Chinese bass-baritone Le Bu is a 2024 Operalia First Prize winner, a 2022 Grand Finals Winner of the Metropolitan Opera’s Laffont Competition and a recent alumnus of the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program.
This season Le Bu makes several important company debuts: first at the Washington National Opera for his first Figaro in Le Nozze di Figaro, then at the Berlin Philharmonic and the Salzburg Easter Festival as both Fasolt in Das Rheingold and the Bass Solo in Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, both under Kirill Petrenko. He will also debut as Gunther in Götterdämmerung with the Atlanta Opera. Le Bu also returns to the Metropolitan Opera as the Speaker in holiday presentations of The Magic Flute and as the Mandarin in Turandot, as well as to the Santa Fe Opera as the Bonze in Madama Butterfly and the Speaker in Die Zauberflöte. He will also appear in recital with the Sag Harbor Song Festival and at the Kennedy Center. Future engagements include debuts with the Opéra National de Paris, the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Royal Ballet and Opera as well as returns to the Metropolitan Opera.
Last season, Le Bu returned to the Metropolitan Opera in a number of roles; the Speaker in the holiday presentation of The Magic Flute, Angelotti in Tosca, the First Nazarene in Salome while also covering Ferrando in Il Trovatore, Queequeg in Moby Dick and Colline in La Bohème. In the summer he returned to the Santa Fe Opera as Monterone in Rigoletto and covered Hunding in Die Walküre.
During the 2023–24 season, his Metropolitan assignments included the High Priest of Baal in Nabucco, Biterolf in Tannhäuser and the Mandarin in Turandot. He made his Met debut the previous season as a Flemish Deputy in Don Carlo and appeared as the Second Guard in Julie Taymor’s beloved holiday production of The Magic Flute. He repeated the role of the Mandarin in Turandot with the Washington National Opera and appeared as Colline in La Bohème and as the French General in Silent Night at Wolf Trap.
Recent engagements include covering Daland in Der Fliegende Holländer and singing Second Spirit in L’Orfeo at Santa Fe Opera, Bartolo in Le Nozze di Figaro at Aspen Opera Theater, and the Speaker in Die Zauberflöte with the Merola Opera Program. On the concert stage, he has appeared as the bass soloist in Beethoven’s Missa solemnis with the Bard Orchestra, a concert of operatic arias and scenes with the Manchester Music Festival, and the Lindemann Program’s annual spring recital series held at the New York Library for the Performing Arts. Additional accolades include second place in the 2023 Giulio Gari International Vocal Competition, winner of the 2022 Opera Index Competition, and recipient of the Hildegard Zadek Foundation’s young artist scholarship. He is an alumnus of the Merola Opera Program at San Francisco Opera, Santa Fe Opera Apprentice Artist Program, and the Art Song Festival at the Cleveland Institute of Music. He holds a bachelor’s degree in voice from the Manhattan School of Music, where he was awarded the Hugh Ross Commencement Award.