Baritone Matthew Worth lights up stage in ‘Don Giovanni’

Matthew Worth brings his formidable baritone voice to the title role of “Don Giovanni” in Virginia Opera’s production about the world’s most famous lover. The tale of Don Juan arrives at GMU’s Center for the Arts this weekend, a perfect ending to the month held dear by lovers the world over. This opera is the ideal vehicle for the singer whose performance in Britten’s “The Rape of Lucretia” at the Castleton Festival this past summer riveted audience and critics alike. Opera praised him as one of the show’s trio of “barihunks.”

“Don Giovanni is a one-dimensional character who turns out to be a devil, but when the director and I talked about it, we decided to make him a bit sympathetic in the beginning,” Worth said. “Otherwise, the audience will be turned off and not care about him after the first act.

“What I love most about the opera is Mozart’s music. He knew how to write for the human voice and his music is some of the most beautiful ever written. If you can sing Mozart, you can sing anything else. What he wrote for ‘Cosi fan tutte’ and ‘Figaro’ is truly great music.”

Although this is Worth’s first appearance with Virginia Opera, he is no stranger to the area. Before moving to New York for graduate studies at Juilliard, the West Hartford, Conn., native spent his undergraduate years at the University of Richmond where he took his very first voice lessons. Among his eight major awards are the 2005 Roy Jesson Prize for Outstanding Alumni from the University of Richmond, an Encouragement Grant in 2005 from the Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation and a 2007 Sullivan Grant. In 2008, he won the 2008 Connecticut Opera Competition.

His extensive opera and concert repertoire encompasses the best of both worlds, whether making his Carnegie Hall debut singing a Brahms Requiem or originating a role for a world premiere. In the latter category, he originated the lead role of William Shrike in Lowell Liebermann’s “Miss Lonelyhearts” with the Juilliard Opera Center and the role of the Coachman in Stephen Hartke’s “The Greater Good” at Glimmerglass Opera, recorded by Naxos.

“I prefer a balance of modern and traditional works and I love singing contemporary American opera,” he said. “We need to do much more of this. For the past 50 to 60 years, most of the opera performed in this country is not contemporary opera, whereas earlier European audiences were constantly exposed to contemporary opera. It’s our responsibility to put them on stage.”

While an apprentice at Tanglewood, Worth performed his first “Cosi fan tutte” directed by James Levine. That engagement led to the role of Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm in Stephen Sondheim’s “A Little Night Music” with the Boston Pops under Keith Lockhart.

Those performances at Tanglewood and Symphony Hall were topped off by a tour with the Boston Pops.

“It’s a joy to sing Sondheim,” he said. “He was a musical genius. Based on that experience, I would definitely be interested in singing the older school Broadway musicals like ‘Carousel’ and ‘Oklahoma.’ Whatever role I sing, I would love for the audience to remember a great portrayal. Don Juan was a man who lived true to his beliefs and would rather live like a flame and check out early.”