RONALD NALDI – tenor

Lyric tenor Ronald Naldi is known not only for the beauty of his voice but also for the refinement of the art of bel canto that he brings to his performances. He has sung over 100 roles ranging from the famous lyric tenor repertoire to chamber operas. A partial list would include Nabucco, Macbeth, Un Giorno di Regno, Rigoletto, Traviata, Le Villi ,La boheme, Madama Butterfly, Gianni Schicchi, Don Giovanni, Cosi fan tutte, Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail, L'Elisir d'Amore, Lucia di Lammermoor, Don Pasquale, La Sonnambula, Faust, Boris Godunov, The Bartered Bride and A Midsummer Night's Dream. With St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble he has sung over 200 performances of the chamber operas of Haydn, Mozart, Offenbach, Rieti, Bakst, Fioravanti and Rossini.

Mr. Naldi made his Metropolitan Opera debut in Les Troyens and has since sung Rodolfo in la Boheme, Arturo and Normanno in Lucia and the Marquis in The Ghosts of Versailles, Tchekalinsky in Pique Dame,, Vogelgesang in Die Meistersinger, Ismaele in Nabucco and the Shepherd in Oedipus Rex, in addition to appearances in Arabella, Dialogues of the Carmelites, Fidelio, The Gambler, War and Peace, Don Carlo, Lulu, Die Zauberfloete, Aida, Il Trovatore, Stiffelio, Wozzeck, Capriccio, and Salome.  His current Met season has him involved in productions of Falstaff, Aida, Lucia, Wozzeck, Zauberfloete and Parsifal in addition to appearing with Coro Lirico singing the title role in Mozart’s Idomeneo.

He has also sung Ghosts of Versailles with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly for Palm Beach and Salzburg Opera. He has also covered Placido Domingo in Idomeneo and la Clemenza di Tito for the Met and Chicago.

This season Mr Naldi returns to the Met for Malcolm in the new production of Macbeth and sings Helenus in Les Troyens with the Boston Symphony in Boston and in Tanglewood conducted by James Levine.

His international career has brought him to the stages of the Verona Opera (Almaviva in Il Barbiere di Siviglia), Opera da Camera of Rome, Switzerland’s Verbier Festival in Elektra  conducted by Levine, L'Opera de Francais, New Jersey State Opera (Alfredo in La Traviata, Almaviva, Pinkerton and Rodolfo in La Boheme) and the Opera Orchestra of New York to name a few. He has also appeared with the festivals of Spoleto, Waterloo and Garden State Arts Center and toured China, Egypt, the Arab Emirates and Pakistan with the Ambassadors of Opera. Three world premiere operas are also to his credit: Ulysses Kay's Frederick Douglas with New Jersey State Opera, Franco Pagani’s Cosi il Destino Volle in Brescia, and Dorothy Rudd Moore's Frederick Douglas with Opera Ebony. He has also sung the American premiere of Haydn's La Vera Costanza at the Caramoor Festival and the first performance in over 100 years of Donizetti's Belisario with Rutgers Opera.  In addition, he has sung an extensive repertory of 30 oratorios and has performed with more than 20 symphony orchestras.  Mr. Naldi is also heard on variety of current television commercials singing operatic selections, particularly for Olive Garden restaurants.

He has worked with such noted conductors as James Levine, Valery Gergiev, Charles Mackerras, Nello Santi, Placido Domingo, Eve Queler, Christopher Keene, Carlo Rizzi, James Conlon, Edoardo Muller, Alfredo Silipigni, Anton Coppola, Vincent LaSelva, and Lucas Foss, and the stage directors Bernard Uzan, Beni Montresor, Irving Gutman, Nicholas Muni, Nicholas Joel and Francesca Zambello, among many others.

A native of New Jersey, he received his BM and MM in Voice from Indiana University. He was then awarded a Fulbright grant for two years of study in Rome where he studied with Luigi Ricci. He made his professional debut with the Rome Chamber Opera in Pergolesi's Maestro di Capella.