Arizona Opera Cast Members & Creatives

Winner of the Zarzuela prize at the 2015 Francisco Viñas International Singing Competition, American tenor Andrew Owens has quickly built a reputation as one of the most promising singers of his generation, exhibiting a beautiful Italianate timbre, soaring top notes, and effortless agility. 

Highlights of the upcoming 2016-2017 season include a return to Virginia Opera as Count Almaviva in The Barber of Seville, a role he later performs at San Antonio Opera, his Concertgebouw debut in Amsterdam as Barbarigo in I due Foscari, and a role debut as Ferrando in Così fan tutte with the Orquestra Filârmonica de Minas Gerais in Brazil. He also returns to Theater an der Wien in Vienna as Mads in a new production of Werner Egk's Peer Gynt. In the spring, Andrew debuts with Arizona Opera in La Cenerentola and with OnSite Opera in La Mère coupable. 

His 2015-2016 season began with his company and role debut with Florida Grand Opera as Count Almaviva in The Barber of Seville, a role he reprised later in the season for his company debut with North Carolina Opera. He made his company and role debut with Seattle Opera in Maria Stuarda. Mr. Owens joined Dayton Opera for a double bill performance, pairing the world premiere of The Book Collector with Orff’s Carmina Burana. This past summer he debuted with the Caramoor Music Festival as the title role in Rossini's Aureliano in Palmira and as Jaquino in Fidelio. Highlights of Mr. Owens’ orchestral engagements included his debut with the Bamberger Symphoniker for performances of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9.

In the 2014-2015 season, Mr. Owens returned to the Theater an der Wien as Chevalier Léon in Milhaud’s La Mère coupable.  He also debuted at Theater Magdeburg as Tamino in The Magic Flute and Camille in Die lustige Witwe.  The operatic season concluded with his professional lead debut in the US as Don Ramiro in La Cenerentola with Opera Saratoga and with Greensboro Opera.  On the concert stage, Mr. Owens appeared as the tenor soloist in The Genius of Mozart at the National Concert Hall, Dublin with the RTÉ Symphony Orchestra.

Mr. Owens is a recent graduate of the Junges Ensemble at the Theater an der Wien, where he performed in La bohème, La cambiale di matrimonio, Il Trittico, Mathis der Maler, Le nozze di Teti e di Peleo, Le comte Ory, Fidelio, Attila, La Cenerentola, La clemenza di Tito, Vinci’s Semiramide, and I due Foscari opposite Plácido Domingo. At the Bayerische Staatsoper as part of the Opernstudio, Mr. Owens appeared in The Tales of Hoffmann, Sigurd der Drachentöter, and Das schlaue Füchslein.  

Concert and symphonic engagements of past seasons include Schumann’s Szenen aus Goethes Faust with the Cleveland Orchestra, and Lukas in Haydn’s Die Jahreszeiten, and First Japanese Envoy in Le Rossignol at the Salzburg Festival as a member of the Young Singers Project. He made his New York City recital debut with the New York Festival of Song (NYFOS) in a program entitled Spanish Gold: Songs of the Iberian Peninsula at Merkin Hall and returned to NYFOS for Schubert/Beatles.

Mr. Owens is an award recipient from the Marilyn Horne Foundation, the Mario Lanza Competition, Gerda Lissner Foundation, Francisco Viñas Competition, and the George London Foundation. He is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the Maryland Opera Studio and currently resides in Chicago.