Praised for performances which are “powerfully acted and ideally sung” (PBS Chicago), in the 2024/25 season Jonathan Michie will create the role of Richard Loving in the world premiere of Damien Geter and Jessica Murphy Moo’s Loving v. Virginia. Commissioned by the Richmond Symphony and Virginia Opera for their 50th anniversary season, the opera will be directed by Denyce Graves and conducted by Adam Turner. Elsewhere, Michie will feature as a soloist for multiple J.S. Bach motets with the Thomanerchor and Gewandhausorchester, under the direction of Thomaskantor Andreas Reize. These include BWV 33, 248/4, & 176 in both the Thomaskirche and as part of the 2025 Bachfest. He returns to Oper Leipzig as Don Alvaro in a new production of Rossini’s Il viaggio a Reims, directed by Daisy Evans and conducted by Matthias Foremny. He will also sing the role of Arcalaus in Johann Christian Bach’s rarely performed Amadis de Gaule, directed by Antje Thoms and conducted by Andreas Reize. Revivals of signature roles this season include Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, the title role in Don Giovanni, and Kühleborn in Lortzing’s Undine.
Last season he made his debut with the Deutsches Nationaltheater und Staatskapelle Weimar as Dandini in a new production of La Cenerentola, as well as at the Goethe-Theater Bad Lauchstädt as Fortitudo in Haydn’s Applausus. Continuing his long relationship with the Oper Leipzig, Michie sang Papageno in a new production of Die Zauberflöte and revived roles such as the title role in Don Giovanni, Marcello in La bohème, Ned Keene in Peter Grimes, and Dandini in La Cenerentola. He also returned to Schumann’s birthplace of Zwickau for the opening concert of the Robert Schumann Wettbewerb.
Recently he made his Chicago Opera Theater debut where he created the role of Alan Turing in Justine Chen and David Simpatico’s The Life and Death(s) of Alan Turing,hisSeattle Opera debut as Dandini in La Cenerentola, his Israeli Opera debut as Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia, and a return to Florida Grand Opera for Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro. Michie’s other roles with Oper Leipzig have included Belcore in L’elisir d’amore, Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Valentin in Faust, Olivier in Capriccio, Silvio in Pagliacci, Malatesta in Don Pasquale, Harlekin in Ariadne auf Naxos, Ping in Turandot, Sonora in La fanciulla del West, Ottokar in Der Freischütz, the Gamekeeper in Rusalka,Le conseiller de Thou in Gounod’s Cinq-Mars, Sam in Trouble in Tahiti, Ein Tierbändiger in Lulu, Der Einäugige in Die Frau ohne Schatten, Konrad Nachtigall in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and Hiram Otis in The Canterville Ghost.
Other notable performances include: Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, Donald in Billy Budd, Noye in Noye’s Fludde, and the Vicar in Albert Herring with the Los Angeles Opera; Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, Mercutio in Roméo et Juliette, Ping in Turandot, and Masetto in Don Giovanni with Florida Grand Opera; Prince Paul in La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein and Baron Douphol in La traviata with the Santa Fe Opera; Belcore in L’elisir d’amore at Theater Bremen; Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia and Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus with Finger Lakes Opera; Donald in Billy Budd with Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Valentin in Faust at the Teatro Comunale Bolzano, Harlekin in Ariadne auf Naxos at the Beijing Music Festival, and Masetto in Don Giovanni with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He also joined the roster of the Metropolitan Opera to cover Papageno in their production of Die Zauberflöte.
While an apprentice artist with the Santa Fe Opera, he debuted as the Vicar in Albert Herring and Count Dominik in Arabella. He sang his first performances of Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia as a member of San Francisco Opera’s Merola Program in addition to an excerpt of J. Robert Oppenheimer in Adams’ Doctor Atomic. He has also performed with Oper Halle, the Chautauqua Opera, Spoleto Festival U.S.A., the Steans Institute of Music at the Ravinia Festival, City Center Encores!, Opera Saratoga, and the Ohio Light Opera.
He made his European debut in 2011, singing Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn with the Slovenian Philharmonic. Also on the concert platform, he has sung excerpts from Die Zauberflöte with the Gewandhausorchester, Rochester in Lortzing’s Zum Großadmiral with the Münchner Rundfunkorchester, Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with both the Gewandhaus and Jerusalem Symphony Orchestras, Bach’s Ich habe genug with Musica Sacra, and Orff’s Carmina Burana with the National Chorale (USA). He has also appeared in concert with the New World Symphony, the Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus, and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.
Michie has collaborated with well-known conductors including James Conlon, Ulf Schirmer, Sir Andrew Davis, Frédéric Chaslin, Jonathan Darlington, Lidiya Yankovskaya, Giedrė Šlekytė, David Reiland, Andrea Sanguineti, Ramón Tebar, Gary Thor Wedow, and Christoph Gedschold. Significant directors with whom he has worked include Stephen Wadsworth, Deborah Warner, Francesca Zambello, Rolando Villazón, Katharina Thoma, Michiel Dijkema, Christian von Götz, Balázs Kovalik, Lindy Hume, Paul Curran, Renaud Doucet, Martin Lyngbo, and Anthony Pilavachi.
Jonathan Michie has received awards from the International Robert Schumann Competition, the William Matheus Sullivan Foundation, the Gerda Lissner Foundation, the George London Foundation, the Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation, the Palm Beach Opera Competition, the National Orpheus Competition, the Lotte Lehmann Foundation and the Liederkranz Foundation, among others. He is the youngest first prize winner in the history of the Kurt Weill Foundation’s Lotte Lenya Competition. He holds Master and Bachelor of Music degrees from the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester and has appeared in Off-Broadway and regional theater as a member of Actors’ Equity.
