Jacob Scharfman

Baritone Jacob Scharfman joins the Gerard Mortier International Opera Studio of the Salzburger Landestheater for the 2018/2019 season. Winner of the 2019 Oratorio-Lied Prize at the Viñas Contest in Barcelona, he sang the Final Round and Winner’s Concert at the Gran Teatre del Liceu this January. Mr. Scharfman spent the summer of 2018 with the Merola Opera Program at San Francisco Opera. In May, he earned his Master of Music and a Novick Career Grant from The Juilliard School. Mr. Scharfman was a National Semi-Finalist in the 2018 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and sang on the Met Stage that April.

Opera News has lauded Mr. Scharfman’s “attractive, rounded baritone” and the San Francisco Chronicle his “debonair and insinuating touch.” Voce di Meche proclaims him “irresistible… Mr. Scharfman’s performance was marked by the expansiveness of a generous spirit and a personal involvement with the text and music.” In his native Boston, Mr. Scharfman has earned praise for his “rich, ringing baritone” (Boston Classical Review), a voice “certain to gain popularity… well-rounded and rich, maintaining clarity and precision throughout his entire range” (Boston Musical Intelligencer).

Roles in the current Salzburger Landestheater season include Lescaut and de Brétigny in Massenet’s “Manon”; Filippo in “La gazzetta” of Rossini; Willem/Priest in “The Trial” by Philip Glass; and Guglielmo in Mozart’s “Così fan tutte”. During the 2017/2018 season at Juilliard, Mr. Scharfman sang Nardo in Mozart’s “La finta giardiniera” and covered Fluth in Nicolai’s “Merry Wives of Windsor”. Honored with Juilliard’s Risë Stevens and Mitzi Foundation scholarships, he traveled to Taiwan for a recital tour in December 2017. Mr. Scharfman spent the summer of 2017 as a Studio Artist with Central City Opera in Colorado, winning the Iris Henwood Richards Memorial Award for his dedication and collegiality.

During Juilliard's 2016/2017 season, Mr. Scharfman enjoyed his Alice Tully Hall debut as Pallante in Handel’s “Agrippina” and covered Steward in Jonathan “Dove’s Flight”. He has sung masterclasses with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Pablo Heras-Casado (both live-streamed at Medici.tv) and participated in a recital of protest songs with the New York Festival of Song, repeated at his Merkin Hall and Hudson Hall debuts in February 2018.

Operatic credits include Charlie in Jake Heggie’s “Three Decembers” with Opera Fayetteville; Rugby in Vaughan Williams’ “Sir John in Love” with Odyssey Opera; and Mr. Webb in Ned Rorem’s “Our Town” with Boston Opera Collaborative. Mr. Scharfman has won prizes at competitions held by the Gerda Lissner Foundation, Career Bridges, Metrowest Opera, the Arlington Philharmonic Society, and Piccola Opera. He has enjoyed concert engagements with Musica Sacra, the Harvard-Radcliffe Chorus, the Brown University Chorus, Friends of Mozart, Boston University’s Marsh Chapel, and Trinity Church Boston. Mr. Scharfman is a graduate of Brown University, where he earned his Bachelor of Arts in Music and Italian Studies. He spent a year abroad at the Università di Bologna.

jacobscharfman.com