James Maddalena
Encyclopedia
James Maddalena is an American baritone
who is chiefly associated with contemporary American opera. He gained international recognition in 1987 when he created the role of Richard Nixon
at the premiere of Adams's opera Nixon in China
at Houston. He has since reprised the role on many occasions, and recorded it for the Nonesuch Records
release of the opera in 1987. In addition to Maddelena's role as Nixon, he has created two other Adams characters: the Captain in The Death of Klinghoffer
and Jack Hubbard in Doctor Atomic
. He has also performed roles in the premieres of operas by Paul Moravec
and Stewart Wallace
among other American composers.
In addition to American opera, Maddalena has sung a broad operatic repertoire which ranges from Monteverdi
, Handel
, Mozart
, and Verdi
to modern composers like Benjamin Britten
and Michael Tippett
. He is also a concert artist whose regular performances include works by Bach
, Handel
and Schubert
as well as those by modern composers.
in 1954. He was trained at the New England Conservatory (NEC), and while a student there made his professional singing debut with the Boston Pops Orchestra
in 1974. He became a member of Emmanuel Music
while an NEC student, with whom he performed all of Bach's cantatas under conductor Craig Smith
. In 1976 he co-founded the Liederkreis Ensemble, whose members included a quartet of vocalists with Smith as pianist. The ensemble was dedicated to performing lieder, particularly rarely heard works, and was awarded the Naumburg Award in 1980. He also actively performed with other music ensembles in New England during the 1970s, including singing in the world premiere of Robert Schumann
's Requiem with the New Hampshire Sinfonietta (1975) and performances of Harrison Birtwistle
's Down by the Greenwood Side with Boston Musica Viva
(1978).
Maddalena made his first forray into opera as Mr. Gedge in a student production of Benjamin Britten
's Albert Herring
at the NEC in March 1975. In the summers of 1975, 1976, and 1977 he performed with the Wolf Trap Opera Company
, a prestegious program for young opera singers at the Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts
. His professional opera debut was made in February 1977 with the Boston Lyric Opera
(BLO) during that company's first season as Allazim in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
's Zaide
. He later returned to the BLO several more times during his career, performing such roles as John Sorel in Gian Carlo Menotti
's The Consul
(1981), Albert (1981) in Jules Massenet
's Werther
, the Music Master in Richard Strauss
' Ariadne auf Naxos
(1982), Somarone in Hector Berlioz
's Béatrice et Bénédict
(1993), Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte
(2004), and Baron Duphol in La traviata
(2006). In 1979 he starred in a production of George Frideric Handel
's Atalanta
at the American Repertory Theater under conductor Herbert von Karajan
.
In 1980 Maddalena created the title role in Tony Schemmer's pop opera Phaust at Harvard University
's Sanders Theater under the baton of Philip Morehead. That same year he portrayed the role of Death in Gustav Holst
's Savitri
with Boston Cecilia
. He sang as a soloist in several other performances with Boston Cecilia, including in concerts of Handel's Athalia (1982, Abner) and Johann Sebastian Bach
's Mass in B minor (1983). In 1983 he performed the role of Abramane in the United States premiere of Jean-Philippe Rameau
's Zoroastre
with Boston Baroque
(then known as Banchetto Musicale) at the Sanders Theater under conductor Martin Pearlman
. He performed with the ensemble again in December 1984 as a soloist in Handel's Messiah
for performances in both Boston and at New York City's Carnegie Hall
.
at the Palace Theatre
in Manchester, New Hampshire with the New Hampshire Symphony Orchestra
for the Monadnock Music Festival (MMF). The production used a modernized staging which was conceived by director Peter Sellars
, just 23 years old at the time. It was the first professional opera directed by Sellars. While Opera News
dubbed the production as "an act of artistic vandalism", The New York Times
was more positive in its review, with critic Peter G. Davis hailing the staging as "remarkably stimulating and provocative" and stating that "Maddalena was an appropriately loathsome Don, and he sang the part with a fine, firmly modulated baritone."
The 1980 production of Don Giovanni marked the beginning of a long and fruitful artistic partnership between Sellars and Maddalena which continues to this day. In 1981 he sang the role of Idreno in the United States premiere of Joseph Haydn
's Armida
at the MMF in which Sellars staged the opera during the Vietnam War
. Other roles Maddalena performed in Sellars productions included Guglielmo in Così fan tutte
(1984, Castle Hill Festival and 1986, Pepsico Summerfare), Count Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro
(1984, MMF and 1988, Pepsico Summerfare), and Achilla in Handel's Giulio Cesare
(1987).
In 1987 Maddalena entered the annals of opera history when he created the role of President Richard Nixon
at the premiere of John Adams's opera Nixon in China
at the Houston Grand Opera
. Directed and initially conceived by Sellars, the opera was belittled by many critics at its premiere. However, the opera's enduring popularity has since changed critical evaluation of the work, and it is now considered a classic. Maddalena, who physically resembles Nixon, has become closely associated with the part he created in the premiere. Soon after the Houston premiere, he performed the role at the Brooklyn Academy of Music
, De Nederlandse Opera
and the Washington National Opera
. He has subsequently performed the role at the Edinburgh International Festival
(1988), the Los Angeles Opera
(1990), the Maison de la Culture di Bobigny, Paris (1991), the Frankfurt Opera (1992), the Adelaide Festival (1992), the English National Opera
(2000 and 2006), and the Greek National Opera
(2007) among others. He most recently sang Nixon for his debut at the Metropolitan Opera
in 2011.
Maddalena teamed up with Sellars again for performances in two more world premieres of operas by composer John Adams: creating the parts of the Captain in The Death of Klinghoffer
(1991, La Monnaie
) and Jack Hubbard in Doctor Atomic
(2005, San Francisco Opera
). He subsequently recorded the role of the Captain and sang that role in productions at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Opéra National de Lyon
, the San Francisco Opera, and at the Vienna Festival
.
's The Midnight Angel (1993, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis
), a variety of roles in Stewart Wallace
's Harvey Milk (1995, Houston Grand Opera), Art Kamen in Wallace's The Bonesetter's Daughter
(2008, San Francisco Opera), the title role in Kirke Mechem
’s John Brown (2008, Lyric Opera of Kansas City), Howard Joyce in Paul Moravec
's The Letter
(2009, Santa Fe Opera
), and Clotaldo in Lewis Spratlan
’s Life is a Dream
(2010, Santa Fe Opera). In 2001 he performed the role of Gideon March in Mark Adamo
's Little Women
in Houston; a performance which was broadcast live on PBS
's Great Performances
. In October 2010 he sang the role of Simon Powers in the premiere of Tod Machover
's science fiction opera Death and the Powers at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo
.
In 1995 Maddalena sang in the premiere of Elliot Goldenthal
's Fire Water Paper: A Vietnam Oratorio
and also recorded that work with cellist Yo-Yo Ma
.
Baritone
Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
who is chiefly associated with contemporary American opera. He gained international recognition in 1987 when he created the role of Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
at the premiere of Adams's opera Nixon in China
Nixon in China (opera)
Nixon in China is an opera in three acts by John Adams, with a libretto by Alice Goodman. Adams' first opera, it was inspired by the 1972 visit to China by US President Richard Nixon. The work premiered at the Houston Grand Opera on October 22, 1987, in a production by Peter Sellars with...
at Houston. He has since reprised the role on many occasions, and recorded it for the Nonesuch Records
Nonesuch Records
Nonesuch Records is an American record label, owned by Warner Music Group and distributed by Warner Bros. Records.-Company history:Nonesuch was founded in 1964 by Jac Holzman to produce "fine records at the same price as a trade paperback", which would be half the price of a normal LP...
release of the opera in 1987. In addition to Maddelena's role as Nixon, he has created two other Adams characters: the Captain in The Death of Klinghoffer
The Death of Klinghoffer
The Death of Klinghoffer is an American opera, with music by John Adams to an English-language libretto by Alice Goodman. First produced in Brussels and New York in 1991, the opera is based on the hijacking of the passenger liner Achille Lauro by the Palestine Liberation Front in 1985, and the...
and Jack Hubbard in Doctor Atomic
Doctor Atomic
Doctor Atomic is an opera by the contemporary American composer John Adams, with libretto by Peter Sellars. It premiered at the San Francisco Opera on 1 October 2005. The work focuses on the great stress and anxiety experienced by those at Los Alamos while the test of the first atomic bomb was...
. He has also performed roles in the premieres of operas by Paul Moravec
Paul Moravec
Paul Moravec is an American composer and a University Professor at Adelphi University on Long Island, New York...
and Stewart Wallace
Stewart Wallace
Stewart Wallace is an American composer and cantor. He has spent much of his career composing experimental operas, from the dance-centered Kabbalah to the surrealist Hopper's Wife...
among other American composers.
In addition to American opera, Maddalena has sung a broad operatic repertoire which ranges from Monteverdi
Claudio Monteverdi
Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, gambist, and singer.Monteverdi's work, often regarded as revolutionary, marked the transition from the Renaissance style of music to that of the Baroque period. He developed two individual styles of composition – the...
, Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
, Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
, and Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
to modern composers like Benjamin Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
and Michael Tippett
Michael Tippett
Sir Michael Kemp Tippett OM CH CBE was an English composer.In his long career he produced a large body of work, including five operas, three large-scale choral works, four symphonies, five string quartets, four piano sonatas, concertos and concertante works, song cycles and incidental music...
. He is also a concert artist whose regular performances include works by Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
, Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
and Schubert
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
as well as those by modern composers.
Early life and career
Maddalena was born in Lynn, MassachusettsLynn, Massachusetts
Lynn is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 89,050 at the 2000 census. An old industrial center, Lynn is home to Lynn Beach and Lynn Heritage State Park and is about north of downtown Boston.-17th century:...
in 1954. He was trained at the New England Conservatory (NEC), and while a student there made his professional singing debut with the Boston Pops Orchestra
Boston Pops Orchestra
The Boston Pops Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts, that specializes in playing light classical and popular music....
in 1974. He became a member of Emmanuel Music
Emmanuel Music
Emmanuel Music is a Boston-based collective group of singers and instrumentalists founded in 1970 by Craig Smith. It was created specifically to perform the complete cycle of over 200 sacred cantatas of J.S. Bach in the liturgical setting for which they were intended, an endeavor twice completed...
while an NEC student, with whom he performed all of Bach's cantatas under conductor Craig Smith
Craig Smith (conductor)
Craig Smith was an American conductor who is considered a seminal figure in Boston's Baroque music revival of the 1970s and 1980s. In subsequent years he became increasingly known as an international conductor...
. In 1976 he co-founded the Liederkreis Ensemble, whose members included a quartet of vocalists with Smith as pianist. The ensemble was dedicated to performing lieder, particularly rarely heard works, and was awarded the Naumburg Award in 1980. He also actively performed with other music ensembles in New England during the 1970s, including singing in the world premiere of Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
's Requiem with the New Hampshire Sinfonietta (1975) and performances of Harrison Birtwistle
Harrison Birtwistle
Sir Harrison Paul Birtwistle CH is a British contemporary composer.-Life:Birtwistle was born in Accrington, a mill town in Lancashire some 20 miles north of Manchester. His interest in music was encouraged by his mother, who bought him a clarinet when he was seven, and arranged for him to have...
's Down by the Greenwood Side with Boston Musica Viva
Boston Musica Viva
Boston Musica Viva is a Boston, Massachusetts-based music ensemble founded by its Music Director, Richard Pittman, in 1969 and dedicated to contemporary music.-Composers and compositions:...
(1978).
Maddalena made his first forray into opera as Mr. Gedge in a student production of Benjamin Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
's Albert Herring
Albert Herring
Albert Herring, Op. 39, is a chamber opera in three acts by Benjamin Britten.Composed in the winter of 1946 and the spring of 1947, this comic opera was a successor to his serious opera The Rape of Lucretia...
at the NEC in March 1975. In the summers of 1975, 1976, and 1977 he performed with the Wolf Trap Opera Company
Wolf Trap Opera Company
The Wolf Trap Opera Company produces a summer opera festival as part of the program of the Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts in Vienna, Virginia....
, a prestegious program for young opera singers at the Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts
Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts
Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts, known locally in the Washington, D.C. area as simply Wolf Trap, is a performing arts center located on 130 acres of national park land in Wolf Trap, Virginia...
. His professional opera debut was made in February 1977 with the Boston Lyric Opera
Boston Lyric Opera
Boston Lyric Opera is an American opera company based in Boston, Massachusetts, founded in 1976.Each season, BLO produces three mainstage productions at the Citi Performing Arts Center Shubert Theatre in Boston and a fully staged, one-hour English language version of a popular opera for school...
(BLO) during that company's first season as Allazim in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
's Zaide
Zaide
Zaide is an unfinished opera, K. 344, written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1780. Emperor Joseph II, in 1778, was in the process of setting up an opera company for the purpose of performing German opera. One condition required of the composer to join this company was that he should write a...
. He later returned to the BLO several more times during his career, performing such roles as John Sorel in Gian Carlo Menotti
Gian Carlo Menotti
Gian Carlo Menotti was an Italian-American composer and librettist. Although he often referred to himself as an American composer, he kept his Italian citizenship. He wrote the classic Christmas opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors, among about two dozen other operas intended to appeal to popular...
's The Consul
The Consul
The Consul is an opera in three acts with music and libretto by Gian Carlo Menotti, his first full-length opera. Its first performance was on March 1, 1950, at the Shubert Theatre in Philadelphia with Patricia Neway as the lead heroine Magda Sorel, Gloria Lane as the secretary of the consulate,...
(1981), Albert (1981) in Jules Massenet
Jules Massenet
Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas...
's Werther
Werther
Werther is an opera in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann based on the German epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe....
, the Music Master in Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
' Ariadne auf Naxos
Ariadne auf Naxos
Ariadne auf Naxos is an opera by Richard Strauss with a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Bringing together slapstick comedy and consuming beautiful music, the opera's theme is the competition between high and low art for the public's attention.- First version :The opera was originally...
(1982), Somarone in Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...
's Béatrice et Bénédict
Béatrice et Bénédict
Béatrice et Bénédict is an opera in two acts by Hector Berlioz. Berlioz wrote the French libretto himself, based closely on Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing....
(1993), Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti K. 588, is an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed in 1790. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte....
(2004), and Baron Duphol in La traviata
La traviata
La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...
(2006). In 1979 he starred in a production of George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
's Atalanta
Atalanta (opera)
Atalanta is an opera in three acts by George Frideric Handel composed in 1736. It is based upon the mythological female athlete, Atalanta, the libretto being derived from the book La Caccia in Etolia by Belisario Valeriani...
at the American Repertory Theater under conductor Herbert von Karajan
Herbert von Karajan
Herbert von Karajan was an Austrian orchestra and opera conductor. To the wider world he was perhaps most famously associated with the Berlin Philharmonic, of which he was principal conductor for 35 years...
.
In 1980 Maddalena created the title role in Tony Schemmer's pop opera Phaust at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
's Sanders Theater under the baton of Philip Morehead. That same year he portrayed the role of Death in Gustav Holst
Gustav Holst
Gustav Theodore Holst was an English composer. He is most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets....
's Savitri
Savitri (opera)
Sāvitri is a chamber opera in one act by Gustav Holst, his Opus 25, with the libretto by Holst himself. The story is based on the episode of Savitri and Satyavan from the Mahābhārata, which was also included in Specimens of Old Indian Poetry and Idylls from the Sanskrit...
with Boston Cecilia
Boston Cecilia
The Boston Cecilia is a choral society in Boston, Massachusetts, which is in its 132nd season. Founded in 1876, the ensemble has enjoyed historic relationships with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and famous conductors and composers, such as Arthur Fiedler, Igor Stravinsky, and Antonín Dvořák...
. He sang as a soloist in several other performances with Boston Cecilia, including in concerts of Handel's Athalia (1982, Abner) and Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
's Mass in B minor (1983). In 1983 he performed the role of Abramane in the United States premiere of Jean-Philippe Rameau
Jean-Philippe Rameau
Jean-Philippe Rameau was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era. He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is also considered the leading French composer for the harpsichord of his time, alongside François...
's Zoroastre
Zoroastre
Zoroastre is an opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau, first performed on 5 December 1749 at the Opéra in Paris. The libretto is by Louis de Cahusac. Zoroastre was the fourth of Rameau's tragédies en musique to be staged and the last to appear during the composer's own lifetime...
with Boston Baroque
Boston Baroque
Boston Baroque is the oldest continuing period instrument orchestra in North America. It was founded in 1973 by the American harpsichordist and conductor, Martin Pearlman to present concerts of the Baroque and Classical repertoire on period instruments, drawing on the insights of the historical...
(then known as Banchetto Musicale) at the Sanders Theater under conductor Martin Pearlman
Martin Pearlman
Martin Pearlman is an American conductor, harpsichordist, composer, and early-music specialist. In the1973-74 season, he founded Boston Baroque , the first permanent period-instrument orchestra in North America...
. He performed with the ensemble again in December 1984 as a soloist in Handel's Messiah
Messiah (Handel)
Messiah is an English-language oratorio composed in 1741 by George Frideric Handel, with a scriptural text compiled by Charles Jennens from the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. It was first performed in Dublin on 13 April 1742, and received its London premiere nearly a year later...
for performances in both Boston and at New York City's Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
.
Working with Sellars and Adams
In September 1980 Maddalena portrayed the title role in a controversial production of Mozart's Don GiovanniDon Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
at the Palace Theatre
Palace Theatre (Manchester, New Hampshire)
The Palace Theatre is a stage production venue in Manchester, New Hampshire, USA.-The start:In June, 1914, Greek immigrant Victor Charas with the help of general contractor Henry Macropol and architect Leon Lempert & Son began construction on the theatre...
in Manchester, New Hampshire with the New Hampshire Symphony Orchestra
New Hampshire Symphony Orchestra
The New Hampshire Symphony Orchestra was an American orchestra, one of three based in Manchester, New Hampshire. It was established in 1974. Its last listed music director was Kenneth Kiesler....
for the Monadnock Music Festival (MMF). The production used a modernized staging which was conceived by director Peter Sellars
Peter Sellars
Peter Sellars is an American theatre director, noted for his unique contemporary stagings of classical and contemporary operas and plays...
, just 23 years old at the time. It was the first professional opera directed by Sellars. While Opera News
Opera News
Opera News is an American classical music magazine. It has been published since 1936 by the Metropolitan Opera Guild, a non-profit organization located at Lincoln Center which was founded to support the Metropolitan Opera of New York City...
dubbed the production as "an act of artistic vandalism", The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
was more positive in its review, with critic Peter G. Davis hailing the staging as "remarkably stimulating and provocative" and stating that "Maddalena was an appropriately loathsome Don, and he sang the part with a fine, firmly modulated baritone."
The 1980 production of Don Giovanni marked the beginning of a long and fruitful artistic partnership between Sellars and Maddalena which continues to this day. In 1981 he sang the role of Idreno in the United States premiere of Joseph Haydn
Joseph Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...
's Armida
Armida (Haydn)
Armida, Hob. 28/12, is an opera in three acts by Joseph Haydn, set to a libretto based upon Torquato Tasso's poem Gerusalemme liberata . The first performance was 26 February 1784 and it went on to receive 54 performances from 1784 to 1788 at the Esterháza Court Theatre...
at the MMF in which Sellars staged the opera during the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. Other roles Maddalena performed in Sellars productions included Guglielmo in Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti K. 588, is an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed in 1790. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte....
(1984, Castle Hill Festival and 1986, Pepsico Summerfare), Count Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro
The Marriage of Figaro
Le nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata , K. 492, is an opera buffa composed in 1786 in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro .Although the play by...
(1984, MMF and 1988, Pepsico Summerfare), and Achilla in Handel's Giulio Cesare
Giulio Cesare
Giulio Cesare in Egitto , commonly known simply as Giulio Cesare, is an Italian opera in three acts written for the Royal Academy of Music by George Frideric Handel in 1724...
(1987).
In 1987 Maddalena entered the annals of opera history when he created the role of President Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
at the premiere of John Adams's opera Nixon in China
Nixon in China (opera)
Nixon in China is an opera in three acts by John Adams, with a libretto by Alice Goodman. Adams' first opera, it was inspired by the 1972 visit to China by US President Richard Nixon. The work premiered at the Houston Grand Opera on October 22, 1987, in a production by Peter Sellars with...
at the Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera Houston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit, Edward Bing and Charles Cockrell...
. Directed and initially conceived by Sellars, the opera was belittled by many critics at its premiere. However, the opera's enduring popularity has since changed critical evaluation of the work, and it is now considered a classic. Maddalena, who physically resembles Nixon, has become closely associated with the part he created in the premiere. Soon after the Houston premiere, he performed the role at the Brooklyn Academy of Music
Brooklyn Academy of Music
Brooklyn Academy of Music is a major performing arts venue in Brooklyn, a borough of New York City, United States, known as a center for progressive and avant garde performance....
, De Nederlandse Opera
De Nederlandse Opera
De Nederlandse Opera , in Amsterdam, is a Dutch opera company based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Its present home base is the Het Muziektheater, a modern building designed by Cees Dam which opened in 1986....
and the Washington National Opera
Washington National Opera
The Washington National Opera is an opera company in Washington, D.C., USA. Formerly the Opera Society of Washington and the Washington Opera, the company received Congressional designation as the National Opera Company in 2000. Performances are now given in the Opera House of the John F...
. He has subsequently performed the role at the Edinburgh International Festival
Edinburgh International Festival
The Edinburgh International Festival is a festival of performing arts that takes place in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, over three weeks from around the middle of August. By invitation from the Festival Director, the International Festival brings top class performers of music , theatre, opera...
(1988), the Los Angeles Opera
Los Angeles Opera
The Los Angeles Opera is an opera company in Los Angeles, California. It is the fourth largest opera company in the United States. The company's home base is the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, part of the Los Angeles Music Center.-Current leadership:...
(1990), the Maison de la Culture di Bobigny, Paris (1991), the Frankfurt Opera (1992), the Adelaide Festival (1992), the English National Opera
English National Opera
English National Opera is an opera company based in London, resident at the London Coliseum in St. Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden...
(2000 and 2006), and the Greek National Opera
Greek National Opera
The Greek National Opera is the country's state lyric opera company, located at 59 Akadimias Street in centralAthens. It is a public corporation under the supervision of the Greek Ministry of Culture and administered by the Board of Trustees and its Artistic Director.The organization is responsible...
(2007) among others. He most recently sang Nixon for his debut at the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
in 2011.
Maddalena teamed up with Sellars again for performances in two more world premieres of operas by composer John Adams: creating the parts of the Captain in The Death of Klinghoffer
The Death of Klinghoffer
The Death of Klinghoffer is an American opera, with music by John Adams to an English-language libretto by Alice Goodman. First produced in Brussels and New York in 1991, the opera is based on the hijacking of the passenger liner Achille Lauro by the Palestine Liberation Front in 1985, and the...
(1991, La Monnaie
La Monnaie
Le Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie , or the Koninklijke Muntschouwburg is a theatre in Brussels, Belgium....
) and Jack Hubbard in Doctor Atomic
Doctor Atomic
Doctor Atomic is an opera by the contemporary American composer John Adams, with libretto by Peter Sellars. It premiered at the San Francisco Opera on 1 October 2005. The work focuses on the great stress and anxiety experienced by those at Los Alamos while the test of the first atomic bomb was...
(2005, San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera is an American opera company, based in San Francisco, California.It was founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola and is the second largest opera company in North America...
). He subsequently recorded the role of the Captain and sang that role in productions at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Opéra National de Lyon
Opéra National de Lyon
Opéra National de Lyon is an opera company in Lyon, France which performs in the Nouvel Opéra, a modernized version in 1993 of the original 1831 opera house.The inaugural performance of François-Adrien Boïeldieu's La Dame blanche was given on 1 July 1831...
, the San Francisco Opera, and at the Vienna Festival
Vienna Festival
The Wiener Festwochen is a cultural festival in Vienna that takes place every year for five or six weeks in May and June.The Wiener Festwochen was established in 1951, when Vienna was still occupied by the four Allies...
.
Other work
Maddalena has created roles in several other world premieres, including Hobson in David CarlsonDavid Carlson
David Carlson American composer.Carlson studied theory and composition at the Los Angeles High School of the Arts and with Leonard Stein at the California Institute of the Arts...
's The Midnight Angel (1993, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis
Opera Theatre of Saint Louis
Opera Theatre of Saint Louis is a summer opera festival held in St. Louis, Missouri. Typically four operas, all sung in English, are presented each season, which runs from late May to late June. Performances are accompanied by the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, which is divided into two...
), a variety of roles in Stewart Wallace
Stewart Wallace
Stewart Wallace is an American composer and cantor. He has spent much of his career composing experimental operas, from the dance-centered Kabbalah to the surrealist Hopper's Wife...
's Harvey Milk (1995, Houston Grand Opera), Art Kamen in Wallace's The Bonesetter's Daughter
The Bonesetter's Daughter (opera)
The Bonesetter's Daughter is an opera in a prologue and two acts by Stewart Wallace to a libretto byAmy Tan based on her novel of the same name...
(2008, San Francisco Opera), the title role in Kirke Mechem
Kirke Mechem
Kirke Mechem is an American composer. His first opera, Tartuffe, with nearly 400 performances in six countries, has become one of the most popular operas written by an American. He has composed more than 250 works in almost every form. In 2002, ASCAP registered performances of his music in 42...
’s John Brown (2008, Lyric Opera of Kansas City), Howard Joyce in Paul Moravec
Paul Moravec
Paul Moravec is an American composer and a University Professor at Adelphi University on Long Island, New York...
's The Letter
The Letter (opera)
The Letter is an opera by composer Paul Moravec and librettist Terry Teachout. It was commissioned by the Santa Fe Opera and was premiered there on July 25, 2009....
(2009, Santa Fe Opera
Santa Fe Opera
The Santa Fe Opera is an American opera company, located north of Santa Fe in the U.S. state of New Mexico, headquartered on a former guest ranch of .-General history:...
), and Clotaldo in Lewis Spratlan
Lewis Spratlan
M. Lewis Spratlan Jr. is an American music academic and composer of contemporary classical music.Born in Miami, Florida, Spratlan played the oboe as a youth. He attended Yale University and was a student of Mel Powell and Gunther Schuller...
’s Life is a Dream
Life is a Dream (opera)
Life is a Dream is a three-act opera with music by Lewis Spratlan from an English-language libretto by James Maraniss which was based on the 1635 play Life is a Dream by Spanish playwright Pedro Calderón de la Barca...
(2010, Santa Fe Opera). In 2001 he performed the role of Gideon March in Mark Adamo
Mark Adamo
Mark Adamo is an Italian American composer and librettist born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. While he has composed the symphonic cantata "Late Victorians, "Four Angels: Concerto for Harp and Orchestra," and six substantial choral works, the composer’s principal work has been for the opera house:...
's Little Women
Little Women (opera)
Little Women is the first opera composed by American composer Mark Adamo to his own libretto after Louisa May Alcott's tale of growing up in New England after the American Civil War, Little Women. The opera also includes text by John Bunyan , Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Little Women (1998) is the...
in Houston; a performance which was broadcast live on PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
's Great Performances
Great Performances
Great Performances, a television series devoted to the performing arts, has been telecast on Public Broadcasting Service public television since 1972...
. In October 2010 he sang the role of Simon Powers in the premiere of Tod Machover
Tod Machover
Tod Machover , is a composer and an innovator in the application of technology in music. He is the son of Wilma Machover, a pianist and Carl Machover, a computer scientist....
's science fiction opera Death and the Powers at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo
Opéra de Monte-Carlo
The Opéra de Monte-Carlo is an opera house located in the principality of Monaco.With the lack of cultural diversions available in Monaco in the 1870s, Prince Charles III, along with the Société des Bains de Mer, decided on the construction of an opera house. Initially, it was Charles III's...
.
In 1995 Maddalena sang in the premiere of Elliot Goldenthal
Elliot Goldenthal
Elliot Goldenthal is an American composer of contemporary classical music. He was a student of Aaron Copland and John Corigliano, and is best known for his distinctive style and ability to blend various musical styles and techniques in original and inventive ways...
's Fire Water Paper: A Vietnam Oratorio
Fire Water Paper: A Vietnam Oratorio
Fire Water Paper: A Vietnam Oratorio is a large scale orchestral oratorio composed by Elliot Goldenthal, commissioned and performed by the Pacific Symphony Orchestra in 1993 for the 20th Anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War.-The album:...
and also recorded that work with cellist Yo-Yo Ma
Yo-Yo Ma
Yo-Yo Ma is an American cellist, virtuoso, and orchestral composer. He has received multiple Grammy Awards, the National Medal of Arts in 2001 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011...
.