Performance Year: 2013
New Jersey-born and bred tenor James Valenti has made his reputation in the last few years portraying the romantic heroes of Italian and French opera. He made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 2010 as nothing less than the mercurial lover Alfredo in Verdi’s La traviata, opposite Angela Gheorghiu and Thomas Hampson; five years earlier, he’d taken on the same role opposite Anna Netrebko at the Salzburg Festival. Hi was the 2010 winner of the Richard Tucker Award, having already gotten under his belt the lead tenor roles in La Bohème, Madama Butterfly, Rigoletto, Faust, and Lucia di Lammermoor.
