Kyle Ketelsen (United States)

Bass-baritone — Don Basilio in The Barber of Seville, Don Fernando in Fidelio

Houston Grand Opera debut

About the Artist: Ketelsen will appear in Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem with San Francisco Symphony and “Christmas Spectacular” with Madison Symphony Orchestra. He made his Royal Opera House debut as the Sprecher in Die Zauberflöte, has portrayed Henrik in Maskerade, and debuted in Le nozze di Figaro with Teatro Carlo Felico. He debuted at Lyric Opera of Chicago as Masetto in Don Giovanni and has since performed there in Le nozze di Figaro, as Mephistopheles in Faust, and as Escamillo in Carmen. Ketelsen has debuted at the San Francisco, Washington National, and Orlando operas. He has also appeared at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Michigan Opera Theater, and Teatro Real in Madrid. Role debuts have included Nick Shadow in the Royal Opera House’s Robert Lepage production of The Rake’s Progress and as Alidoro in La Cenerentola for Canadian Opera Company. He made his Festival d’Aix-en-Provence debut as Leporello in a new Dmitri Chernyakov production of Don Giovanni. Additional debuts include those at the Metropolitan, Minnesota, Madison, New York City, Hamburg State, Boston Lyric, Glimmerglass, and Los Angeles operas, among others. He has been featured in a duo recital under the auspices of the George London Foundation with Elizabeth Futral, and has collaborated with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Chicago, St. Louis, Pacific, Richmond, and Seattle symphonies, among others. Awards include first prize in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and a Richard Tucker Music Foundation Career Grant. He studied with Albert Gammon at the University of Iowa and at Indiana University under the tutelage of Giorgio Tozzi.