Opera
Kleider machen Leute
Wenzel Strapinski
The State Opera
Biography
The American tenor Joseph Dennis makes his National Theatre Opera debut in the 2022/23 season as Wenzel Strapinski (Kleider machen Leute). He is a graduate of the Juilliard School in New York. Since 2018 he has been a soloist at the Semperoper in Dresden, where he has portrayed the Mozart roles of Tamino (Die Zauberflöte), Belmonte (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni) and Ferrando (Così fan tutte), as well as Lensky (Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin), Brighella (R. Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos), the Helmsman (Wagner: Der fliegende Holländer), Walther (Wagner: Tannhäuser), Pylade (Gluck: Iphigénie en Tauride) and Jacquino (Beethoven: Fidelio). His repertoire also includes Count Almaviva in Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia, the Italian Singer in Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier, Nick in Puccini's La fanciulla del West, Massenet's Werther, the Verdi roles of Alfredo (La traviata) and the Duke (Rigoletto), and the Janáček roles of Boris (Katya Kabanova) and Števa (Jenůfa).
He has performed at numerous opera houses worldwide, including the Vienna State Opera, Memphis Opera, North Carolina Opera, Virginia Opera, Seattle Opera and Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv. He has won several international competitions, including the Gerda Lissner Foundation Vocal Competition (2014) and the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in New York (2015).