Tuesday Voice Series | Masterclass with Brett Polegato, baritone

Master Class in Song with Brett Polegato, baritone

Featuring singers from the Faculty of Music and pianist Jialiang Zhu.

PROGRAM

The Vagabond (Songs of Travel)

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958)
Mathias Séror, baritone (Second-Year Undergraduate in Performance)

Après un rêve (Trois mélodies, Op. 7)

Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924)
Adam Przyjemski, baritone (Third-Year Undergraduate in Performance)

La belle jeunesse (Chansons gaillardes, FP 42)

Francis Poulenc (1899–1963)
Charlie Sadler, baritone (Second-Year Master’s in Vocal Pedagogy)

Sanglots (Banalités, FP 107)

Francis Poulenc
Lucas Kalechstein, baritone (Third-Year Undergraduate in Performance)

Alternate: 
Nebbie

Ottorino Respighi (1879–1936)
Vikram Srinivas, baritone (Third-Year Undergraduate in Performance)

Biography

Brett Polegato, baritone

One of today’s most sought-after lyric baritones on the international stage, Canadian-Italian Brett Polegato has earned the highest praise from audiences and critics for his artistic sensibility: “his is a serious and seductive voice” says The Globe and Mail, while the New York Times has praised him for his “burnished, well-focused voice” which he uses with “considerable intelligence and nuance.” His career has encompassed over fifty operatic roles at the world’s most prestigious venues, including La Scala, l’Opéra National de Paris, the Glyndebourne Festival, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera, the Teatro Real, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and Carnegie Hall.

Highlights in the 2025/2026 season include Scarpia Tosca with Pacific Opera Victoria and his return to Grange Park Opera in John Tavener’s The Play of Krishna. In concert he performs a recital at the Salle Bourgie Montréal and Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the Grand Philharmonic Choir and Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony.

Recent operatic highlights include his debuts at MusikTheater an der Wien (Capulet Roméo et Juliette), the Metropolitan Opera (Brétigny Manon), Wexford Festival Opera (Dr Talbot in the European premiere of William Bolcom’s Dinner at Eight) and Longborough Festival Opera (Golaud Pelléas et Mélisande); title role The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs (Calgary Opera), Fanuèl in Boito’s Nerone (Bregenzer Festspiele), Posa Don Carlo, title role Eugene Onegin and Marcello La bohème (Grange Park Opera); Kurwenal Tristan und Isolde (opera di Roma, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and Opéra national de Bordeaux); his role debut as Amfortas Parsifal (Festival de Lanaudière); Sharpless (Irish National Opera); Howie Albert Champion (Opéra de Montréal); Starbuck Moby Dick, Lieutenant Audebert Silent Night and Frank and Fritz Die Tote Stadt (Calgary Opera); Posa Don Carlos and title role Don Giovanni (Vancouver Opera); title role Wozzeck (Bolshoi Theatre of Moscow); Zurga Les pêcheurs de perles, Dandini La Cenerentola and Sharpless Madama Butterfly (Seattle Opera and Vancouver Opera); and Papageno Die Zauberflöte (Cincinnati Opera). He originated the role of Prospero in Anthony Bolton’s Island of Dreams at Grange Park Opera.

Equally at ease on the concert platform, he has appeared with almost every major orchestra in the USA and Canada and several in Europe, performing repertoire including Zemlinsky’s Lyrische Symphonie (Orchestre Métropolitain); the world premiere of Jeffrey Ryan’s Afghanistan: Requiem for a Generation (Vancouver Symphony Orchestra); Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra); and Ravel’s L’heure espagnole (BBC Proms). He also sang Richard Brown in the world premiere concert of Kevin Puts’s The Hours with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

Polegato’s discography shifts as seamlessly through genres as his live appearances. His recordings include Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony (Grammy Award winner, Best Classical Recording), his acclaimed solo disc To A Poet (CBC Records), an Analekta-Fleur de Lys disc of Bach’s popular Coffee and Peasant Cantatas with the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, a live period-instrument performance of Handel’s Messiah under Andrew Parrott, Emmerich Kálmán’s Die Herzogin von Chicago with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra (Decca), and Gluck’s Armide with Les Musiciens du Louvre (Deutsche Grammophon Archiv Produktion).