A native of Princeton, NJ, Matthew Curran, has garnered attention internationally with his broad range of repertoire and strong physical presence. Critics have described him as having “the voice of a poet,” and a sound “that is confident and comes with a twinkle.”
Mr. Curran has focused on the core bass repertoire such as Sarastro, Colline, Sarastro, Frère Laurent, Sparafucile and Gremin, while actively pursuing contemporary and lesser-known works such as Britten’s Gloriana, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Rape of Lucretia, Lieberman’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Tarik O’Regan’s Heart of Darkness, and Christopher Berg’s Cymbeline. He has also been a regular singer with American Opera Projects in numerous works in development as well as being a resident singer for their Composer and the Voice workshop for three seasons.
Most recently, he was as Sarastro as a guest artist with Queens College Opera. Other recent appearances include Penvald in a concert performance of Fervaal by Vincent D’Indy with the American Symphony Orchestra at Avery Fisher Hall, Mat of the Mint in The Beggar’s Opera conducted by Lorin Maazel at the Castleton Festival and as a soloist in the Mendelssohn St. Paul oratorio with the American Symphony Orchestra. He also sang Inspector Watts in a concert performance of Séance on a Wet Afternoon, Stephen Schwartz’s first opera. He is also thrilled with the recent release on the Naxos label of his performance as Edwin Cheney in Shining Brow, by Daron Hagen, an opera on the life of Frank Lloyd Wright. The recording is from a live concert performance with the Buffalo Philharmonic.
A cum laude graduate of the Loyola University New Orleans School of Music, he received his Master’s degree at the prestigious Indiana University School of Music, which led him to being immediately accepted into the Seattle Opera’s young artist program where he sang Colline in La Bohème, Don Magnifico in La Cenerentola and Zaretsky in Eugene Onegin on the main stage. Following Seattle he furthered his training at the International Opera Studio in Zurich singing Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte, Macrobio in Rossini’s La Pietra del Paragone, and Max Hammer in Der Musikfeind along with numerous smaller roles on the Main stage along side many of the world’s top names. He has performed with Seattle Opera, Zürich Opera, Opera New Jersey, New Orleans Opera, Chautauqua Opera, Central City Opera, The Castleton Festival, Skagit Opera, Washington East Opera, Aspen Opera Theater, Center City Opera Theater, and Opera Company of Brooklyn, among others.
Upcoming performances include Sparafucile in A Flight of Verdi with the Baltimore Concert Opera and Colline in La Bohème with Atlanta Opera.
