Ronald Hamilton is an American

tenor A tenor is a type of classical music, classical male singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The lo ...

who was born in

Hamilton, Ohio Hamilton is a city in and the county seat of Butler County, Ohio, United States. Located north of Cincinnati, Hamilton is the second largest city in the Greater Cincinnati area and the 10th largest city in Ohio. The population was 63,399 at th ...

, to a musical family. He began studying medicine, but decided on a singing career. In 1972 he was engaged by the opera in Ulm. In 1975 he signed a contract with Dortmund and, in 1977, with the

Deutsche Oper am Rhein The Deutsche Oper am Rhein (German Opera on the Rhine) is an opera company based in Düsseldorf and Duisburg. The opera also has an associated classical ballet company. Axel Kober has been its Music Director since 2009. The resident orchestra, th ...

. In the 1985-86 season he performed the role of Alwa in ''Lulu''. He made his

Metropolitan Opera The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is operat ...

debut in this role in 1988, opposite

Catherine Malfitano Catherine Malfitano (born April 18, 1948) is an American operatic soprano and opera director. Malfitano was born in New York City, the daughter of a ballet dancer mother, Maria Maslova, and a violinist father, Joseph Malfitano. She attended the ...

and Tatiana Troyanos, in John Dexter's production conducted by James Levine. Hamilton appeared regularly with the companies of Leipzig, Dresden, Buenos Aires, and Berlin (Staatsoper) in the roles of Florestan (''Fidelio''), Bacchus (''Ariadne auf Naxos''), Lohengrin, and Walther von Stolzing (''Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg''), appearing as Stolzing in a Staatsoper tour of Japan. In 1988-89 and in 1989-90, he regularly appeared at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein (''Der fliegende Holländer'', ''Der Freischütz'', ''Oberon'', ''Lohengrin'', and ''Die Meistersinger''). Also in his répertoire are the roles of Tristan in ''Tristan und Isolde'', Aegisth in ''Elektra'', the Kaiser in ''Die Frau ohne Schatten'', and the Leper in ''Saint François d'Assise''. Hamilton made his

Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie The Royal Theatre of La Monnaie (french: Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, italic=no, ; nl, Koninklijke Muntschouwburg, italic=no; both translating as the "Royal Theatre of the Mint") is an opera house in central Brussels, Belgium. The National O ...

debut in 1988, in ''Lulu''. He then appeared in the role of Skuratov in ''From the House of the Dead''. In 1990 he sang the important role of St Simeon Stylites in Hans Zender's ''

Stephen Climax ''Stephen Climax'' is an opera in three acts by Hans Zender, who wrote his own libretto based on James Joyce and Hugo Ball. It was premiered on 15 June 1986 at the Oper Frankfurt, staged by Alfred Kirchner and conducted by Peter Hirsch. The opera ...

''. At the

Salzburg Festival The Salzburg Festival (german: Salzburger Festspiele) is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer (for five weeks starting in late July) in the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amad ...

in 1990 he sang Orpheus in Ernst Krenek's ''Orpheus und Eurydice'' with

Dunja Vejzovic Dunja ( sr-cyr, Дуња) is a Serbo-Croatian feminine given name which is in fact homonymous with the vocabulary word for " quince." It derives from the Russian pet form of the Greek name Evdokia. It is a popular name in Serbia, Croatia, and ...

. Some of his recordings are: ''Orpheus und Eurydice'' (of Krenek, 1990) and ''Stephen Climax'' (with

Dale Duesing Dale Duesing (born September 26, 1947) is an American baritone. As an opera singer, he has had an international career spanning five decades. Duesing grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He studied piano throughout childhood, and enrolled at Lawrence ...

, conducted by Sylvain Cambreling, 1990) and, on DVD, ''Wozzeck'' (as the Drum-Major, opposite Duesing, 1996).

External links

Ronald Hamilton in a documentary on ''Saint François d'Assise'' (1992).

Sources

* ''The Metropolitan Opera Encyclopedia'', edited by David Hamilton,

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publ ...

, 1987. * Program notes to ''Stephen Climax'', La Monnaie, 1990. * Liner notes to ''Orpheus und Eurydice'', ORFEO International, 2016. {{DEFAULTSORT:Hamilton, Ronald American operatic tenors Heldentenors Living people Singers from Ohio People from Hamilton, Ohio Classical musicians from Ohio Year of birth missing (living people)