With his mellifluous "honey-voice," Tenor Jonathan Pierce Rhodes has emerged as an exciting young presence in the world of opera, drawing attention and admiration from audiences and critics alike.

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In the current season, Mr. Rhodes continues his residency in Washington National Opera's Cafritz Young Artist Program. He will grace the stage as Pong in Puccini’s Turandot, a role he previously covered with Houston Grand Opera, in a brand-new production directed by Francesca Zambello. Additional roles at Washington National Opera this season include role debuts as The Hippo in The Lion, The Unicorn and Me and A Priest in Songbird. Previous roles at Washington National Opera include Police Buddy 2 in Jeanine Tesori and Tazewell Thompson’s Blue and Frank in The Passion of Mary Cardwell Dawson, a character he first brought to life at The Glimmerglass Festival in 2019. 

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With a particularly strong presence in the field of contemporary opera, this season will also see Mr. Rhodes make his house and role debut with New Orleans Opera as The Son in their new production of Blue. Additionally, he will portray Timothy Laughlin in the West Coast premiere of Gregory Spears and Greg Pierce’s Fellow Travelers with Opera Parallèle this summer. Next season, Mr. Rhodes returns to Blue covering The Son and portraying Policeman 2 in his highly anticipated Lyric Opera of Chicago debut and joins the Oratorio Society of New York as the soloist in the world premiere of Moravec’s All Shall Rise. 

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Mr. Rhodes has been honored to spend the past three summers as a young artist at The Glimmerglass Festival. In the last season, he covered the title role in Leonard Bernstein's Candide and portrayed Cacambo, receiving praise as a "big-voiced standout" by the Wall Street Journal. Previous years have seen him as the Man in Armor and Priest #1 in The Magic Flute and Cherubiel in the world premiere of Holy Ground at the festival.

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Last year, the Houston District of the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition recognized Mr. Rhodes as an encouragement award winner. In 2019, he received the 1st place Neva Pilgrim Award in the Civic Morning Musicals Competition and had the distinction of being named a recipient of Eastman’s William Warfield Scholarship Award. Rhodes holds both a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from The Eastman School of Music/University of Rochester. Additionally, he recently graduated from Rice University, where he received his Masters in Opera Performance.