Paulo Szot

Paulo Szot is a Brazilian operatic baritone and actor born in São Paulo to Polish parents who emigrated to Brazil following World War II. He began his musical education at age five with piano, later adding violin and classical ballet to his training. At twenty-one, a knee injury ended his aspirations in dance, and at the encouragement of his instructor he redirected his focus to singing. He subsequently studied at Jagiellonian University in Poland and began singing professionally in 1990 with the National Song and Dance Ensemble "Śląsk" in Koszecin, Poland.

Szot made his professional opera debut in 1997 in a production of Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Municipal Theatre of São Paulo. His international opera career has since encompassed performances with the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala di Milano, the Opéra de Paris, the Bayerische Staatsoper, Opera Australia, and the Liceo de Barcelona, among many others. He debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in March 2010 as Kovalyov in Shostakovich's The Nose, and returned to that house as Escamillo in Carmen alongside tenor Roberto Alagna, as Lescaut in Manon with Anna Netrebko, and as the Captain of the Achille Lauro in The Death of Klinghoffer in 2014. At the Palais Garnier he sang Guglielmo in Mozart's Così fan tutte, and he appeared at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in Le nozze di Figaro. In 2013 he performed in The Nose at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma and sang the role of Filip Filippovich in Alexander Raskatov's A Dog's Heart at La Scala. In 2018 and 2019, he portrayed the Celebrant in Leonard Bernstein's Mass with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Marin Alsop.

Szot made his Broadway debut in 2008 as Emile de Becque in the Lincoln Center Theater revival of South Pacific, a role he continued to perform through 2011, including a run at the Barbican in London. The performance earned him the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Musical, the Outer Critics Circle Award, and the Theatre World Award, all in 2008. In 2012 he received a nomination for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical, and in 2014 he was nominated for the MAC Award for Best Celebrity Artist, becoming the first Brazilian to receive each of those honors.

His subsequent Broadway credits include starring as Billy Flynn in the 2020–2021 cast of Chicago and appearing as Hades in Hadestown. He also originated the role of Lance in the Broadway musical & Juliet. Beyond Broadway, Szot portrayed Juan Perón in productions of Evita at the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival and with Opera Australia in Sydney and Melbourne. He starred in the London premiere of Stephen Sondheim's Here We Are in 2025.

His operatic repertoire spans a wide range of roles, including parts in La bohème, Don Giovanni, Cavalleria rusticana, Pagliacci, Carmen, Le nozze di Figaro, L'elisir d'amore, and Maria Golovin, performed across companies including the New York City Opera, the Palm Beach Opera, the Canadian Opera Company, the Opéra de Marseille, and the Vlaamse Opera.