A 2016 Grand Finalist of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, American tenor Jonas Hacker regularly receives high praise for his “attractive tenor voice,” “honeyed tone and easeful delivery,” and his ability to convincingly portray characters across genres from Mozart to Britten. Hailing from Lake Delton, Wisconsin, Hacker trained at many prestigious schools and programs in the United States, including The Academy of Vocal Arts, Wolf Trap Opera, and the Glimmerglass Festival, and attended the prestigious Mozart Residency at Festival d’Aix-en-Provence in France.

Recent performances include Tamino in Die Zauberflöte with Staatsoper Hannover, Uriel in a staged version of Haydn’s Die Schöpfung with Opéra national de Lorraine, and Jaquino in Fidelio with the Bayerische Staatsoper.

Hacker has been a member of the Ensemble of the Bayerische Staatsoper since 2021, where he has been heard as Tamino (Die Zauberflöte), Hylas (Les troyens), Pedrillo (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), Arbace (Idomeneo), and Sladek/Pierrino in Christoph Marthaler’s conceptual production of Giuditta.

A frequent soloist in America, Hacker has sung at the Dallas Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Washington Concert Opera, Opera San Jose, Arizona Opera, and Des Moines Metro Opera, among others.  Role highlights include Ferrando in Così fan tutte, Fenton in Falstaff, Count Almaviva in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Tebaldo in I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Mercury in Rameau’s Platée, and Laertes in Ambroise Thomas’ rarely performed operatic version of Hamlet.  He is at home in modern repertoire, having sung Timothy Laughlin in Gregory Spears’ Fellow Travelers, the Novice in Billy Budd, and the Prince in Cinderella by Alma Deutscher, the young British prodigy.  He also workshopped the role of Hades in Matthew Aucoin’s new opera Eurydice at the Metropolitan Opera.

Frequently seen on the concert stage, Hacker has sung the Tenor Soloist in Handel’s Messiah twice with the Philadelphia Orchestra, first under the baton of Yannick Nézet-Séguin (2018) and then with Jane Glover (2019).  He also sang Messiah, Obadiah in Elijah, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Columbus Symphony, Mozart’s Great Mass in C Minor with the Orchestre Métropolitain in Canada under Nézet-Séguin, Mozart’s Requiem and Bach’s B minor mass with Jane Glover at Music of the Baroque, and Bach’s B minor mass and Bach’s cantata 150 with Nézet-Séguin at the Philadelphia Orchestra.  He made his Carnegie Hall debut in 2019 singing excerpts from Cinderella by Alma Deutscher.

Photo by Kristin Hoebermann