Now based in Germany, this fantastic tenor, Ted is a popular male opera singer trained in theatre and music at Norwestern University with graduate work at Manhattan School of Music. In 2007, he performed the role of Peter Quint in Britten’s Turn of the Screw and Dr. Caius in Verdi’s Falstaff with the Seattle Opera Young Artist Program. He also sang the Hotel Porter in Britten’s Death in Venice with Aldeburgh and Bregenz Festivals.
Ted was a resident young artist with the Opera Theatre of St Louis, Central City Opera, and the Britten-Pears Programme. With Britten-Pears, Ted sang Telemaco in Il Ritorno D’Ulisse in Patria (Monteverdi) at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. His opera premieres include the title role in Al Biales’ Mozart in Manhattan; Ludwig in The Lost Childhood with American Opera Projects.
As a recitalist, he has premiered songs by Ned Rorem and John Musto with the New York Festival of Song, regularly appeared with the Greenwich Music Festival, and in recital with Seattle Opera, and with the Emmy Destinn Foundation in London. Recently Ted was the tenor soloist in Elijah at Birmingham Town Hall with the Birmingham Philharmonic Orchestra. Other credits include Les Noces (Stravinsky) and Paukenmesse (Haydn) with the Auckland Philharmonic in New Zealand, Beethoven Symphony No. 9 with the Birmingham Philharmonic Orchestra, and the title role in Saint Nicolas (Britten) with the New Elizabethan Singers.
In 2009, Ted performed the central male opera singer role of Aschenbach in Britten’s Death in Venice with Opera de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, a role he will revisit in again with Bellas Artes in 2012:
“The tenor Ted Schmitz, in the role of Gustav von Aschenbach performs with brilliance both as a singer and an actor.”
He also made his mainstage debut with Seattle Opera in the roles of Don Basilio and Don Curzio in Le Nozze di Figaro. Hailed personally by the Seattle Times as “Hilarious”. With Seattle Opera as a Young Artist, Ted performed a full range of Mozart role including Ferrando in Cosi fan tutti and Tamino in The Magic Flute. He was also featured as Peter Quint in The Turn of the Screw, and Dr Caius in Falstaff.
He has also performed in many operettas of Gilbert & Sullivan, including Mars in a new version of Thespis recently in London and a West End season of Gilbert & Sullivan at the Gielgud Theatre.