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Robert Dean Smith

Robert Dean Smith

Born: 2nd May 1956, Kansas, USA

Nationality: American

Artist's website: http://www.robertdeansmith.com/

Born in Kansas in 1956, the American-Swiss tenor Robert Dean Smith trained at Pittsburgh State University and the Juilliard, initially singing as a baritone before transitioning into dramatic tenor repertoire; he is particularly associated with Wagner roles, debuting at Bayreuth in 1997 as Walther in Die Meistersinger and at the Royal Opera House in the same role three years later. Non-Wagnerian repertoire includes Beethoven’s Florestan, Strauss’s Bacchus and Emperor, Verdi’s Otello and Radamès, and Puccini’s Pinkerton and Cavaradossi.

He features prominently on Marek Janowski’s Pentatone Wagner series, on which he sings Walther, Erik, Siegmund and Tannhäuser (‘a passionate assault on the fiendish title-role’ – Gramophone), with other discographical highlights including Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Riccardo Chailly and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and with Philippe Jordan and the Orchestre de l’Opera National de Paris, the 2009 Bayreuth Tristan on DVD and Blu-ray, and Bacchus (opposite Renée Fleming’s Ariadne) in a 2012 production from Baden-Baden.

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