Stefan Pop

Tenor Ștefan Pop specializes in Italian bel canto repertory. He has appeared widely at important opera houses in Italy, Germany, Britain, and beyond. Pop was born in Bistrița, Romania, in the Transylvania region, on February 16, 1987. His name often appears without its Romanian diacritical. He began taking violin lessons at age seven but also sang in his elementary school choir and became more and more interested in singing. Pop attended the Gheorghe Dima Music Academy in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. By the time he graduated in 2010, he was already making an international impact. He made his debut in 2009 at the Hungarian Opera Cluj in Domenico Cimarosa's Il matrimonio segreto and then sang the role of Nemorino in Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore at the Romanian National Opera, Timișoara. His international debut came later in 2009 as Alfredo in Verdi's La Traviata in a production directed by filmmaker Franco Zeffirelli. In 2010, Pop won two top prizes at the Operalia competition organized by tenor Plácido Domingo, and he took other top prizes at the World Opera Competition at Milan's Teatro alla Scala and the International Music Competition in Seoul. Over the 2010s, Pop emerged as an important international star and appeared at major world opera houses. These included the Wiener Staatsoper as Alfredo in La Traviata, a role that became one of his specialties; he sang it at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow in 2013. Pop has focused on Italian opera, making multiple appearances in France in Italian works at such venues as the Opéra Bastille and the Salle Pleyel in Paris. He has appeared at a large number of regional Italian houses, often singing bel canto Italian roles. In 2016, he made his recording debut on a live recording of Donizetti's Roberto Devereux, recorded at the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa. Pop has toured several times with soprano Angela Gheorghiu. He was heard on the Dynamic label on a 2019 recording of Donizetti's Il Castello di Kenilworth, conducted by Riccardo Frizza. Pop made his first recording in a principal role in 2023, singing Cavaradossi in Puccini's Tosca opposite soprano Melody Moore on a PentaTone Classics recording conducted by Carlo Montanaro.
© James Manheim /TiVo