Robert Strauss |
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Robert Strauss, tenor Robert Strauss, tenor, is no stranger to Mercury Opera audiences, having recently performed the role of Mr. Splinters in the company’s production of Copland’s The Tender Land in September 2007, King Kaspar in last season’s Amahl, and Pedrillo in Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail in October 2006. Other favorite roles include Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni), Prologue/Peter Quint (The Turn of the Screw), Mayor Upfold (Albert Herring), Alfred (Die Fledermaus), Jack Point (The Yeomen of the Guard), Tony (West Side Story), Anthony Hope (Sweeney Todd), and Archibald Craven (The Secret Garden). Strauss has also toured Italy performing opera scenes and arias from Italian operatic literature with the Centro Studi Italiani Opera Festival. In the summer of 2005, he appeared as one of the tenor soloists in Rossini’s Messa di Gloria in the composer’s hometown of Pesaro. Other performances include the tenor solos in the Mozart and Pinkham Requiems, Handel’s Messiah, Saint-Saëns’ Christmas Oratorio, The Christmas Story by Schütz, A New Creation by René Clausen, Bending Towards The Light: A Jazz Nativity by Anne Phillips, and most recently Britten’s St. Nicolas with the Susquehanna Valley Chorale. Strauss recently completed the Doctor of Musical Arts in Vocal Performance and Literature at West Virginia University, and also holds degrees from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and State University of New York College at Fredonia. He currently teaches voice at SUNY Fredonia, the Eastman Community Music School, and Nazareth College, where he also serves as the director of the Opera Workshop. |