LA Opera tenor Ben Bliss ’08 to perform as guest artist at CoPA recital

Fresh off the news that he will be Los Angeles Opera’s next Tamino in The Magic Flute, rising opera star Ben Bliss ’08 will return to campus on Sunday, Feb. 22, as a guest artist in a recital hosted by Chapman University’s College of Performing Arts.

The recital will feature pianist Louise Thomas, DMA, associate dean and director of Keyboard Collaborative Arts, and Dana Jackson on bassoon in a program that will include works by Purcell, Liszt, Mozart, Hummel and others.

The performance is a particularly sweet homecoming, Bliss says, because Jackson is his fiancé. Jackson plays with the orchestra for Pacific Northwest Ballet and the Santa Barbara Symphony.

“That’s the extra treat of this recital. We both have to travel a lot for work so it’s nice to be in the same place and make some music together,” he says.

Plus, Chapman always feels like home to the acclaimed young tenor.

“The music school was such a hospitable and familiar place that it’s just always great to come back and see the people there,” he says.

Bliss was the winner of the Don Placido Domingo Zarzuela Prize at Operalia 2013. In the 2013/14 season, he joined the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, making his Met debut in 2014 as Vogelgesang in Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg.

Next spring he will debut at the Metropolitan Opera in the role of Belmonte in Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Seraglio.

While at Chapman, Bliss studied with Patrick Goeser at Chapman University’s Conservatory of Music. As a Chapman student he sang the title role in Britten’s Albert Herring and Tamino in Mozart’s The Magic Flute, a role he will reprise in the LA Opera’s March 2016 production.  Bliss is also scheduled to perform at the March 2016 Grand Opening festivities for Chapman’s new Marybelle and Sebastian P. Musco Center for the Arts.

If You Go …
8 p.m. in Salmon Recital Hall
Tickets $5 to $10
Tickets may be purchased in advance online.