Frederick Burchinal

Frederick Burchinal is an American operatic baritone born on December 7, 1944, in Wichita, Kansas. His career has been defined primarily by his work in the operas of Giuseppe Verdi and the broader verismo repertoire. He studied at Emporia State University and later earned a master's degree from the Juilliard School. His professional operatic debut came in the role of Fiorello in Il barbiere di Siviglia with Denver Lyric Opera, and he made his European debut in Amsterdam in 1976 in Carlisle Floyd's Of Mice and Men.

In 1979, Burchinal created the role of Scrooge in the world premiere of Thea Musgrave's A Christmas Carol, presented by the Virginia Opera Association in Norfolk, Virginia. The production was subsequently recorded by Granada Television at the Royal Opera House in London. That same year, he appeared on Broadway in the revival of The Most Happy Fella, playing the role of Tony.

Burchinal's association with the Metropolitan Opera spanned more than 22 years. He first appeared with the company on October 18, 1974, as a member of what would become the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, performing in the American premiere of Benjamin Britten's Death in Venice, a production that also marked the Met debut of tenor Peter Pears. In 1975, he joined the Met's tour of Japan, singing the Marquis D'Obigny in Verdi's La Traviata alongside Joan Sutherland and Cornell MacNeil.

Burchinal returned to the Metropolitan Opera in January 1988 to sing the title role in Verdi's Macbeth, with Samuel Ramey appearing as Banquo. During the second intermission of his fifth performance of that run, an audience member died by suicide by jumping from the fifth balcony, known as the Family Circle, causing the performance to be halted. This marked only the second time in Met history that a production had been stopped mid-performance, the first having occurred on March 4, 1960, when baritone Leonard Warren suffered a fatal cerebral hemorrhage during a performance of La forza del destino. A subsequent mid-show stoppage occurred on January 5, 1996, when tenor Richard Versalle suffered a fatal heart attack on stage during the first act of Janáček's The Makropulos Case.

Following his return to the Met roster in 1988, Burchinal performed extensively in the Verdi repertoire, taking on the title roles of Nabucco and Rigoletto, the latter in 19 performances, as well as Amonasro in Aida and Iago in a 2006 broadcast of Otello with Ben Heppner. His verismo roles at the Met included Alfio in Cavalleria rusticana, Tonio in Pagliacci, Sharpless in Madama Butterfly, Gerard in Andrea Chénier, Michele in Il tabarro, and Scarpia in Tosca. He also performed French opera at the Met, including Golaud in Pelléas et Mélisande, the High Priest in Samson et Dalila, and Capulet in Roméo et Juliette. In 1999, he sang the role of Henry Gatz in the world premiere of John Harbison's The Great Gatsby. His final appearance with the Metropolitan Opera came in 2007, again as Michele in Il tabarro.

Throughout his European career, Burchinal performed with a wide range of companies and orchestras. He appeared at the Paris Opera Bastille as Simon Boccanegra, at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, at the Concertgebouw with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra as Rigoletto, and at the Teatro Municipal in Santiago as Ezio in Attila. He was a frequent guest at Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf, where his roles included Rigoletto, Macbeth, and Iago, among others, and at Cologne Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Oper Frankfurt, and the Opéra national de Montpellier. Additional engagements took him to the Royal Opera House in London, the Scottish Opera in Glasgow, the Copenhagen Royal Opera, and opera companies in Zurich, Nice, and Zurich. In the Americas, he performed with opera companies in São Paulo, Santiago, Caracas, Calgary, and Vancouver.

Among the artists with whom Burchinal performed during his career are Plácido Domingo, Joyce DiDonato, Natalie Dessay, Anna Netrebko, Rolando Villazón, Deborah Voigt, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Denyce Graves, Nicolai Ghiaurov, Dawn Upshaw, and Ben Heppner, among others.

Burchinal's recorded work includes a 1980 recording of Musgrave's A Christmas Carol with the Virginia Opera Association Orchestra, conducted by Peter Mark, released on MMG, and a recording of Kurt Weill's Die Bürgschaft conducted by Julius Rudel, featuring the Westminster Choir and the Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra, released on Warner Classics in 2000.

In 2006, Burchinal joined the faculty of the Hugh Hodgson School of Music at the University of Georgia, where he became director of the Opera Theatre Department. He was also named the inaugural recipient of the Wyatt and Margaret Anderson Professorship in the Arts, an endowed professorship within the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.