Lucas Meachem

GRAMMY^® award-winning baritone Lucas Meachem is one of the most accomplished, in-demand singers of the moment, captivating audiences around the world with his “earnest appealing baritone” (The New York Times) and “commanding presence” San Francisco Chronicle. “A rock star of opera” (Opera Pulse), Meachem’s 2018-19 season includes three highly anticipated North American house debuts with Washington National Opera, Canadian Opera Company, and Michigan Opera Theatre.
    
Following his sensational summer season which included his house debuts at Salzburger Festspiele with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal in Penderecki’s St Luke’s Passion and the Grafenegg Music Festival with Britten’s War Requiem, Meachem starts his season with his house debut at Washington National Opera as Germont in La Traviata. He then sings his “signature role” (Houstonia) Figaro in Barber of Seville for his second house debut at Michigan Opera Theatre. Meachem then returns to the Metropolitan Opera for two productions: Marcello in La bohème, alongside Ailyn Pérez and Michael Fabiano, a performance that was described last season as a “winning, smooth baritone [that] was at once refined and robust” (Parterre), and Robert in Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta. Meachem finishes the season with his house debut at Canadian Opera Company as Marcello.

Named the winner of San Francisco Opera’s inaugural “Emerging Star of the Year” Award in 2016, Lucas Meachem enjoys a busy career at the most important opera houses across the United States and Europe. Notable performances in Meachem’s American career include Chorèbe in Les Troyens, Demetrius in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Valentin in Faust at Lyric Opera of Chicago; Eugene Onegin, Don Giovanni, and Il barbiere di Siviglia, Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro, and Fritz/Frank in Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt at San Francisco Opera; Silvio in Pagliacci and Mercutio in Roméo and Juliette at the Metropolitan Opera; Don Giovanni with Santa Fe Opera, New Orleans Opera, and Cincinnati Opera; Zurga in Les pêcheurs de perles at the Florida Grand Opera; Athanaël in Thaïs at Minnesota Opera, the title role in Il barbiere di Siviglia at Houston Grand Opera, San Diego Opera, Opera Colorado, and Los Angeles Opera where he also gave his GRAMMY^® award-winning performance of Figaro in The Ghosts of Versailles.

A regular performer across Europe, Meachem has performed the title role in Il barbiere di Siviglia with the Vienna Staatsoper, Royal Opera House, Den Norske Opera; at the Glyndebourne Festival and Semperoper Dresden as the title role in Don Giovanni; Opéra National de Paris as the title role in Britten’s Billy Budd; Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich and Royal Opera House, Covent Garden as Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro; Wolfram von Eschenbach in Tannhäuser at the Saito Kinen Festival in Japan under the baton of Seiji Ozawa; the title role in Eugene Onegin with Opéra national de Montpellier; with the Teatro Real de Madrid in the world premier of El Viaje a Simorgh as well as Oreste in Iphigénie en Tauride and a European tour with Anna Netrebko as Robert in Iolanta with 11 performances Europe’s most important musical centers and venues including Vienna, Munich, Paris, Berlin, and Amsterdam.

Meachem made his Hollywood Bowl debut in 2014 as Silvio in Pagliacci with Gustavo Dudamel. He has sung with the New York Philharmonic in Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion under Kurt Masur; the Saint Louis Symphony in Carmina Burana and Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony; the San Francisco Symphony in concert performances of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe; the American Symphony Orchestra in the United States premiere of Ferdinand Hiller’s oratorio The Destruction of Jerusalem at Avery Fisher Hall; with the Saint Louis, Pittsburgh, and Seattle Symphonies in performances of Carmina Burana; and with soprano Hei-Kyung Hong for a duet concert at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Born in North Carolina, Lucas Meachem studied music at Appalachian State University, the Eastman School of Music, and Yale University before becoming an Adler Fellow with the San Francisco Opera.