Joel Sorensen

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Composer	Opera	Role
Beethoven	Fidelio	Jaquino
Berg	Wozzeck	Andres
Bizet	Carmen	Remendado
Britten	Albert Herring	Albert
	The Turn of the Screw	Quint
Cavalli	L’Ormindo	Erice
Danielpour	Margaret Garner	Casey
Floyd	Cold Sassy Tree	Camp Williams
	Of Mice and Men	Curley
	Susannah	Little Bat
Gilbert & Sullivan	H.M.S. Pinafore	Ralph
	Pirates of Penzance	Frederic
	The Mikado	Nanki-Poo
Giordano	Andrea Chenier	L’Incredibile
Gounod	Romeo et Juliette	Tybalt
Humperdinck	Hansel and Gretel	The Witch
Janacek	The Cunning Little Vixen	The Schoolmaster
Lehar	The Merry Widow	Njegus
Leigh	Man of La Mancha	Sancho Panza
Leoncavallo	I Pagliacci	Beppe
Massenet	Don Quichotte	Rodriquez
	Manon	Guillot
Menotti	Amahl and the Night Visitors	Kaspar
	The Consul	The Magician
Mozart	Entfuhrung aus dem Serail	Pedrillo
	Die Zauberflote	Monostatos
	Le Nozze di Figaro	Don Basilio
Offenbach	Les Contes d’Hoffmann	Servants
Poulenc	Les Mamelles de Tiresias	Lacouf
Prokofiev	War and Peace	De Beausset
Puccini	Gianni Schicchi	Gherardo
	La Fanciulla del West	Nick
	La Rondine	Prunier
	Madama Butterfly	Goro
	Tosca	Spoletta
	Turandot	Pong
Rossini	Il Barbiere di Siviglia	Sergeant
Saint-Saens	Samson et Dalila	Premier Philistin
Smetana	The Bartered Bride	Vasek
Strauss	Ariadne auf Naxos	Tanzmeister, Scaramuccio
	Der Rosenkavalier	Valzacchi
	Die Fledermaus	Alfred
	Salome	Herodes
Stravinsky	The Rake’s Progress	Sellem
Verdi	Attila	Uldino
	Falstaff	Caius, Bardolfo
	Otello	Cassio
	Rigoletto	Borsa
Wagner	Der Fliegende Hollander	Steuermann
	Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg	David
	Der Ring des Nibelungen	Mime
	Das Rheingold	Mime, Loge
	Siegfried	Mime
	Tristan und Isolde	Melot
Weill	Die Burgschaft	Jakob Orth
Wolf-Ferrari	Sly	Garzone
Wuorinen	Haroun and the Sea of Stories	Snooty-Buttoo

Joel Sorensen is recognized as one of the finest tenors to specialize in character repertoire, regularly praised for the clarion quality of his voice and a superlative vocal technique that supports his consummate musicality and impeccable diction.  In recent seasons, he has excelled in the German repertoire in performances worldwide as Andres in Wozzeck, Herod in Salome, and Loge and Mime in Der Ring des Nibelungen. The Independent (London) said, “Joel Sorensen, well known to both New York City and Metropolitan Opera audiences, is a beautifully expressive tenor, gifted at characterization, who made Mime rise above caricature to emerge as a surprisingly lyrical, put-upon creature.”

In the current season and beyond, Joel returns to San Francisco Opera as Mr. Pease in Dolores Claiborne and Dr. Caius in Falstaff; and sings Beppe in Pagliacci and Rodriguez in Don Quichotte with San Diego Opera.

A seasoned Metropolitan Opera artist, he returned this past season to perform Goro in Madama Butterfly and Spoletta in their new production of Tosca. He first debuted at the Met in Samson et Dalila, followed by countless performances in several productions including Monostatos in Die Zauberflöte, M. De Beausset in the epic War and Peace, Valzacchi in Der Rosenkavalier and Goro in Madama Butterfly, Andres\Cochenille\Pittichinaccio\Frantz in Les Contes d’Hoffmann, and Loge in Das Rheingold.

An extremely popular artist on the west coast, Joel is a house favorite at San Francisco Opera, San Diego Opera, and Los Angeles Opera. At San Francisco he has performed Spoletta in Tosca and covered Loge and Mime in Der Ring des Nibelungen. In San Diego Opera he has appeared as First Tempter/First Knight in Pizzetti’s Murder in the Cathedral, Pang in Turandot, Tybalt in Roméo et Juliette, and Valzacchi in Der Rosenkavalier, Andres in Wozzeck and Rodriguez in Don Quichotte; and with the Los Angeles Opera where he performed Guidobald in Die Gezeichneten, Spoletta in Tosca, as well as covering Loge and Mime in Der Ring des Nibelungen.

Additional recent engagements included Zorn in Die Meistersinger in his debut with the Lyric Opera of Chicago; his debut with Salzburg Landestheater as Andres in Wozzeck. Career highlights include Goro in Madama Butterfly with the Atlanta Opera and the Florentine Opera of Milwaukee; Herod in Salome at the Florentine Opera; Pedrillo in Die Entführung aus dem Serail with Atlanta Opera and Portland Opera; Mime in Das Rheingold in his U.K. debut with the Longborough Festival Opera; and his Wagnerian debut with the Opera Theater of Pittsburgh in performances of Jonathan Dove’s English-language reduction of The Ring.

Since his 1994 debut as Monostatos in The Magic Flute with New York City Opera, Mr. Sorensen has returned to the company for more than 200 appearances in over two dozen productions including Madama Butterfly, Falstaff (Caius and Bardolfo), Attila, the Emmy Award-winning La Traviata, La Rondine, Turandot, Mefistofele, Il Trittico, Salome, and Of Mice and Men. He has been prominently featured in several new productions including Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Knjaz’ Igor, Kinkakuji: The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, The Dreyfus Affair, The Visit of the Old Lady, The Seven Deadly Sins, Haroun and the Sea of Stories (world premiere), Mathis der Maler and Margaret Garner.

In concert, he has appeared with the Utah Symphony in Stravinsky’s Renard, at Alice Tully Hall in Les Mamelles de Tirésias with L’opera français de New York, Avery Fisher Hall with the American Symphony Orchestra in Hindemith’s Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen and Kurt Weill’s Der Protagonist, and Carnegie Hall with Eve Queler’s Opera Orchestra of New York as Melot in Tristan und Isolde and Uldino in Attila. Mr. Sorensen can be heard on the EMI world-premiere release of Die Bürgschaft conducted by Julius Rudel.