Charles Castronovo

The repertory of tenor Charles Castronovo boasts several roles in unusual operas as well as Italian and French standards. He has been heard on many operatic recordings and has released a solo album of Neapolitan songs. Castronovo was born in Queens, New York, on June 19, 1975. His father was Sicilian, and his mother was Ecuadorian. Castronovo grew up mostly in Southern California and attended California State University at Fullerton as an undergraduate, studying voice. While there, he caught the attention of Los Angeles Opera chorus master William Vendice, who hired him as a chorister. That paved the way for Castronovo to become a resident artist with the Los Angeles Opera and then, in 1998, with the Merola Opera Program at the San Francisco Opera. Castronovo went on to the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, where he began to sing roles of increasing prominence, making his debut in 1999 as Beppe in Leoncavallo's I Pagliacci opposite Plácido Domingo. Castronovo made his recording debut in 1997 on the opera-rock fusion project Angelica (composed by, among others, Carole Bayer Sager). In 2000, he was heard in a recording of I Pagliacci conducted by Riccardo Chailly, and the following year, he sang the tenor part in Rossini's Stabat mater on a recording conducted by Christoph Spering. He had parts on many opera recordings in the 2000s decade. Beginning in the late 2000s, Castronovo began to make appearances at houses beyond those where he had received his training. In the 2007-2008 season, he sang Tom Rakewell in Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, in London, and in the following season, he appeared at the Washington National Opera as Edgardo in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor. Castronovo has gone on to appear at several of the world's top opera houses, including the Berlin State Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the Vienna State Opera, and he has been a consistent draw at European summer festivals such as those at Aix-en-Provence, France, and Verbier, Switzerland. Castronovo has appeared on musical theater recordings, and in 2013, he released Dolce Napoli, an album of Neapolitan songs, on the GPR Records label; for that album, he made his own musical arrangements. By 2023, when he appeared under conductor Riccardo Frizza on a Dynamic recording of Mascagni's L'amico Fritz, his recording catalog comprised some 30 items. Later that year, he was heard on a Harmonia Mundi recording of Puccini's Messa di Gloria with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Luxembourg.
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