Frank Lopardo telling his Life story on Radio Free Eireann

Frank Lopardo telling his life story about growing up in Middle Village Queens New York. We grew up together as kids.




Frank Lopardo singing with the real Sopranos



One of the leading lyric tenors of our day, Frank Lopardo is seen on a regular basis with prestigious operatic companies and orchestras around the world. He has collaborated with the world’s finest conductors including Claudio Abbado, Bruno Bartoletti, Leonard Bernstein, James Conlon, Sir Andrew Davis, Sir Colin Davis, Charles Dutoit, Christoph Eschenbach, James Levine, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Seiji Ozawa, Sir Georg Solti, Robert Spano and Michael Tilson Thomas.

Among the many operatic roles Mr. Lopardo has made his own are Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor, the Duke in Rigoletto, Alfredo in La Traviata, Rodolfo in La Bohème, and Tito in La Clemenza di Tito. In the first part of his career Lopardo won international acclaim in the Mozart repertoire and the Romantic Bel Canto roles of Bellini, Donizetti and Rossini. He has graced the stages of the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Dallas Opera, St Louis Opera Theatre, Canadian Opera Company, Teatro alla Scala, Opéra National de Paris, Bavarian State Opera, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Vienna State Opera, the Salzburg Festival and the Glyndebourne Festival.
In 2007/2008 Frank Lopardo made an exciting role debut: Pinkerton in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly with the Pittsburgh Opera. Mr. Lopardo followed this with his celebrated Lenski in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin with the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Finally, Mr. Lopardo returned to Cincinnati for performances of Madama Butterfly.

In the autumn of 2006 Frank Lopardo returned to London for La Bohème at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and for Opera Rara’s concert and recording of Donizetti’s rarely performed Imelda di Lambertazzi. He also appeared with Opera Colorado as Gustavo in Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera. In concert, he joined the Pittsburgh Symphony for Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with Sir Andrew Davis, and his recent recording of this piece with the Cleveland Orchestra and Franz Welser-Möst was commercially released by Deutsche Grammophon.
Frank Lopardo has appeared regularly with America’s leading opera houses. At the Met he has Rodolfo, Alfredo, the Duke, Edgardo, Tamino, Tonio in La Fille du Regiment, Almaviva in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Nemorino in L’Elisir d’Amore, Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, Idreno in Semiramide, Ferrando in Cosi fan tutte and Fenton in Falstaff. Audiences in Chicago have heard him sing Alfredo, Rodolfo, Tamino, Nemorino and also Elvino in La Sonnambula. In San Francisco he has performed the Duke, Tonio, Rodolfo, Don Ottavio and Lindoro in L’italiana in Algeri. In 2001 he made a spectacular Santa Fe Opera debut as Edgardo (“he spins out the vocal line from gentleness to strength in some of the best singing I’ve heard in a long time, a sound that I simply didn’t want to stop” – the New York Times). In Los Angeles Opera he has sung Edgardo and the Duke. His first performances of Riccardo in Un Ballo in Maschera were with Pittsburgh Opera.

Mr. Lopardo’s career in Europe has been no less impressive. He has performed Edgardo, Rodolfo, the Duke and Lensky in Eugene Onegin at the Paris Opera, both Alfredo and Lindoro with the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. With the Vienna State Opera he has performed Alfredo, Lindoro, the Duke and Libenskof in Il Viaggio a Reims, and he has starred as Alfredo and Don Ottavio at the Salzburg Festival. His debut with the Grand Theatre de Genève was as Ernesto in Don Pasquale. Mr. Lopardo has also been featured in roles of his repertoire at the Glyndebourne Festival, Teatro alla Scala, the Netherlands Opera, Teatro San Carlo Naples, Teatro Real Madrid, Teatro Comunale Florence and the Aix-en-Provence Festival.

On the concert platform, Mr. Lopardo has performed the Verdi Requiem with London Symphony Orchestra, The Cincinnati May Festival and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra; the Mozart Requiem with the Berlin Philharmonic at la Scala; Berlioz’ Requiem and Carmina Burana with the Boston Symphony Orchestra both in Boston and at the Tanglewood Festival; Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony and with the Cleveland Orchestra at the Blossom Festival; Rossini’s Stabat Mater with the Philadelphia Orchestra; Carmina Burana with the Berlin Philharmonic; and Mendelssohn’s Lobsesang Symphony with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. He has sung the Dvorak Requiem with the Danish Radio Orchestra.

Frank Lopardo is soloist on the Telarc recording of the Berlioz Requiem with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra that won the 2004 Grammy for Best Choral Recording. His extensive discography also includes Mozart’s Requiem and Don Giovanni with Muti for EMI, Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia and L’italiana in Algeri with Abbado for Deutsche Grammophon, Verdi’s Falstaff with Sir Colin Davis for BMG, Rossini’s Semiramide and Il Signor Bruschino for Deutsche Grammophon and Donizetti’s Don Pasquale with Roberto Abbado for BMG. He has also recorded Orff’s Carmina Burana with André Previn for Deutsche Grammophon and can be seen on this label’s video of the Mozart C Minor Mass with Leonard Bernstein. Mr. Lopardo appears on the Deutsche Grammophon video of Falstaff conducted by James Levine. He can also be seen and heard (on both C and video) as Alfredo in La Traviata and Ferrando in Cosi fan tutte with Solti on Decca.

Frank Lopardo was born in New York and studied with Dr. Robert White, Jr. who remains his vocal mentortoday.