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Maltese-born Joseph Callej is a tenor. Born in Malta in 1978, Joseph Calleja began singing at the age of 16, first in his church choir, and then in formal training with Maltese tenor Paul Asciak.
By 35 years of age, he sung 28 principal roles and regularly appears on most of the world's leading opera stages. A Grammy-nominated recording artist for Decca Classics, Calleja has released four solo albums. On his newest recording, Be My Love: A Tribute to Mario Lanza, Calleja pays homage to the famous Italian-American singer and actor, by whose film The Great Caruso he was inspired to pursue a career in opera.
Calleja was only 19 when he made his operatic debut as Macduff in Verdi's Macbeth at the Astra Theatre in Malta, shortly before winning an award in the Belvedere Hans Gabor competition that launched his international career. He went on to win the 1998 Caruso Competition in Milan and was a prize winner in Domingo's Operalia in 1999, the year of his U.S. debut at the Spoleto Festival. Since then Calleja has gone on to appear with most of the world's great opera companies, including the Metropolitan Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, Vienna Staatsoper, Barcelona's Gran Teatre del Liceu, Dresden's Semperoper, Frankfurt Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, and Munich's Bavarian State Opera. Among the tenor's signature roles are Verdi's Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto and Alfredo in La traviata; Puccini's Rodolfo in La bohème; Donizetti's Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor, Nemorino in L'elisir d'amore, and Leicester in Maria Stuarda; the title characters of Gounod's Faust and Roméo et Juliette; Bellini's Tebaldo in I Capuleti e i Montecchi; and Mozart's Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni. Calleja also created the role of Lind in the world premiere production of Azio Corghi's Isabella at Pesaro's Rossini Opera Festival.
Joseph Calleja appears extensively in concert throughout the world, singing in opera galas in Germany, the UK, and Korea; at summer festivals including Salzburg and London's BBC Proms; and regularly giving charity performances in his native Malta for audiences of tens of thousands. Calleja co-headlined the legendary Last Night of the Proms at the Albert Hall last year, for live broadcast on BBC radio and television; was the featured soloist at the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Stockholm; was selected by the Maltese President to perform a private concert for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip; and toured Germany with soprano Anna Netrebko. As a recitalist, he has appeared in Japan and throughout Europe.
Since making his house debut in Otto Schenk's iconic staging of Rigoletto in 2006, Calleja has become a mainstay at the Metropolitan Opera. His numerous Met engagements include the title role in Des McAnuff's new production of Faust last season, and his role debut as the title character of Tales of Hoffmann in a new treatment from Bartlett Sher. Verdi's Duke of Mantua was the vehicle for Calleja's debut at Covent Garden, where his many subsequent appearances include Rodolfo in last year's La bohème and almost "steal[ing] the show" (Independent) opposite Plácido Domingo in Simon Boccanegra, a performance now immortalized on DVD from EMI Classics. At the Vienna Staatsoper, in addition to his celebrated Verdi roles, Calleja has portrayed Donizetti's Roberto Devereux and Nemorino, and Bellini's Elvino in La sonnambula and Arturo in I puritani. Highlights of the present season include his return to the Bayerische Staatsoper as the Duke in a new production of Rigoletto, and to Lyric Opera of Chicago as Rodolfo opposite Netrebko's Mimì. The tenor recently performed selections from his most recent solo recording, Be My Love: A Tribute to Mario Lanza, on a major European concert tour, and looks forward to making his role debut as Riccardo in Un ballo in maschera at the Frankfurt Opera.
As an exclusive Decca Classics recording artist since 2003, Calleja boasts an extensive discography that includes complete operas and concert repertoire, as well as four solo albums: The Golden Voice, Tenor Arias, The Maltese Tenor, and Be My Love: A Tribute to Mario Lanza. The tenor's videography enjoys similar success, and it was his portrayal of Alfredo in the Royal Opera House's La traviata, in which he co-starred with Renée Fleming and Thomas Hampson, that won his first Grammy nod. Calleja's rendition of the Verdi aria "La donna e mobile" is featured on the soundtrack of No Reservations, a 2007 motion picture starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Aaron Eckhart. In his Hollywood debut, Calleja appears in the upcoming film Low Life starring Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Renner, and Joaquin Phoenix.
The tenor has been profiled in New York's Wall Street Journal and London's Times, among other places, and has graced covers of magazines such as Opera News. An increasingly frequent face on television, Calleja has made appearances on programs including CNN's Business Traveller, BBC Breakfast, and the Andrew Marr Show.
