Quinn Kelsey

A native of Honolulu, Hawai’i, baritone Quinn Kelsey opens his 2025/26 season at Royal Ballet and Opera with Verdi’s Les vêpres siciliennes, reprising the role of Guy de Montfort. He returns to the Lyric Opera of Chicago as Alfio/Tonio in a double bill of Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci and will bring his acclaimed portrayal of Verdi’s Rigoletto to the Canadian Opera Company and the Baltimore Symphony later this season. Kelsey will also return to The Metropolitan Opera, bringing his “deluxe Sharpless” (Observer) in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly to the stage. He makes his debut at The Royal Danish Opera, singing the title role in Verdi’s scorching Macbeth in concert under the baton of Sir Antonio Pappano, as well as at the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden as Germont in Verdi’s La traviata. 

Kelsey will also appear with his hometown opera company, Hawaii Opera Theatre, for the world premiere of Herb Mahelona’s Kamalehua: The Sheltering Tree. Set in the mid-nineteenth century, the opera tells the story of the Hawaiian Kingdom’s early struggles to maintain independence, told through the eyes of Royal Secretary Timoteo Haʻalilio. 

On the concert stage, Kelsey will join the Philadelphia Orchestra for Handel’s Messiah, and Kelsey and pianist Craig Ketter will appear together in recital at the Cleveland Chamber Music Society and the Kennedy Center for Vocal Arts DC, presenting a program that includes selections from Vaughn Williams’ Songs of Travel, Copland’s Old American Songs, and Finzi’s Let Us Garlands Bring. 

Last season, Kelsey bowed at The Metropolitan Opera in three roles: Rigoletto, the villainous Scarpia in Puccini’s Tosca, and Amonasro in Michael Mayer’s new production of Verdi’s Aida. He was seen as Filippo Visconti in Bellini’s Beatrice di Tenda at Opéra National de Paris and joined Opernhaus Zürich as Guido di Monforte in I vespri Siciliani and Rigoletto, a role he also sang for LA Opera.