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Baritone PETER KENDALL CLARK is a distinguished interpreter of contemporary opera and musical theater who also excels in traditional concert and operatic repertoire. He has created roles in numerous world premieres, notably Jehovah in Mark Blitzstein’s Cain, for which the New York Times singled out his singing as “properly stentorian.” Most recently he was John Adams in the first staged performances of Gary Fagin’s A Distant Love: Songs of John and Abigail Adams. This season he also sang the Ambassador in Michael Dellaira’s opera The Secret Agent at the Cell Theater in New York City, which will have its fully staged premiere with San Antonio Opera in 2010. Mr. Clark can be also heard as Patron on the original cast recording of Michael Dellaira’s opera Cherì, released by Albany Records. After portraying Herr Bauer in the premiere of Melissa Schiflett’s Dora, Schiflett composed the role of “Bear” especially for him in her chamber opera My Undying Love. In Europe with Elysium — Between Two Continents, he appeared in the Italian premiere of Ernst Krenek’s What Price Confidence? at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma. At the Bernried Festival in Germany, as well as at Weill Concert Hall, he starred in Egon Lustgarten’s previously unperformed 1935 opera Dante im Exil.
Mr. Clark has sung much of the standard baritone operatic repertoire with many of New York’s local companies, including Chelsea, Bronx, Liederkranz Opera and One World Symphony. The standard roles he assumes most frequently are Don Giovanni, Count, Papageno, Malatesta and Marcello. He has also been engaged by regional companies such as the Caramoor Festival, Ash Lawn, and Skylight Opera. He drew praise from the New York Times in Bronx Opera’s The Tender Land (“a rascally and irrepressible Top”), was a show-stopping Papageno in Will Crutchfield’s pacing of Die Zauberflöte at the Caramoor Festival (“high-spirited, wry, and sometimes slapstick” — Journal Times), and was cited by the Gay City News for his Postman in Hoiby’s The Scarf at Chelsea Opera as a “barihunk” with “incisive and characterful acting.”
As a musical theater actor Mr. Clark has an equal affinity for dramatic, comic, and romantic roles. An accomplished violinist, he made his professional theater debut in Fiddler on the Roof as the Fiddler who actually played. In 2009 he made his debut — for their fiftieth anniversary season — with Skylight Opera, as the Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance, to glowing reviews. Since Mr. Clark’s first season as an apprentice at Ash Lawn Opera he has returned as Frank Butler in Annie Get Your Gun, Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady, and, most recently, in Camelot as King Arthur (who, The Daily Progress raved, “had serenity mixed with a genuine tenderness and a vulnerability . . . he has an exciting, ‘in-command’ voice that is very thrilling”).
Mr. Clark’s engagements are handled by Judith Liegner: 212-496-1515 or liegnermgt@aol.com
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