Sherrill Milnes |

Sherrill Milnes

Born January 10, 1935 in Downers Grove (pc. Illinois). He studied singing and playing various instruments at Drake University (Iowa) and Northwestern University, where he first took part in opera performances. In 1960 he was accepted into the New England Opera Company by B. Goldovsky. The first major role – Gerard in Giordano’s opera “André Chénier” – received at the Baltimore Opera House in 1961. In 1964, Milnes made his debut in Europe – in the role of Figaro from Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville” – on the stage of Milan’s “New Theater”. In 1965, he first appeared on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera as Valentine in Gounod’s Faust and has since become a leading dramatic baritone in the Italian and French repertoire of this theater. Milnes’ Verdi repertoire includes the roles of Amonasro in Aida, Rodrigo in Don Carlos, Don Carlo in The Force of Destiny, Miller in Louise Miller, Macbeth in the opera of the same name, Iago in Othello, Rigoletto in the opera of the same name, Germont in La Traviata and Count di Luna in Il trovatore. Other opera roles by Milnes include: Riccardo in Bellini’s Le Puritani, Tonio in Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, Don Giovanni in Mozart, Scarpia in Puccini’s Tosca, as well as roles in rarely performed operas such as Thomas’s Hamlet and Henry VIII Saint-Saens.