Butler Studio alumnus Ryan McKinny performs the role of Jan in Breaking the Waves during HGO's 2024-25 season. He has performed with HGO many times, including as Amfortas in Parsifal (2024); Jokanaan in Salome (2023); the title role in Don Giovanni (2019); Gunther in Götterdämmerung (2017); and Donner in Das Rheingold, Escamillo in Carmen, and the title role in Rigoletto (all in 2014). This season at HGO, he performs as Amfortas in Parsifal and as Leporello in Don Giovanni. McKinny opened the Metropolitan Opera’s 2023-24 season opposite Joyce DiDonato in the company premiere of Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, which was simulcast in theaters in more than 70 countries via Met Live in HD. He also creates the lead role of Mac in the world premiere of Heggie’s Before It All Goes Dark, with performances in Seattle, San Francisco, and Chicago. During the 2022-23 season McKinny returned to the Los Angeles Opera in his role debut as Scarpia in Tosca, Seattle Opera as Kurwenal in Tristan und Isolde, and Los Angeles Philharmonic as Clarence in John Adam’s Girls of the Golden West, a role he created with San Francisco Opera. He also made his role debut as Bluebeard in Boston Lyric Opera’s Bluebeard’s Castle and sang Heggie’s For a Look or a Touch on a three-city tour with Music of Remembrance. He has made additional appearances at the Lyric Opera of Chicago (Joseph De Rocher in Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, Don Giovanni); Metropolitan Opera (Figaro in The Marriage of Figaro, Biterolf in Tannhäuser, Speaker in The Magic Flute, Kothner in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and Lieutenant Ratcliffe in Billy Budd); Dutch National Opera (debut in Pierre Audi’s production of Parsifal); Los Angeles Opera; Santa Fe Opera; Washington National Opera; Staatstheater Wiesbaden; English National Opera; Semperoper Dresden; Hamburg State Opera; Deutsche Oper Berlin; Deutsche Oper am Rhein; Teatro Colón; and many other companies.