{"id":24101,"date":"2026-09-01T07:44:29","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T06:44:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pressroom.cloud\/?p=24101"},"modified":"2026-09-01T07:54:03","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T06:54:03","slug":"the-tenor-who-lived-twice-portrait-of-gregory-kunde","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pressroom.cloud\/en\/the-tenor-who-lived-twice-portrait-of-gregory-kunde\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tenor Who Lived Twice. Portrait of Gregory Kunde"},"content":{"rendered":"

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There are glorious operatic careers, and others that are \u201clarger than life.\u201d To navigate the latter without getting lost, you need a reliable compass. So, to recount the career of American tenor Gregory Kunde (nearly fifty years on stage, a hundred roles, and more than ten recordings), we\u2019ve enlisted the help of a special companion: his own voice, which will accompany us throughout this portrait dedicated to him, which we\u2019ll include in italics. <\/p>\n

We thank him for his time during a busy summer (Aida at the Arena, Turandot at the Puccini Festival, Otello at the Teatro Col\u00f3n in Buenos Aires, and Pagliacci at La Fenice in Venice), so let\u2019s get started by asking him what he thinks of the nickname that has accompanied him for years: \u201cthe tenor who lived twice\u201d, due to his change of repertoire.<\/p>\n


I guess it\u2019s a pretty accurate title! I\u2019ve always thought of the tenors of the early years \u2013 like Lauri-Volpi, Gigli, Schipa, di Stefano, Bergonzi, Carreras, and Pavarotti \u2013 who all began in the bel canto roles and then progressed, adding more dramatic roles to their repertory. But it\u2019s also important to remember that in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, it was acceptable and expected that tenors could switch back and forth between Bellini and Puccini and so on. It took me a little longer than those men, but I followed in their footsteps. It wasn\u2019t a conscious decision to follow that path, but that\u2019s how my voice grew over the years, so it was a natural move to make. Having had two very definite chapters in my career has certainly been rewarding. When I was singing only bel canto roles, I really thought that those roles – for the most part – would likely stay with me for my whole career. And at the time, I could not imagine any other roles being more exciting. During the Rossini Renaissance of the Nineties, we tenors were discouraged from leaving that very specialized category and style of singing. But then my voice began to change and grow in a way that was no longer suitable for the lighter roles. I was given the opportunity to sing <\/em>I Vespri Siciliani in Torino in 2011. Reluctantly, I decided to give it a try, and I was pleasantly surprised that the role suited me so well. So I continued to sing the heavier roles of Bellini, Donizetti, and Rossini, while adding in more and more of the dramatic tenor repertory. I tried to be very strategic in which roles I added and which roles I eliminated from my repertory. And my agent Marco Impallomeni was very supportive; in fact, it was his idea to try to make the move from bel canto to verismo. And I\u2019m so glad that I have had this unique and wonderful chance to discover a whole repertory of dramatic roles. I could have never imagined that I would be able to take on this music, especially when for many years, I worried about whether I could even be heard over a much lighter orchestra! I feel so lucky and blessed tohave had time to explore and develop the more dramatic tenor roles. As a young artist, I often dreamed of singing <\/em> Otello and felt that would be the pinnacle of a tenor career. And fortunately for me, it is a dream come truee pensavo che quello sarebbe stato l\u2019apice di una carriera da tenore. E, per mia fortunata, \u00e8 un sogno che si \u00e8 avverato. <\/em><\/p>\n

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\nTo understand the significance of this achievement, however, we need to rewind and start from the beginning. That is, from February 24, 1954, the day Gregory Kunde was born in Kankakee, Illinois. Like many American kids, he was a huge baseball fan: he watched it on TV, played daily games with his friends, and dreamed of becoming a professional player. But he also loved singing, especially songs by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Frank Sinatra, which were played on the radio and jukeboxes. <\/p>\n

His encounter with classical music began in high school. He first decided to join a choir and then began studying to become a choral conductor. In college, he led two groups: a concert choir and a madrigal ensemble. And it was with the latter that, at 19, he visited Vienna and one evening, at the suggestion of a bass friend, saw Richard Strauss\u2019s Salome<\/em> at the Vienna State Opera. For the young Kunde, it was a revelation. Upon returning to America, he changed his course of study (from conductor to opera singer) and, in 1978, entered the Lyric Opera of Chicago\u2019s young artists program. One wonders: what if he had never seen that Salome<\/em>? <\/p>\n

When I think about it, I believe I would have become a music teacher or choral conductor for young people. Like my mentors in high school and university.. and even all seven of my college roommates\u2026 who are all now retired music teachers. I\u2019m sure I would have never had the opportunity to travel as much as I have, or meet all the musicians with whom I\u2019ve worked. And I might even already be comfortably retired by this age, playing golf every day. But that performance definitely changed my path. When I realized I could sing opera, it was not just my profession. It was my calling. I didn\u2019t study opera, because I really didn\u2019t know it was an option for someone like me. Growing up in a small town in America in that time, there was very little culture. Certainly no opera there! I was always under the impression that anyone performing on a stage like that, was someone so far away from my experience and my background. My mother and father both thought music teaching was a good option. When I decided to pursue opera, they didn\u2019t really have an opinion about it because we knew so little about it. Neither of them – or anyone in my entire family – had ever heard an opera before, so it was a stretch for them to really understand what I was attempting to do. Actually, still today, I find that many people don\u2019t know what it means to be an opera singer. When people ask me what I do, and I tell them I\u2019m an opera singer, I get a lot of questions, surprised looks, and the response: \u201cWow! I\u2019ve never met an opera singer before!\u201d Unfortunately my parents died many years ago, so they never saw me in any major roles, only supporting roles in Chicago. <\/em><\/p>\n

It was in Chicago that he made his debut in 1978, as a member of the Lyric Opera School (now the Ryan Opera Center), playing Cassio in Otello<\/em>, Prunier in La rondine<\/em>, and V\u00e1\u0148a in K\u00e1\u0165a Kabanov\u00e1<\/em>. As a student, Kunde also had the opportunity to participate in rehearsals for a Werther<\/em> starring the man who would become his musical and spiritual role model: Alfredo Kraus, the greatest \u201ctenore di grazia\u201d of the late twentieth century. <\/p>\n

I was immediately struck by the beauty of his sound and his collegial and professional manner with everyone. Not a divo at all. It wasn\u2019t until the next season, that I was able to sing for him in a master class setting. His instructions to me were exactly what I needed to hear at the time: how to place the voice in the mask. For many tenors who wanted to study with him at that time, it was a difficult concept to master. It wasn\u2019t a nasal sound, but it was always in the mask. It was extremely important for us tenors with a lighter sound to be able to implement this idea. Although Kraus never had a large voice, he could always be heard over the orchestra \u2026 and be heard well. So this idea of placement became essential to my learning and my technique. During that master class, I found the top of my voice: the high notes. I had always had a problem with the top C, but in those few minutes that he spent with me, he was able to explain this idea to me. And I found high C. <\/em>During the next seasons while Kraus was in Chicago, he sought me out to spend some time with me, working on the voice. I would have never dared to ask him for his time, but he was very supportive and very kind. It was clear that he wanted to help me in this process. And in addition, I learned about how to act with colleagues and how to treat young singers from him. He was and has always been my model for how to use phrasing, how to create colors in the voice, and how to maintain legato in the sound. <\/em>My experience with Kraus extended beyond lessons, because I was his cover for many roles. I would have never been put on the stage in his place, because I was too young and too inexperienced\u2026 but I was able to attend rehearsals and observe his technique, covering Faust, Romeo, Des Grieux, among others. <\/em><\/p>\n

In 1986 (the year he met his future wife, Linda Wojciechowski), Kunde crossed the ocean to make his French debut, performing Nadir (Les p\u00eacheurs de perles<\/em>) at the Op\u00e9ra de Nice. He wasn\u2019t sure what to expect (the internet didn\u2019t exist at the time), and once there, he was struck by how much European audiences loved opera, considered it part of their cultural heritage, and were eager to discuss it. <\/p>\n

In 1987, he revealed his talent as a bel canto singer with the role of Arturo in I Puritani<\/em> at the Montreal Opera (Elvira is played by Luciana Serra) and made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York as Des Grieux in Massenet\u2019s Manon<\/em>. Nice called him back for Guillaume Tell <\/em>(1989), Mitridate, re di Ponto<\/em> (1991), L\u2019italiana in Algeri<\/em>, and Les p\u00eacheurs de perles (1992). Amsterdam wanted him as Lord Percy in Anna Bolena<\/em> (1989) and Geneva as Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni<\/em> (1991). Italy, however, was certainly not sitting idly by. In 1991 he was in Catania for Bianca e Fernando<\/em>, and, in 1992, he achieved a golden double: first at La Scala in Milan (for Stabat Mater<\/em> and La donna del lago<\/em>, both conducted by Riccardo Muti) and then at the Rossini Opera Festival (ROF) in Pesaro. <\/p>\n

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In the recording studio<\/p><\/div>\n

1992 was a big year for me. Singing in a new production of <\/em> La donna del lago at La Scala, conducted by Muti and staged by Werner Herzog, was a tremendous opportunity. The first cast included three Rossini giants (June Anderson, Rockwell Blake, and Chris Merritt), while the second included myself, Bruce Ford, and Cecilia Gasdia, with whom I had never sung but whom I had met briefly during a production of <\/em> I Capuleti e i Montecchi in Chicago. Spending time in such a historic and iconic theater was thrilling and, with colleagues of such caliber, almost surreal in many ways. After Milan, we traveled directly to Pesaro for my debut as Idreno in <\/em>Semiramide, in Hugo de Ana\u2019s new production, conducted by Alberto Zedda. . The entire cast was making its debut, so there was a lot of pressure on all of us. The production was the season\u2019s big success, and we had an amazing time. It was the first time that I was recognized on the street and asked for my autograph! I had never been a part of that kind of large scale project in a major role. The critical acclaim for both engagements combined that summer and really changed the trajectory of my career. In a few short months, I became known as a Rossini specialist. I began to receive offers from major houses worldwide, and it felt as though I was finally making progress in terms of building an international career. <\/em> <\/em><\/p>\n

Just as his star was spreading globally, Kunde discovered, at just forty years old, that he had cancer. On doctor\u2019s advice, he chose to undergo six rounds of chemotherapy. This treatment, while offering a high chance of recovery, could also permanently damage the tenor’s vocal cords. Only after defeating the cancer and receiving medical approval, Kunde gradually begin to sing again. His first major engagement after his illness was a concert with I Puritani<\/em>, featuring Mariella Devia, scheduled at Carnegie Hall on May 8, 1995. <\/p>\n\n\t\t