Management for Italy and Spain
Susanna Stefani Caetani
susanna@onlystage.co.uk

For his 2023 house début with Scottish Opera as Don José in Carmen, Indian-American tenor Alok Kumar is described by The Guardian as “a knockout... technically assured, his singing resonates with the raw pathos of a man on the edge – and his acting... equally compelling;” by Bachtrack as ‘a commanding presence with a depth and resounding resonance, exhilarating as he faced up Carmen at the end” and The Spectator remarks “Kumar’s tenor is certainly ardent. There’s something in the way he socks those top notes towards the gods...”

In 2023 and 2024, Alok Kumar makes Austrian, Canadian, and Australian debuts, and returns to Scotland and Hong Kong. Debuting with Volksoper Wien, June 2024, he appears as Lazarus in John Adams’s Gospel According to the other Mary and with State Opera of South Australia, Adelaide he debuts as Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor. He reprises his Don José in Carmen for house debuts with Scottish Opera and Vancouver Opera and returns to Hong Kong for a role debut as Percy in Donizetti’s Anna Bolena.

In the US, he debuts with Portland Opera (2023) and Fort Worth Opera (2024) as Faiz in Kamala Sankaram’s Thumbprint and as Rodolfo in La Bohème, respectively. In concert, invitations include those from each San Diego Symphony, The Cleveland Orchestra and The New Choral Society for Verdi’s Requiem, Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West, and Mozart’s Requiem. With the Orchestra of Scottish Opera, he sings excerpts from Bizet's Les pêcheurs de perles, Gounod's Faust, and Massenet's Werther, in The French Collection concert.

Mr. Kumar has worked with conductors Marek Janowski, Sir Simon Rattle, Susanna Mälkki, Stéphane Denève, Marco Armiliato, James Conlon, Bertrand de Billy, Lothar Koenigs, Carlo Rizzi, Riccardo Frizza, Kensho Watanabe, Valerio Galli, Joseph Rescigno, Ramón Tebar, Lio Kuokman, Dane Lam, and Maria Badstue, and in productions led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Valery Gergiev. Most recently he was invited to sing by Rafael Payare and Franz Welser-Möst, and in 2024, he appears with Miguel Harth Bedoya, Les Dala, Nicole Paiement, Stuart Stratford, and Lucia Marin.

Alok Kumar made a series of monumental débuts starting with his Royal Opera House and London Philharmonic Orchestra début creating the role of Chyavana in the world premiere of Ravi Shankar’s opera Sukanya. He made his Los Angeles Opera début in La Traviata and with the company subsequently sang leading roles in Moses and The Count of Monte Cristo. Additionally, Mr. Kumar participated in the Intimate Apparel workshop with Lincoln Center and appeared in Houston Grand Opera’s HGOco serial web opera entitled “Star Cross’d”. In 2019-2020, he made his Opera Omaha début in the role of Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly, and reappeared with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at Southbank Centre in anticipation of the 2020 Harmonia Mundi album release of Shankar’s Sukanya, featuring Mr. Kumar in the leading tenor role.

The Metropolitan Opera has been a force in Mr. Kumar’s career and role development. His 2018 stage début in Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West led to the esteemed house immediately inviting him to stay on as Rinuccio* in Gianni Schicchi. In 2019-2020 he was invited to make role debuts as the Italian Singer in Der Rosenkavalier and as the Steuermann in Der Fliegende Holländer. Engagements in 2020 and 2021 were to include multiple appearances in Kat’a Kabanova (Váňa Kudrjaš), Die Frau ohne Schatten (Die Erscheinung eines Jünglings), Aida (The Messenger) and Fidelio (Jachino). He returned to the in 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 for productions of Ariadne auf Naxos (Scaramuccio), Lucia di Lammermoor (Normanno), The Rake’s Progress (Tom Rakewell*), and The Hours (Louis*).

Amongst cancellations of the 2020 pandemic, there were company debuts with Opera Hong Kong as Don José in Carmen and Virginia Opera as Radamès in Aida, and concerts of Verdi’s Requiem in New York City and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Orquesta Filarmónica de Jalisco in Guadalajara, Mexico.

In recent seasons he has also appeared with Michigan Opera Theater, Florida Grand Opera, Palm Beach Opera, Middlebury Opera, and New York City Opera, as Don Jose in Carmen, the Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto, Macduff in Macbeth, and as Calaf in Turandot.

In concert, he has appeared as soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra & Pops, the Cincinnati Symphony & Pops, the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra, the Sanibel Music Festival, the Forte Tenors, and with orchestras at Walt Disney Concert Hall, and Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium.

Alok Kumar is an alumnus of The Peabody Conservatory of Music, Rice University’s Shephard School of
Music, Boston University’s Opera Institute and Suffolk Law School.

*indicates 1st cover