Liam Bonner
Encyclopedia
Liam Bonner is a New York based baritone opera singer. He is currently in the company of The Metropolitan Opera in New York, NY. He frequently guests with the Houston Grand Opera
in Houston, Texas, among other American and European opera companies. He has won multiple awards, including third place in the First International Pavel Lisitsian
Baritone Competition in Moscow, Russia. He is also an award winner in the Lotte Lenya Competition, and the Houston Grand Opera
's Eleanor McCollum Competition.
in Pittsburgh, PA, where he grew up. He achieved a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) from Carnegie Mellon University
, and a Master of Music from the Manhattan School of Music
.
He is also an alumnus of the San Francisco Opera
's Merola Program and a former Studio and Apprentice Artist at Central City Opera
.
Bonner is the recipient of a Richard F. Gold Career Grant from the Shoshana Foundation
and was a semi-finalist in The Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. He has won awards from The George London
Foundation and the Houston Grand Opera
’s Eleanor McCollum Competition.
with the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis
and covered the same role with The Metropolitan Opera, as well as covering the role of Raimbaud in Le Comte Ory
. Bonner performed the role of Zurga in Les pêcheurs de perles
with The New Orleans Opera
and as Ned Keene in Peter Grimes
with the Houston Grand Opera
.
In the 2009-2010 season, Bonner made his Washington National Opera
debut in the title role of Hamlet
under the baton of Placido Domingo
and returned to the Houston Grand Opera
as Belcore in L'elisir d'amore
.
Bonner’s Metropolitan Opera
debut was playing Morales in Carmen
in 2010, and later, Horatio in Hamlet
.
In 2010, Bonner sang his first performances of Malatesta in Don Pasquale
with Opera New Jersey and as Yesterday’s Beloved in Kurt Weill
’s Royal Palace
with the Bard Music Festival
As a special alumnus guest artist with The Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic, Bonner made his Carnegie Hall
debut, singing Gustav Mahler
’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen
. His European opera debut was as Guglielmo in Così fan tutte
with The English National Opera
.
Bonner is a recurring cast member at Houston Grand Opera
, with which company he has performed many high profile roles including:
In 2007, Bonner joined The Wolf Trap Opera as Papageno in Die Zauberflöte. and again in 2008 as II Cavaliere di Befiore in Verdi’s Un giorno di Regno. He has also appeared with The Berkshire Opera as the Count in Le nozze di Figaro, The Aspen Opera Theatre as Sid in Albert Herring
, and with L'Opéra de Québec for its annual opera concert and gala.
As a soloist, Bonner has performed with the Houston Ballet
in Stravinsky’s Les Noces
and in Orff
’s Carmina Burana
at Carnegie Mellon University
. In addition, he sang selections from Mozart’s operas with the Pittsburgh Symphony and headlined with the Czech Republic’s Filharmonie Hradec Králové for a concert of popular opera pieces.
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...
in Houston, Texas, among other American and European opera companies. He has won multiple awards, including third place in the First International Pavel Lisitsian
Pavel Lisitsian
Pavel Gerasimovich Lisitsian was a Soviet baritone opera singer who performed in the Bolshoi Opera, Moscow from 1940 until his retirement from stage in 1966....
Baritone Competition in Moscow, Russia. He is also an award winner in the Lotte Lenya Competition, and 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...
's Eleanor McCollum Competition.
Education
Bonner attended Central Catholic High SchoolCentral Catholic High School (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
Central Catholic High School is a Roman Catholic college preparatory school for boys in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. It is a part of the Diocese of Pittsburgh and is administrated and partially staffed by the Brothers of the Christian Schools....
in Pittsburgh, PA, where he grew up. He achieved a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) from Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....
, and a Master of Music from the Manhattan School of Music
Manhattan School of Music
The Manhattan School of Music is a major music conservatory located on the Upper West Side of New York City. The school offers degrees on the bachelors, masters, and doctoral levels in the areas of classical and jazz performance and composition...
.
He is also an alumnus of the 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...
's Merola Program and a former Studio and Apprentice Artist at Central City Opera
Central City Opera
Central City Opera is the fifth-oldest opera company in the United States, founded in 1932. Each festival is presented in the 550-seat historic Central City Opera House built in 1878 in the gold mining era town of Central City, Colorado. Pelham G...
.
Bonner is the recipient of a Richard F. Gold Career Grant from the Shoshana Foundation
Shoshana Foundation
The Shoshana Foundation is a non-profit organization that was founded in 1986 upon the death of Richard F. Gold who was a long time administrator at both the New York City Opera and Chamber Opera Theater of New York. The foundation's work focuses on assisting promising opera singers at the start of...
and was a semi-finalist in The Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. He has won awards from The George London
George London
George London may be:*George London , Canadian operatic bass-baritone*George London *Sir George Ernest London, of the Newfoundland Commission of Government...
Foundation and 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...
’s Eleanor McCollum Competition.
Performance career
In the 2010-11 season Bonner sang his debut performances as Pelléas in Pelléas and MélisandePelléas and Mélisande
Pelléas and Mélisande is a Symbolist play by Maurice Maeterlinck about the forbidden, doomed love of the title characters. It was first performed in 1893....
with the 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...
and covered the same role with The Metropolitan Opera, as well as covering the role of Raimbaud in Le Comte Ory
Le comte Ory
Le comte Ory is an opéra written by Gioachino Rossini in 1828. Some of the music originates from his opera Il viaggio a Reims written three years earlier for the coronation of Charles X...
. Bonner performed the role of Zurga in Les pêcheurs de perles
Les pêcheurs de perles
Les pêcheurs de perles is an opera in three acts by the French composer Georges Bizet, to a libretto by Eugène Cormon and Michel Carré. It was first performed on 30 September 1863 at the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris, and was given 18 performances in its initial run...
with The New Orleans Opera
New Orleans Opera
Opera has long been part of the musical culture of New Orleans, Louisiana. Operas have regularly been performed in the city since the 1790s, and for the majority of the city's history since the early 19th century, New Orleans has had a resident company regularly performing opera in addition to...
and as Ned Keene in Peter Grimes
Peter Grimes
Peter Grimes is an opera by Benjamin Britten, with a libretto adapted by Montagu Slater from the Peter Grimes section of George Crabbe's poem The Borough...
with 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...
.
In the 2009-2010 season, Bonner made his 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...
debut in the title role of Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
under the baton of Placido Domingo
Plácido Domingo
Plácido Domingo KBE , born José Plácido Domingo Embil, is a Spanish tenor and conductor known for his versatile and strong voice, possessing a ringing and dramatic tone throughout its range...
and returned to 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...
as Belcore in L'elisir d'amore
L'elisir d'amore
L'elisir d'amore is an opera by the Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. It is a melodramma giocoso in two acts...
.
Bonner’s 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...
debut was playing Morales in Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
in 2010, and later, Horatio in Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
.
In 2010, Bonner sang his first performances of Malatesta in Don Pasquale
Don Pasquale
Don Pasquale is an opera buffa, or comic opera, in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. The librettist Giovanni Ruffini wrote the Italian language libretto after Angelo Anelli's libretto for Stefano Pavesi's Ser Marcantonio ....
with Opera New Jersey and as Yesterday’s Beloved in Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
’s Royal Palace
Royal Palace
** Palace of Nakhchivan Khans, Nakhchivan* Belgium: Royal Palace of Brussels* Brazil** Paço Imperial** Paço de São Cristóvão** Summer Palace* Bulgaria: Royal Palace, today housing the National Art Gallery* Cambodia: Royal Palace of Cambodia* China...
with the Bard Music Festival
Bard Music Festival
The Bard Music Festival is an annual classical music festival held during the month of August on the campus of Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. Founded in 1990, the festival was created with the intention of finding ways to present the history of music in innovative ways to...
As a special alumnus guest artist with The Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic, Bonner made his 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....
debut, singing Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen
Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen
Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen is Gustav Mahler's first song cycle. While he had previously written other lieder, they were grouped by source of text or time of composition as opposed to common theme...
. His European opera debut was as 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....
with 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...
.
Bonner is a recurring cast member at 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...
, with which company he has performed many high profile roles including:
- Demetrius in A Midsummer Night’s Dream
- Count in Le nozze di Figaro
- Redburn in Billy BuddBilly BuddBilly Budd is a short novel by Herman Melville.Billy Budd can also refer to:*Billy Budd , a 1962 film produced, directed, and co-written by Peter Ustinov, based on Melville's novel...
- The baritone soloist in Christopher Theofanidis’ The Refuge (a recording of which is available commercially on the Albany RecordsAlbany RecordsAlbany Records is an American classical music record label focusing particularly on contemporary classical music. It was established by Peter Kermani in 1987, and is based in Albany, New York.-External links:**...
label) - Harašta in The Cunning Little VixenThe Cunning Little VixenThe Cunning Little Vixen is an opera by Leoš Janáček, with a libretto adapted by the composer from a serialized novella by Rudolf Těsnohlídek and Stanislav Lolek, which was first published in the newspaper Lidové noviny.-Composition history:When Janáček discovered Těsnohlídek's...
- Silvano in Un ballo in mascheraUn ballo in mascheraUn ballo in maschera , is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi with text by Antonio Somma. The libretto is loosely based on an 1833 play, Gustave III, by French playwright Eugène Scribe who wrote about the historical assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden...
- Hortensius in La fille du regimentLa fille du régimentLa fille du régiment is an opéra comique in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti. It was written while the composer was living in Paris, with a French libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Jean-François Bayard.La figlia del reggimento, a slightly different Italian-language version , was...
- The Witch in Basil TwistBasil TwistBasil Twist is a New York City-based puppeteer who is best known for his underwater puppet show, "Symphonie Fantastique".-Life and work:Originally from San Francisco, Basil Twist is a third generation puppeteer. He graduated from the École Supérieure Nationale des Arts de la Marionnette in...
’s production of Hänsel und GretelHänsel und GretelHansel and Gretel is an opera by nineteenth-century composer Engelbert Humperdinck, who described it as a Märchenoper . The libretto was written by Humperdinck's sister, Adelheid Wette, based on the Grimm brothers' fairy tale "Hansel and Gretel"... - Morales in CarmenCarmenCarmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
- Dancaïro in CarmenCarmenCarmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
In 2007, Bonner joined The Wolf Trap Opera as Papageno in Die Zauberflöte. and again in 2008 as II Cavaliere di Befiore in Verdi’s Un giorno di Regno. He has also appeared with The Berkshire Opera as the Count in Le nozze di Figaro, The Aspen Opera Theatre as Sid in 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...
, and with L'Opéra de Québec for its annual opera concert and gala.
As a soloist, Bonner has performed with the Houston Ballet
Houston Ballet
The Houston Ballet, operated by the Houston Ballet Foundation, is the fourth-largest professional ballet company in the United States, based in Houston, Texas. The foundation also maintains a ballet academy, the Ben Stevenson Academy, which trains more than half of the company's dancers...
in Stravinsky’s Les Noces
Les Noces
Les noces by Igor Stravinsky, is a dance cantata, or ballet with vocalists.-History:The ballet was premiered on June 13, 1923 at the Théâtre de la Gaîté, by the Ballets Russes with choreography by Bronislava Nijinska...
and in Orff
Orff
Orff can refer to:*Carl Orff, a German composer, known for his teaching method, the Orff Schulwerk.**Orff Schulwerk encompasses the Orff instruments and teaching methods for children....
’s Carmina Burana
Carmina Burana
Carmina Burana , Latin for "Songs from Beuern" , is the name given to a manuscript of 254 poems and dramatic texts mostly from the 11th or 12th century, although some are from the 13th century. The pieces were written principally in Medieval Latin; a few in Middle High German, and some with traces...
at Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....
. In addition, he sang selections from Mozart’s operas with the Pittsburgh Symphony and headlined with the Czech Republic’s Filharmonie Hradec Králové for a concert of popular opera pieces.