Francesca Zambello), Lyric Opera of Kansas City (Falke in Die Fledermaus, directed by Tomer Zvulun), and Central City Opera (Jud Fry in Oklahoma!). As Enrique in the world premiere production of José "Pepe" Martinez's El pasado nunca se termina, he appeared at Lyric Opera of Chicago and made his company debuts with both San Diego Opera and Houston Grand Opera.
Committed to the performance of new works as well as to the revival of long-unheard works, in 2011 Mr. La Rosa made his debut with Chicago Opera Theater as Oronte in the Midwest premiere of Charpentier's 1693 masterpiece Médée and his debut with Opera Theater of St. Louis as Rambo and First Officer in the second fully staged US production of John Adams' The Death of Klinghoffer.
Mr. La Rosa enjoyed a long association with the late Lorin Maazel, and was a frequent guest artist at Maestro Maazel's Castleton Festival for several seasons. Under the Festival's auspices, Mr. La Rosa performed the roles of Le fauteuil in L'enfant et les sortilèges, Don Quixote in de Falla's El retablo de maese Pedro, Jack Rance in La fanciulla del West (all under the maestro's baton), and Mercutio in Roméo et Juliette. Concert appearances with Maestro Maazel include Mr. La Rosa's role debut as Jack Rance at Spain's Palacio de la Ópera de A Coruña and his Roman debut as the baritone soloist in Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana at Rome's historic Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.
Additional concert credits include debuts with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the Tanglewood Festival, the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl (both as Maximilian in Candide), and the Cleveland Orchestra both in Cleveland and at Miami's Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts (in a program of Aaron Copland's Old American Songs).
Mr. La Rosa initially came to national attention through America's most prestigious training programs. Between 2009 and 2012 he fulfilled a young artist residency in the Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago, where his responsibilities included performing Hermann in Les contes d'Hoffmann, Bello in La fanciulla del West, Silvano in Un ballo in maschera, Moralès in Carmen(conducted by Alain Altinoglu), Cascada in The Merry Widow (conducted by Emmanuel Villaume), and Kuligin in Katya Kabanovà (his company debut, conducted by Markus Stenz), as well as covering Ravenal in Show Boat, Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, Harlekin in Ariadne auf Naxos, Demetrius in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Le Dancaïre in Carmen.
Mr. La Rosa has also apprenticed with Glimmerglass Opera (performing Curio and covering Achilla in Giulio Cesare in Egitto), San Francisco Opera's Merola Opera Program (Dandini in La Cenerentola), and the Juilliard Opera Center, where he trained between 2007 and 2009. As a member of the Juilliard Opera Center, Mr. La Rosa appeared as the boxer Adam Ochsenschwanz in Ernst
Krenek's Schwergewicht oder die Ehre der Nation under the baton of James Conlon, as Ford in Falstaff in a production by Stephen Wadsworth conducted by Keri-Lynn Wilson, as Rambo in The Death of Klinghoffer under the baton of the composer, and as Raimbaud in Le comte Ory.
Mr. La Rosa earned both his Master of Music and Artist Diploma from the Juilliard School and a Bachelor of Arts from Williams College, where he double majored in Philosophy and English.
Critical Praise
Baritone Paul La Rosa made Aeneas irresistible — who wouldn’t fall for this buff, handsome, clear toned warrior?
-Heidi Waleson (The Wall Street Journal)
Paul La Rosa, as the affable, prideful, heartbreaker Aeneas, was a winning presence and sang well. … [and] only La Rosa seemed comfortable declaiming spoken text at a professional level.
-Anne E. Johnson (classicalvoiceamerica.org)
Paul La Rosa, as Aeneas, matched [Mack’s] ardent look for look and forte for forte. His voice, with intriguing colors he knows how to use for emphasis, merits a more interesting role than Aeneas, and he acted the inserted Marlowe speeches forthrightly.
-John Yohalem (Parterre.com)
Her romantic vibrato matched well with that of baritone Paul La Rosa, a glamorous voice and a smoldering personality more than sufficient to set a queen’s heart quivering.
-James Jordan (observer.com)
Especially noteworthy is Paul LaRosa’s rich, honest, natural-sounding baritone: Already in Act I his Falke caught attention for its wry sophistication, his voice and his overall countenance settling into the role immediately.
- Paul Horsley (KC Independent)
As her sometime lover. El Payador, strapping and handsome Paul La Rosa sings with a burnished throbbing tone of considerable beauty, and earns his Barihunk credentials in a steamy bedroom encounter with Maria.
-James Sohre (OperaToday.com)
It's hard to imagine better casting for the boxer Ochsenschwantz than baritone Paul La Rosa, healthy of voice, in great shape and a good comedian.
- David Shengold (Opera News Online)
The robust baritone Paul LaRosa is wonderful as the nimble-footed heavyweight duped by his wife
- Anthony Tommasini (NYTimes)
Baritone Paul La Rosa's bodacious voice and commanding personality perfectly complemented the energetic and competitive role of the Payador.
-Alison Kaufman (The Register Guard)
Let no one think just any baritone can handle the cossack kicks that Ryan Center baritone Paul LaRosa pulled off as Boris, the charmer who’s determined to lure the total girl+apartment package. He’s something of the total package himself, with a wonderful touch for physical comedy, a strong and beautiful voice and the dancing skills that one typically encounters on Broadway but not so much in the opera house.
- Nancy Malitz (Chicagoontheaisle)
Sara Heaton and Paul LaRosa sang their hearts out — and fielded a sparkling dance number worthy of Fred and Ginger — as the central romantic couple, Lidochka and Boris.
- Mark Thomas Ketterson (Opera News)
In the role of Jud Fry, Lyric veteran Paul La Rosa was engaging and made the obsessive character approachable, using his full bass-baritone to great effect in “Poor Jud Is Dead.”
- Seen and Heard International
Fry (masterfully played in the performance I saw by understudy Paul La Rosa)
- Menachem Wecker – ChicagoNow
Paul LaRosa portrays Jud, the farmhand whose desire for Laurey is a bit untoward. LaRosa's quite handsome, which gives Jud's private proclivities an added psychological edge.
- Lisa Kennedy – Denver Post
Paul La Rosa effectively doubled as a tremulous First Officer, then an unrelentingly determined Rambo, pinging his powerful baritone off the back wall. And, strapping in his wife beater tee shirt, Mr. La Rosa also managed to out-Gunn Nathan in the Muscles Parade. -James Sohre (Opera Today)
Baritone Paul La Rosa generated authentic theatrical thrills, hurling accusations at Pallesen's Klinghoffer as if the entire Arab–Israeli conflict were embodied in these two individuals.
- Joshua Rosenblum (Opera News Online)
Paul La Rosa has the gifts of a gorgeous low-baritone voice and a charming stage presence. The show-off part of Dandini fits him like a glove. He is a delightful performer.
- John Bender (San Francisco Classical Voice)
Paul La Rosa, as Dandini, was probably my fave, but that role is just too good so he was at an advantage. He has a great voice and just had the timing down perfectly for the comic stuff.
- oboeinsight.com
Paul La Rosa was smooth, velvety and full of charm.
- sfist
Handily dispatching Ford's coloratura figure preceding his Act Two, Scene One duet with Falstaff, Paul LaRosa soon boiled over with jealous rage, polished baritone sound pouring out of him, in his monologue "È sogno? o realtà?," the full-fledged dramatic aria embedded in this comic opera.
- Bruce-Michael Gelbert (QOnstage.com)
the powerfully resonant Junius of Paul LaRosa
- Charles T. Downey (Washington Post)
Tall, dashing and swaggering, La Rosa proved every inch a Figaro. He is the lucky owner of a smooth baritone with plenty of power behind it, and he spit out the Italian words so that each registered.
- Andrew L. Pincus (The Berkshire Eagle)
Baritone Paul La Rosa vocally distinguished his every appearance, whether as Mozart’s Guglielmo (in a selection from Cosi fan tutte) or Gian Carlo Menotti’s Melchior (in Amahl and the Night Visitors) or even as a mere officer (in the Meyebeer).
- James Keolker (San Francisco Classical Voice)
Juilliard graduate Paul LaRosa, who held the audience in the palm of his hand with beautiful performances of Wagner's Wolfram and Silvio from Pagliacci. He will be surely someone to be reckoned with.
- Brian Dickie