The Juno Award winning Canadian John Tessier has gained attention and praise for the beauty and honesty of his voice, for a refined style and artistic versatility, and for his handsome, youthful presence in the lyric tenor repertoire.  He has worked with many of the most notable conductors of our day including Lorin Maazel, Leonard Slatkin, Plácido Domingo, John Nelson, Franz Welser-Möst, Donald Runnicles, Robert Spano, and Bernard Labadie.

During the 2008-09 season John Tessier’s operatic diary includes two prominent house debuts: he bows as Almaviva in The Barber of Seville at the English National Opera and as the Steuermann in a new Tim Albery production of Der Fliegende Holländer at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, conducted by Marc Albrecht.  The artist returns to Glimmerglass Opera to sing Ramiro in La Cenerentola for Glimmerglass Opera, a role he covers for his debut on the roster of the Metropolitan Opera in performances conducted by Maurizio Benini.  On the concert stage, he gives performances of Berlioz’ L’enfance du Christ under the baton of John Nelson in Spain, Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings with Carl St. Clair and the Pacific Symphony Orchestra, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with Itzhak Perlman and the Russian National Orchestra at Festival of the Arts Boca.

Performances of the last season included Don Giovanni for his debut at the Washington National Opera, L’Italiana in Algeri at Vancouver Opera, Falstaff for the New York City Opera, Il viaggio a Reims at Oper Frankfurt, and I Capuleti e i Montecchi for Glimmerglass Opera.  His busy concert schedule brought him to the Nashville Symphony for performances and a recording of John Corigliano’s A Dylan Thomas Trilogy, to the Minnesota Orchestra for performances and a recording, under the baton of Osmo Vänskä, of Stephen Paulus’ To Be Certain of the Dawn, to the San Francisco Symphony for Haydn’s Mass in the Time of War with Bernard Labadie, and to Wheaton College for Berlioz’ Requiem with John Nelson.

On the opera stage John Tessier has sung Il Barbiere di Siviglia for New York City Opera, Edmonton Opera, Austin Lyric Opera, L’Opéra de Québec, and in a new Leon Major production for Glimmerglass Opera, L’elisir d’amore at the New York City Opera, Lakmé for the operas of Calgary and Edmonton, Così fan tutte at Vancouver Opera and in a new production by Tim Albery at Glimmerglass Opera, Don Pasquale with Opera Lyra Ottawa and Arizona Opera, The Merry Widow with L’Opéra de Montréal, Dialogues des Carmélites, Don Giovanni, and La fille du Régiment at Vancouver Opera, Don Giovanni and Acis and Galatea at New York City Opera, Il Re Pastore at the Mostly Mozart Festival, Die Zauberflöte with the Opera Company of Philadelphia and the Edmonton Opera, Die Entführung aus dem Serail with L’Opéra de Québec, Little Women with Minnesota Opera, and Haydn’s Orlando Paladino and Handel’s Imeneo at Glimmerglass Opera.