Arizona Opera Cast Members & Creatives

Yongzhao Yu, who won the Audience Choice Award and the Ana María Martínez Encouragement Award in HGO’s 2015 Eleanor McCollum Competition Concert of Arias, is currently in his third season in the HGO Studio. In the 2016/2017 season he made his HGO stage debut as a Winged Angel in the world premiere of Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer’s It’s a Wonderful Life. He has performed Flavio in Norma with the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing, Naulz in Visitors on the Icy Mountain with the Shanghai Grand Theater, and Alfredo in La Traviata in the concert hall of the Shanghai Oriental Art Center. He has performed in concert in the Grand Theatre of the Suzhou Culture and Arts Center and in an Eternal Verdi concert in Shanghai in honor of the bicentenary of Verdi’s birth. Further awards include first prize in Opera Concorso.

In summer 2016, he made his role debut as Rodolfo in La Bohème with Wolf Trap Opera. This past summer he sang Alfredo in La Traviata with Sacramento Philharmonic, the Aspen Opera Center, and in mainstage performances at Houston Grand Opera. He will also be heard at HGO as Flavio in Norma, as well as in recital at Houston’s Rienzi Museum. In the 2018/2019 season, Yu returns to HGO as Rodolfo and will join the roster of The Metropolitan Opera for the first time to cover Alfredo in the new production by Michael Mayer. Future engagements include debuts with Seattle Opera and Arizona Opera.