Bass-baritone Nicholas Brownlee is the 2025 recipient of the Richard Tucker Award and was named 2025 Male Singer of the Year by the International Opera Awards. He is also a First Prize winner of the Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition, recipient of the Zarzuela Prize at Operalia, and Grand Prize winner of The Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition.
Nicholas begins the 26/27 season on tour throughout Spain with the Bayreuther Festspiele Orchester, singing selections from Das Rheingold and Die Walküre under Pablo Heras-Casado, before returning to Bayerische Staatsoper to make his role debut as Der Wanderer in Tobias Kratzer’s new production of Siegfried. Additional engagements include his debuts with Teatro Colón in Die Walküre and Deutsche Oper Berlin in Salome, as well as returns to Bayerische Staatsoper for complete cycles of Der Ring des Nibelungen and to Oper Frankfurt for Das Rheingold and Die Walküre. On the concert stage, he returns to Prague Philharmonia for a Wagner Gala and joins the Bamberger Symphoniker for Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 under Jakub Hrůša. Future seasons include his debut with Houston Grand Opera and returns to Opernhaus Zürich, Oper Frankfurt, Gran Teatre del Liceu, Bayerische Staatsoper, Lyric Opera of Chicago, The Dallas Opera, and The Atlanta Opera.
Brownlee has performed at leading opera houses and festivals throughout the world, including Bayerische Staatsoper, Oper Frankfurt, Bayreuther Festspiele, The Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Wiener Staatsoper, Opéra national de Paris, Dutch National Opera, Opernhaus Zürich, Teatro alla Scala, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, The Santa Fe Opera, LA Opera, Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía, Teatro Nacional de São Carlos, Oper Leipzig, Irish National Opera, The Dallas Opera, Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, The Atlanta Opera, and Bard SummerScape. He has worked with conductors including Vladimir Jurowski, Gustavo Dudamel, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Susanna Mälkki, Pablo Heras-Casado, Kent Nagano, James Conlon, Emmanuel Villaume, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Thomas Guggeis, Fabio Luisi, Carlo Rizzi, Harry Bicket, Eun Sun Kim, James Gaffigan, Marco Armiliato, Sebastian Weigle, Simone Young, Tarmo Peltokoski, and Sir Donald Runnicles.
His wide-ranging operatic repertoire includes Die Walküre, Das Rheingold, Tristan und Isolde, Peter Grimes, Tosca, Salome, Parsifal, and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, as well as the title roles in Der fliegende Holländer, Macbeth, Król Roger, and Bluebeard’s Castle. Additional repertoire includes La bohème, Anna Bolena, Le nozze di Figaro, Fidelio, Don Giovanni, Fedora, Oedipus Rex, Die Frau ohne Schatten, Les contes d’Hoffmann, Alcina, Roméo et Juliette, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Das Wunder der Heliane.
On the concert stage, Brownlee has performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Houston Symphony, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Latvian National Symphony Orchestra, Gran Teatre del Liceu, Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería, and Prague Philharmonia. His concert repertoire includes Verdi’s Messa da Requiem, Dvořák’s Te Deum, Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn, Beethoven’s Mass in C and Choral Fantasy, Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem, and Stravinsky’s Les Noces.
Brownlee began his professional career as a member of the Domingo-Colburn-Stein Young Artist Program at LA Opera, where he appeared in Les pêcheurs de perles, Die Zauberflöte, Madama Butterfly, and Moby-Dick. He is a graduate of the University of South Alabama and Rice University.
2026-2027
