Sean Michael Plumb
Hailed for his “full, exciting lyric baritone” (Opera News) and “elegant lyricism and responsive musicality” (The New York Times), 29-year-old Sean Michael Plumb returns to the Ensemble of the Bayerische Staatsoper in the 2021-22 season for productions of Die Zauberflöte, The Nose, Der Freischütz, and Die Teufel von Loudun working with such distinguished conductors and directors as Ivor Bolton, Vladimir Jurowski, Lothar Koenigs, Antonello Manacorda, Kirill Petrenko, Kirill Serebrennikov, Simon Stone, and Krzysztof Warlikowski. The season also marks the Metropolitan Opera debut of the American baritone in a revival presentation of Ariadne auf Naxos led by Marek Janowski.
Performance highlights during his tenure in the Munich ensemble thus far include Guglielmo in Così fan tutte, Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, Dandini in La cenerentola, Schaunard in La bohème, Prosdocimo in Il turco in Italia, Marco in Gianni Schicchi, and Harlekin in Ariadne auf Naxos working with Antonello Allemandi, Bertrand de Billy, Lotte de Beer, Hans Neuenfels, Kirill Petrenko, Dmitri Tcherniakov, and Constantin Trinks among many others.
Papageno in Die Zauberflöte is an ideal vehicle for Sean Michael Plumb and the role has served for his debuts with Dallas Opera conducted by Music Director Emmanuel Villaume and in fully staged performances with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra conducted by Krzysztof Urbański. Additional North American highlights include a debut with The Cleveland Orchestra as Melot in fully staged performances of Tristan und Isolde led by Franz Welser-Möst and the world premiere of The Call by German composer, Arnulf Hermann, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Passionate about Art Song, Sean Michael Plumb has been presented in numerous Germen venues and most recently, offered programs of R.Strauss, Ives, Barber, and Bernstein under the auspices of the Bayerische Staatsoper, the Schubertiade in Schwarzenberg, and the Heidelberger Frühling Festival.
The California native made his Bayerische Staatsoper debut in the 2015-16 season in the world premiere of South Pole, by composer Miroslav Srnka and librettist Tom Holloway, and his devotion to contemporary music continues to yield marvelous results in the world premiere workshop of Jennifer Higdon and Gene Scheer’s Cold Mountain with Opera Philadelphia and Santa Fe Opera, with Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek on Breaking the Waves, in workshop performances in New York and San Francisco, and in Tobias Picker’s An American Tragedy at The Glimmerglass Festival.
Mr. Plumb was a member of the Salzburg Festival’s Young Singers Project in 2016 and a young artist at The Glimmerglass Festival, the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, and the Aspen Music Festival. He made his national television debut in the HBO documentary “Renée Fleming: A YoungArts MasterClass” and performed as the youngest soloist at the Grammy Week Salute to Plácido Domingo in 2010. He was honored by President Obama as a United States Presidential Scholar in the Arts at a ceremony at The White House and has garnered a multitude of awards for his singing including the Grand Prize of the 2016 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, Top Prize at the 2016 Gerda Lissner Foundation International Vocal Competition, a 2016 Shoshana Foundation Grant, the 2015 Sullivan Foundation Award from The Sullivan Foundation, Top Prize at the 2015 Opera Index Competition, a 2015 Sara Tucker Grant from The Richard Tucker Foundation, First Prize at the 2015 Gerda Lissner Liederkranz Competition, and the 2015 Theodor Uppman Prize from the George London Foundation.
Sean Michael Plumb was graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music where he studied under renowned instructors Mikael Eliasen and William Stone.