[1] Gordon Hawkins began to show signs of a promising career after his first operatic role, Count Almaviva, in a production of The Marriage of Figaro at the University of Maryland in 1981.
[5] Hawkins then sang concert repertoire with major symphonies and opera companies in Baltimore, Orlando, South Carolina, and more.
In 1986, he won the prestigious Metropolitan Opera Council auditions and on September 27, 1989 he made his debut with the company as Jake in Porgy and Bess.
[5] In October 1990, he performed the role Marcello in La Boheme at the Metropolitan Opera, opposite Placido Domingo and Mirella Freni.
[1] In 1993, he portrayed the role of Jake to Bruce Hubbard's dubbed voice in the television adaptation of the 1989 EMI recording with conductor Simon Rattle.
[7] Also, during this time, Hawkins expanded his concert repertoire, adding the leading protagonist in Mendelssohn's Elijah, [17] and the baritone solo in Carl Orff's Carmina Burana.
[19] In 2005, he had the opportunity to lead a new production of Porgy and Bess for the Washington National Opera, led by acclaimed director Francesca Zambello.
[14][1][2] In 2007, Hawkins returned to the Metropolitan Opera after a fifteen-year long absence to perform the role of Thaos in the company's premiere production of Gluck's Iphigenie en Tauride.
[8] In April 2023, Hawkins performed the bass solo in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with the Arizona State University Choirs and Orchestra.