Last season, Cole made his long-awaited debut with The Santa Fe Opera in Le nozze di Figaro (Don Basilio). He also returned to Opera Columbus for Eugene Onegin (Monsieur Triquet) and to Houston Grand Opera for Madama Butterfly (Goro). Other recent engagements include Le nozze di Figaro (Don Basilio) with Houston Grand Opera, Eugene Onegin (Monsieur Triquet) with Opera Omaha, and Le nozze di Figaro (Don Basilio/Don Curzio) with Austin Opera.

Past seasons have showcased his extraordinary versatility, with appearances in Veremonda (Don Buscone) at the Spoleto Festival USA; the world premiere of Christopher Theofanidis’ Creation/Creator (Narrator) with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra; Madama Butterfly (Goro) and Adriana Lecouvreur (Abbé de Chazeuil) at Opéra de Nice; La fanciulla del West (Nick) with San Francisco Opera; Les contes d’Hoffmann (Four Valets) with Edmonton Opera and the Canadian Opera Company; L’enfant et les sortilèges (Three Tenor Roles) with Théâtre de Caen; Porgy and Bess (Sportin’ Life) with Cincinnati Opera; and Die Zauberflöte (Monostatos) at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris.

Cole made his debut at The Metropolitan Opera as the Tanzmeister in Ariadne auf Naxos under James Levine. He has appeared with major American orchestras including The Cleveland Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic, performing From the House of the Dead (Janáček) under Rafael Kubelík. His engagements have taken him to more than eleven countries and to companies such as Washington National Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Seattle Opera, Gran Teatre del Liceu, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Victoria State Opera (Melbourne), and Opéra de Monte-Carlo.

He is a frequent presence in Europe, particularly in France and Switzerland. He has performed with Opéra National de Paris (Billy Budd), Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Opéra Comique, and the opera houses of Lyon, Nice, Marseille, Bordeaux, Montpellier, Nantes, Nancy, Geneva, and Lausanne. At the Aix-en-Provence Festival, he has recorded Die Zauberflöte (Monostatos) under William Christie and The Rake’s Progress (Sellem) under Kent Nagano for the Erato label. His performance in Orphée aux enfers (Pluton), conducted by Marc Minkowski, was released on EMI. Le Figaro (Paris) wrote, “Ah, if French singers pronounced like him, we would not need surtitles in our theatres.”

Cole has a particular affinity for contemporary repertoire, having participated in the world premieres of Jean Prodromidès’ La noche triste, Gavin Bryars’ Medea, and the revised version of György Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre (Piet the Pot) at the Salzburg Festival in a Peter Sellars production conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen (recorded by Sony Classical). He has also performed in Lulu (Berg), Boulevard Solitude (Henze), and Susannah (Floyd), the latter recorded under Kent Nagano for Virgin Records.

An accomplished interpreter of baroque repertoire, Cole has collaborated with early music luminaries such as Michel Corboz (Orfeo, Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, L’incoronazione di Poppea) and René Jacobs (L’Argia and most recently La Calisto) at the Salzburg Festival.

2025-2026