Mr. Stephens continues to exhibit a wide ranging repertoire in the 2007-8 season with new roles in a Baroque Opera with Stephen Stubbs at the helm, Scarpia in Tosca with Dean Williamson conducting, Belcore in L’elisir d’amore in his return to the Helena Symphony, Britten’s Cantata Misericordia in Tacoma and Verdi’s Requiem in Philadelphia.
The 2006-7 season brought several new roles including the Villains in Tales of Hoffmann, Danilo in The Merry Widow, Death in The Emperor of Atlantis and a world premiere by Igor Keller in Seattle’s Meany Hall. Reprised roles include Messiah with Portland Baroque, The High Priest in Samson and Delilah with the Alabama Symphony, Capulet with Anchorage Opera, Escamilio with Helena Symphony, Lord Nelson Mass in Modesto, Beethoven’s Symphony No.9 in Portland and Bend Oregon, Carmina Burana in Seattle and chamber music at the Methow Chamber Music Festival and in Tacoma.
During the 2005-06 season, Mr. Stephens’ engagements included Messiah with the Santa Fe Symphony, Portland Baroque Orchestra, and the Helena Symphony, Vaughan Williams Sea Symphony with the Tacoma Symphony, the title role in Rigoletto with the Spokane Symphony, Sharpless in Madama Butterfly in Birmingham and the Mozart Requiem in Walla Walla. Festival appearances include performances at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts and the Methow Festival. In the spring, he returned to New York City as a featured artist with “Regina Resnik Presents.”
Some career highlights include the title role in Elijah with the Portland Chamber Orchestra, an engagement at the Spoletto Festival in the Brahms Requiem with the Westminster Choir, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in Seattle, Stephano in Viva La Mamma with Tacoma Opera, and appearances in New York City and San Francisco with “Regina Resnik Presents” that featured four world premieres; these performances were also broadcast on cable television.
Mr. Stephens has sung on numerous occasions at Carnegie Hall in a variety of roles with the Oratorio Society of New York (St. Matthew Passion), the Masterworks Chorus (Messiah), and Musica Sacra (Lord Nelson Mass). Recent Carnegie Hall performances with Opera Orchestra of New York have included roles in Otello, with Carlo Bergonzi in the title role, Lucrezia Borgia with Renée Fleming as Lucrezia, and Adriana Lecouvreur with soprano Aprile Millo. Since his debut as Marcello in La Bohème, Mr. Stephens’ New York City Opera roles include Frank in Die Tote Stadt, Sharpless in Madama Butterfly, and Germont in La Traviata.
Mr. Stephens’ many operatic roles include Rigoletto, Amonasro, Germont, Rodrigo, Count di Luna, Gianni Schicchi, Tonio, Enrico, Sharpless and many others, with leading opera companies throughout the U.S. and abroad. An accomplished recitalist, Mr. Stephens has sung in chamber music performances and recitals throughout the United States in a variety of works. Among Mr. Stephens’ featured concert roles are Elijah, the Brahms Requiem, Messiah, and the Five Mystical Songs of Vaughan Williams with which he marked his Spoletto debut in 2004.
In addition to taking part in several world premieres at Lincoln Center and throughout the country, he has also distinguished himself as a Bach and Handel singer, singing the great cantatas and passions each year with such ensembles as the New York Collegium, the Maryland Handel Festival, the Fairfield Orchestra, and New York’s Sacred Music in a Sacred Space. Mr. Stephens has performed a wide range of works including Bloch’s Sacred Service, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Verdi’s Requiem, and Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer with many orchestras including the Hartford Symphony, Colorado Symphony, North Carolina Symphony, American Classical Orchestra, and the symphony orchestras of Montevideo, Uruguay and Mexico.
Charles Robert Stephens can be heard on the Ventadorn, Nonsuch, and Harmonia Mundi labels; his most recent recording is of the Vaughan Williams’ Five Mystical Songs on the Avie label, entitled Heaven to Earth.
