The US-American tenor Michael Spyres is one of the most outstanding singers of his voice type and performs at the most prestigious opera houses and concert halls, including La Scala, Milan, the Metropolitan Opera, New York, the Vienna and Bavarian State Operas, the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, the Paris Opéra, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, La Monnaie in Brussels, the Teatro Real, Madrid, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Carnegie Hall, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan. He is a regular performer at international festivals such as the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, the Edinburgh Festival and the BBC Proms, and most recently appeared at the Salzburg Festival as Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni) and Énée (Les Troyens).
His wide-ranging repertory reaches from the Baroque to Mozart to the 20th century. He is a recognized expert in Italian bel canto and French opera and in recent years has also developed into a sought-after Heldentenor. He made his Wagner debut in 2024 as Lohengrin at the Opéra national du Rhin, followed by performances as Siegmund (Die Walküre) at the Bayreuth Festival. In 2025 he returned to Bayreuth as Walther von Stolzing (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg).
In the 2025/26 season he has made his role debut as Tristan (Tristan und Isolde) at the Metropolitan Opera, and sung the title role of Les Contes d’Hoffmann at the Opéra Comique, Nemorino (L’elisir d’amore) atthe Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona, and Nemorino, Siegmund and the Italian Singer (Der Rosenkavalier) at the Vienna State Opera.
He also appears regularly as a concert singer. His performances this season have included concerts at the Berlin State Opera under Christian Thielemann and at the Laeiszhalle in Hamburg under Sylvain Cambreling, and an operetta programme at the Vienna Musikverein.
His recent recordings with il Pomo d’Oro have included Contra-Tenor under Francesco Corti and a complete recording of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas with Joyce DiDonato under Maxim Emelyanychev.
Michael Spyres was born in Missouri and has been the artistic director of the Ozarks Lyric Opera since 2015. His awards include a Gramophone Classical Music Award, the International Opera Award, the OPER! Award and the 2024 OPUS Klassik. In 2021 he was named a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
