Hailing from Norfolk, Virginia, Grammy Award-winning tenor Freddie Ballentine was the 2021 recipient of the Kennedy Center’s Marian Anderson Award and is an alumnus of the Cafritz Young Artists of Washington National Opera and LA Opera’s Domingo-Colburn-Stein Young Artist Program. Ballentine’s 2025-2026 season includes his Bayerische Staatsoper debut in Salome, which he will also record with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería. He returns to The Metropolitan Opera as Sportin’ Life in Porgy & Bess, and makes his Rurhtriennale debut, reprising Venables/Huffman’s We Are The Lucky Ones.

Recent highlights include the world premiere of We Are The Lucky Ones (Dutch National Opera); Kevin Richardson in The Central Park Five with Detroit Opera; Ben Marco in The Manchurian Candidate (Austin Opera); The Witch in Hänsel und Gretel (Utah Opera); Sam in Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah (Opera Theatre of Saint Louis); Jack O’Brien and Toby Higgins in Kurt Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (Opera Vlaanderen); Loge in Wagner’s The Rhinegold and Nick in The Handmaid’s Tale (English National Opera); Sportin’ Life (The Metropolitan Opera, English National Opera, Dutch National Opera); Don José in Carmen (Seattle Opera); and Monastatos in Barrie Kosky’s production of Die Zauberflöte and Amon in Akhnaten (LA Opera).

Photo by Daniel Welch