Kevin Courtemanche, a Bennington, Vermont0born, New England-raised and New York City-based tenor, relishes relating his personal operatic journey. It began while watching the first Three Tenors Concert, before the final of the 1990 World Cup in Rome. That concert immediately inspired him to forsake the law for opera.

Kevin first studied with Maestro Will Crutchfield, who encouraged him to get a full musical education. He matriculated to Peabody Conservatory to learn, to study with Dr. Stanley Cornett, to gain stage experience, and to play a number of comprimario roles.

Mr. Courtemanche then attended the University of Southern California for graduate study with Mr. Gary Glaze. There he played Judge Danforth and Giles Corey in The Crucible, The 1st Armored Man in The Magic Flute, Rinuccio in Gianni Schicchi and the Witch (!) in Hansel Gretel.

Professionally, Kevin has performed as John Twist, Sr. in the North American Premiere of Charles Wuorinen and Annie Proulx’s Brokeback Mountain at New York City Opera. At San Francisco Opera he created the role of the Brigadier General in the World Premiere of Philip Glass' Appomattox.

Also as a professional, Mr. Courtemanche has portrayed Verdi’s Otello, Don Carlo (4 and 5 Act Italian versions), and Ernani, Giordano’s Andrea Chénier, Gounod’s Faust, Offenbach’s Hoffmann (and the other six tenor roles), Massenet’s Werther (cover), Yoav Gaal’s The Dwarf, King Carlo VII in Verdi’s Giovanna d’Arco, Dick Johnson in La fanciulla del West, Cavaradossi in Tosca, Radamès in Aïda (which he also covered at Sarasota Opera in 2016), Canio in Pagliacci and Turiddu in Cavalleria rusticana (sometimes in the  same performance!), the Duke of Mantua, Borsa and Marullo in Rigoletto, Don José in Carmen, Calaf in Turandot, Luigi in Il tabarro, Pinkerton, Goro and Yamadori in Madama Butterfly, Rodolfo in La bohème, Ruggero in La rondine, Maurizio in Adriana Lecouvreur, Enzo in La Gioconda, Florestan and Jaquino in Fidelio, Bacchus in Ariadne auf Naxos, Aegisthus in Elektra, Tamino in The Magic Flute, Alfredo in La traviata, Alfred in Die Fledermaus, Macduff and Malcolm in Macbeth, Gherardo in Gianni Schicchi, Arrigo’s Squire in La battaglia di Legnano, the Chevalier de la Force in Dialogues des Carmélites, Tony in Bolcom’s A View from the Bridge, King Kaspar in Amahl and the Night Visitors, The Young Sailor in Tristan und Isolde, Judge Webster Thayer and Harvard University President A. Lawrence Lowell in the Marc Blitzstein/Leonard Lehrman opera Sacco & Vanzetti at Lehman College, Bronx, New York, roles in two Michael Raphael operas: Joseph Travis in Nat Turner and J. Edgar Hoover in Marcus Garvey, roles in two Richard Thompson operas: record producer John Hammond in Sassy (about Sarah Vaughan) and Marlow and and FBI agent in Fannie Lou: I’m Sick and Tired!, the Chairman of the House Unamerican Activities Committee in Adolphus Hailstork’s Robeson, Aubrey in Ulysses Kay’s Frederick Douglass, President Eisenhower and Asst. Police Chief in Speach’s Little Rock Nine, two operas by Theodore Christman: Ernest in Adriana McMannes and Buzzman in A Metamorphosis, both Frick/Major Edouard and Joseph in La vie parisienne, Max Blanck in Lehrman’s The Triangle Fire, Basilio & Curzio in Le nozze di figaro, The Mother (!) in Weill's The Seven Deadly Sins, the Witch (!) in Hansel and Gretel (the two foregoing productions being adventures in travesty) and Pluto in Orpheus in the Underworld, among other roles.

In the concert hall Kevin has appeared as the tenor soloist in Verdi's Requiem, Puccini's Messa di Gloria, Mozart's Requiem and Coronation Mass, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Bach’s Mass in B Minor and Handel's Messiah. 

Kevin has performed as a principal artist with, among others, the New York City Opera, New York Grand Opera, National Chorale, Vertical Player Repertory, New Rochelle Opera, Hudson Opera Theatre, Long Island Opera, North Shore Music Festival, Astoria Symphony, Manhattan Opera Studio, dell’Arte Opera Ensemble, New York Opera Forum, Vocal Productions NYC, Utopia Opera, Opera Company of Brooklyn, Christman Opera Company, Capitol Heights Lyric Opera, La forza dell’opera, Amore Opera and Hubbard Hall Opera Theatre, and sung before the Metropolitan Opera Guild and at HBO Studios (all in New York), the San Francisco Opera, Berkeley (now West Edge) Opera, Mission City Opera, Symphony Parnassus, San Francisco Parlor Opera, Bakersfield Symphony, Cinnabar Theatre, Masterworks Chorale (San Mateo), Independent Opera (Los Angeles), New Valley Symphony (Los Angeles), Long Beach Opera, Berkeley Community Chorus & Orchestra (all in California), Lowell House Opera (Massachusetts), Tundi Productions (Vermont), Trilogy: An Opera Company, Boardwalk Opera, Mid-Atlantic Opera, Opera at Florham, Operanauts (all in New Jersey), Atlantic Coast Opera Festival (Pennsylvania), Arizona State University, Hradec Králové Philharmonic (Czech Republic), Sarasota Opera and St. Petersburg Opera (both in Florida), Bel Cantanti Opera, Baltimore Concert Opera (both in Maryland), Riverbend Opera, New Dominion Chorale, Gold Rush Opera (all in Virginia), Bismarck-Mandan Symphony Orchestra (North Dakota), Symphony of Northwest Arkansas and Caffè Taci in New York, NY and Caffè Venezia in Berkeley, CA (that's right, Kevin's voice is available for weddings, parties, New Year's Eve and other festive occasions). His (disembodied) voice even appeared on The Bold and the Beautiful (opera as soap opera).

Kevin has branched out as an opera stage director, having helmed Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera, Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer, Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci (two productions), Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta, Joseph Beer’s Die Polnische Hochzeit, Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann, Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, Verdi’s 4-Act version of Don Carlo and Mozart’s Don Giovanni.

Mr. Courtemanche is currently wading through the mythic realm of Richard Wagner, having recently undertaken the roles of Loge in Das Rheingold, Siegmund in Die Walküre and Siegfried in both Siegfried and Götterdämmerung in the Jonathan Dove reduced versions of those “Ring” operas for Trilogy: An Opera Company in Newark, New Jersey; and a complete Siegmund in Wagner’s Die Walküre with New York Opera Forum.

Kevin’s other engagements include the role of Faust in Lili Boulanger’s Prix de Rome prize winning cantata Faust et Hélène, during the 2023 Tundi Festival; Don Basilio & Don Curzio in Le nozze di Figaro in August, 2023, and Manrico & Ruiz in separate performances of Il trovatore in September 2023, both with New York Opera Forum; and the title role & lecturer in a lecture-concert of Ernest Reyer’s Sigurd at the 2024 Tundi Festival!

Note from Kevin: Tundi Productions promotes for me the perfect alignment of all my star-filled desires as a professional singing actor. Having been born in Bennington, Vermont, I have always wished to return to my native state to perform. As a director and singer, I enjoy immensely the opportunity to gain membership in another repertory company, working continually with a group of people whom I admire in a collegial, visionary environment. Lately, my career has expanded to embrace the repertoire of Richard Wagner, having sung extensive excerpts from Die Meistersinger and all four of the Ring operas. I have also sung in the chorus for several Wagner Operas, at the Metropolitan Opera and San Francisco Opera. In short, my participation in Tundi Productions concocts the perfect combination: returning to my roots and singing music I love within a generous repertoire troupe, to create total artwork.