Paulo Szot is one of the most acclaimed and versatile baritones in
the world having garnered international acclaim as an opera singer,
an award winning musical theatre star, a consummate concert performer
and an actor.
Paulo Szot was born in São Paulo and raised in Ribeirão Pires, Brazil.
He began his musical training at the age of five, first studying piano
and later adding violin and dance. Szot studied at the Jagiellonian
University in Poland, the country from which his parents had emigrated
during World War II. He began singing professionally in 1989 with the
Polish National Song and Dance Company Slask, and in 1997 he made his
operatic debut as Figaro in Il Barbiere di Siviglia
in a production of the Theatro Municipal de São Paulo,
directed by Enzo Dara and conducted by Luiz Fernando Malheiro.
He has gone on to appear with most major opera companies throughout
the world in Europe, the United States, Australia and Brazil.
In 2008, Szot was cast as Emile De Becque
in the Broadway revival of South Pacific at Lincoln
Center Theatre, directed by Bartlett Sher. He was awarded with
the Tony Award, Drama Desk, Outer Critic’s Circle and Theater World
Awards for his portrayal, becoming one of a few actors to receive such
honors on a Broadway debut.
Szot appeared in a solo concert in the Allen Room at Jazz at Lincoln
Center as part of the American Songbook Series, and several times at
New York City’s prestigious Café Carlyle and 54 Below for a series of
critically acclaimed solo performances.
In concert, he appeared with the New York Philharmonic alongside
Liza Minnelli conducted by Marvin Hamlisch, and made his Carnegie
Hall debut with the New York Pops Orchestra in a program of
Lerner and Loewe with Kelli O'Hara. He performed in a solo recital at
Teatro Real de Madrid as a salute to Frank Sinatra’s &
Antonio C. Jobim.
He returned in 2013 to the New York Philharmonic
for a solo concert “An Evening with Paulo Szot” conducted by Ted Sperling
and for the 2016/17 New Year’s Eve Gala with Joyce DiDonato conducted
by Alan Gilbert.
To his native Brazil, Szot has returned many times to perform with
the major orchestras and opera companies including Osesp, TMSP, TMRJ,
Teatro São Pedro, Teatro Amazonas, Filarmônica MG, OPES, OMB, OSB, Palácio
das Artes, among others, both with symphonic and operatic repertoire.
Also, in São Paulo he starred as Henry Higgins in the 2016 revival of
My Fair Lady at the Teatro Santander, directed by Jorge Takla.
With more than 70 opera productions in his résumé since 1997, Szot
had his Metropolitan Opera debut in 2010 as
Kovalyov in The Nose by Dimitri Shostakovich,
conducted by Valery Gergiev and directed by William Kentridge. He returned
to the Met for the six following seasons as Escamillo
in Carmen (2011), Lescaut in Manon (2012),
Kovalyov in The Nose (2013),
Dr. Falke in Die Fledermaus (2013/14),
The Captain in John Adams’ The Death of Klinghoffer
(2014), Dr. Falke in Die Fledermaus (2015/16) and as
Sharpless in Madama Butterfly (2019/20).
At the Teatro Alla Scala, made his debut in 2013
in the main role of Prof. F. Filippovich in
the opera A Dog’s Heart by Aleksander Raskatov, directed by Simon McBurney.
At the Opera National de Paris, Szot had his debut
in 2012 as Guglielmo in Cosi fan Tutte.
Other favorite performances have included the title role in
Don Giovanni at the Dallas Opera,
Washington National Opera, Bordeaux, Toulon, Sao Paulo,
Manaus, Bogotá; Count Almaviva in Le Nozze di
Figaro at the New York City Opera, Antwerpen
Opera, Aix-en-Provence Festival,
Boston, Sao Paulo and Bahrain; the title role in
Eugene Onegin at the Opera de Marseille
and Opera Australia; Escamillo
in Carmen at the Bayerische Staatsoper, San Francisco
Opera, NYCO, Palm Beach Opera, TMSP,
TMRJ: Dr. Falke in Die Fledermaus at the
Metropolitan Opera, Sharpless
in Madama Butterfly at Opera Municipal de Marseille;
Lescaut in Manon at the Festival Amazonas,
Teatro Alfa with Rosana Lamosa and at Metropolitan
Opera with Anna Netrebko; Don Alfonso
in the newest production of Cosi fan Tutte at the Opera National
de Paris, conducted by Philippe Jordan and directed by Anne
Teresa De Keersmaeker, Frank Mourrant in Kurt
Weill’s Street Scene at the Teatro Real and
Opera Monte Carlo. With Osesp in Brazil,
to perform Mahler's Rückert Lieder; in San Francisco/Palm
Springs/54 Below presented with his new solo show “An Evening with Paulo
Szot”; Muscat Opera in Oman for a solo Concert with
Mozart's baritones Arias ; as
Giorgio Germont in La Traviata at Palácio
das Artes/MG and Theatro Municipal de São Paulo;
The Celebrant in Bernstein’s Mass both in
London’s SouthBank Centre and at The Ravinia
Festival conducted by Marin Alsop; in Sydney and Melbourne
with the Opera Australia in a production of Evita,
as Juan Peron opposite with Tina Arena;
Opera di Roma as Count Danilo
in Lehar’s Merry Widow; OSESP, in Brazil as their’s Artist in Residence
(2019), Chicago The Musical on Broadway in 2019/21
and in 2022, Sao Paulo. in & Juliet on Broadway
in the role of Lance DuBois.
