Ao Li

Ao Li first attracted attention as 2013 winner of Plácido Domingo’s Operalia competition and a 2014 national winner in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Li is an alumnus of Shandong Normal University (where he is currently a faculty member), the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, the Canada Vocal Arts Institute, San Francisco Opera’s Merola Opera Program and Adler Fellowship program, and Washington National Opera’s Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program. He made his professional opera debut in 2011 at San Francisco Opera as Dancaïre/Carmen, appearing subsequently with the SFO as Petrucci/Lucrezia Borgia, Lorenzo/I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Uberto/La serva padrona, Don Basilio/The Barber of Seville, and the Indian Gardener and Ben Weatherstaff/Nolan Gasser’s The Secret Garden (world premiere). In the fall of 2018 the Chinese bass-baritone sang Oroveso/Norma with North Carolina Opera. He has also portrayed Colline/La bohème at Utah Opera and earned great acclaim at the Seoul Arts Centre as Gremin/Eugene Onegin. In 2015 he created the role of Male Soloist No. 4 in the world premiere of Huang Ruo’s Paradise Interrupted at Spoleto Festival USA, subsequently reprising it at the Lincoln Center Festival and, in December 2018, in China.

Lyric debut: Makoto Kobayashi/An American Dream

Last updated: March 15, 2019