J. Patrick Raftery

Patrick Raftery‘s debut was in 1979 when he sang Schaunard in La Boheme sharing the stage with Luciano Pavarotti. After his years at The Boston Conservatory and The Juilliard School of Music, Mr. Raftery was taken up by The Richard Tucker Music Foundation and C.A.M.I. artists when his career soared and took him to all the major opera houses of the world in less than a decade culminating in his debut at the Metropolitan Opera with Mirella Freni in Manon Lescaut. 

In August 1992, Mr. Raftery gave his first performances as a tenor, at New York’s Avery Fischer Hall in concert performances of Lucio Silla. The 1992/93 season included Erik in Der fliegende Holländer, Florestan in Fidelio and Max in Jonny Spielt auf, all with the Opera of Leipzig. Immediately, the same company invited him to participate in their 300 year anniversary celebration by singing Grigori/Dimitri in the acclaimed production of Boris Godunov by Oscar winning director Istvan Szabo.  Mr. Raftery’s debut at La Scala came in the 1993/94 season’s opening production of Spontini’s La Vestale conducted by Riccardo Muti and recorded live for Sony Classical. That same season Mr. Raftery debuted in quick succession the roles of Parsifal, Samson and Siegmund. The latter in the Frankfurt Opera’s critically acclaimed Ring Cycle of Herbert Werneke conducted by Sylvain Cambreling. 

Mr. Raftery participated in The Royal Opera House at Covent Garden’s world premier of Alexander Goehr’s opera Arianna, Siegmund in Seattle’s Ring, Erik in a new Der fliegende Holländer for the Canadian Opera Company (Toronto), Andrei Kovanski in Kovanschina for the Hamburg State Opera and the world premier of Salammbo for the Paris Opera. Mr. Raftery has been Tristan for the Operas of Meiningen, Nancy and The Croatian National Theater of Zagreb. The 2004/2005 season included Mr. Raftery’s role debut as Otello for Syracuse Opera and he filmed the role of Siegmund for a DVD of Wagner’s Ring for the opera of Liege. 

Stage appearances in the recent past have included a revival of Otello for the Opera of Budapest, Sergei (Lady MacBeth of Mtsensk), Siegmund for Oper Wiesbaden, Monsieur Taupe in Capriccio for Pacific Opera Victoria and Eisenstein for a new production of Die Fledermaus in Toulouse. As a concert artist, Mr. Raftery has been in Barcelona, Palma de Majorca, Granada for Haydn’s Creation and Handel’s Messiah and Regina for Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. Previously a member of the Voice Faculty at the University of Toronto and now Associate Professor on the Music Faculty at the University of British Columbia, he has still found time for a return to the Opera of Monte Carlo as Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus, and to Pacific Opera Victoria as William Marshall in Blitzstein’s Regina and the Major Domo in Ariadne auf Naxos. This season, Mr. Raftery looks forward to Vanderdendur and Gouverneur in Candide with the Regina Symphony and Father Grenville in Vancouver Opera’s production of Dead Man Walking.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        February 2017