Richard Cox
American tenor Richard Cox possesses a remarkable voice that combines lyric and heroic qualities, and is equally suited to opera, concert, and recitals.
This season, Mr. Cox makes his role debut as Loge in Das Rheingold with Minnesota Opera and North Carolina Opera; he joins I Musici de Montréal Chamber Orchestra for Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde; and makes his Hawaii Opera Theatre debut as Mitch in Previn’s A Streetcar Named Desire.
Recent opera engagements have included a critically acclaimed debut as Laca in Jenufa for Des Moines Metro Opera; the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra in semi-staged performances of Peter Grimes; his debut with Washington National Opera for Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen (Das Rheingold and Die Walküre); Prinz Kalaf in Ferruccio Busoni’s Turandot for the Bard SummerScape Festival; Bacchus in Ariadne auf Naxos, Sergei in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, and Tichon in Káta Kabanová at the Teatro Municipal de Santiago de Chile; Froh in Das Rheingold, Malcolm in Macbeth, First Armored Man in Die Zauberflöte, and the Celebrant in Nico Muhly’s Two Boys at the Metropolitan Opera; Don José in student performances of Carmen at the Lyric Opera of Chicago; the title role in Samson et Dalila at the New Orleans Opera; Ruprecht in Viktor Ulmann’s Der zerbrochene Krug at the Los Angeles Opera (released on DVD by Arthaus Musik); Adolar in Weber’s Euryanthe at the Sächsische Staatsoper Dresden; and Claudio in the first fully-staged North American production of Wagner’s Das Liebesverbot at the Glimmerglass Festival. A former ensemble member at Oper Frankfurt, Mr. Cox appeared in several new productions there, including The Tempest, Arabella, Owen Wingrave, and Das Rheingold (released on CD and DVD by Oehms Classics). He also has been seen as Florestan in Fidelio, Peter Quint in The Turn of the Screw, the Bishop of Budoja in Palestrina (released on CD by Oehms Classics), and Aegisth in Elektra.
An accomplished concert singer and recitalist, Mr. Cox was on the roster of the Marilyn Horne Foundation and made his New York recital debut in the On Wings of Song recital series. He has also appeared as the tenor soloist in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Seattle Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra, Corpus Christi Symphony, and Laredo Philharmonic; Das Lied von der Erde with the Colorado Music Festival and Tucson Symphony Orchestra; with the Collegiate Chorale and Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Carnegie Hall; and Siegmund in a concert version of Act One of Die Walküre with the American Symphony Orchestra.
The recipient of numerous awards and scholarships, Richard Cox has earned grants from the George London Foundation, Sullivan Foundation, Opera Index Inc., the Olga Forrai Foundation, Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation, and the Shoshana Foundation. He has been honored with a Lucrezia Bori Grant for foreign study, the Vocal Arts Honors Recital at Alice Tully Hall, and the Campbell Watcher Memorial Award for singers from Santa Fe Opera. He holds degrees from Tennessee Technological University, Florida State University, and The Juilliard School.
