Paul Scholten bio

American baritone Paul Scholten has performed with international opera companies such as the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Santa Fe Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Fort Worth Opera, and Chicago Opera Theater, among others. His significant roles include Guglielmo in Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Sharpless in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, Tarquinius in Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia, Onegin in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, Marcello in Puccini’s La Bohème, and Zurga in Bizet’s Les Pêcheurs des Perles. On the concert stage, Mr. Scholten has performed with the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, the Grant Park Music Festival of Chicago, the Tanglewood Music Festival, the Apollo Orchestra and Chorus of Chicago, and the Lexington Philharmonic Orchestra.

Mr. Scholten was a young artist with the esteemed Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Ryan Opera Center, the Santa Fe Opera Apprentice Program, San Francisco Opera’s Merola Program, and the Tanglewood Music Center, where he performed Guglielmo under the baton of Maestro James Levine. In the competition arena, Mr. Scholten has won several prizes, most notably in the National Orpheus Vocal Competition, the American Opera Society, the Opera Columbus International Vocal Competition, and the Florida Grand Opera Vocal Competition. He was a National Semi-Finalist in the 2012 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.