Rockwell Blake

Rockwell Blake (born January 10, 1951) is an American operatic tenor, particularly known for his roles in Rossini operas.

Although several critics have expressed reservations about the intrinsic slightly harsh timbre of his voice,[3] his two-and-a-half octave range and mastery of florid vocal technique[4] and coloratura have made him a successful interpreter not only of Rossini's tenore contraltino roles (in whose recent revival he has been a chief protagonist), but also of operas by Mozart, Donizetti, Bellini and Handel.

Within that repertoire, Blake has sung in over 40 operas, including relative rarities such as Rossini's Zelmira, Mozart's' Zaide, Donizetti's Il furioso all'isola di San Domingo, Haydn's L'infedelta delusa and Boieldieu's La Dame blanche.

Blake has also been active in the orchestral and oratorio tenor repertoire, performing in works by Bach, Beethoven, Berlioz, Britten, Handel, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Rossini, Saint-Saëns, and Stravinsky.

Since 2001 he has increasingly devoted himself to teaching and has given master classes at the Associazione Lirica Concertistica Italiana in Milan, the Conservatoire Nationale de Paris, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, Duke University in North Carolina, the State University of New York at Plattsburgh, the Hamburg Staatsoper, and the Chicago Lyric Opera young artists program.