Biography

Baritone David Kravitz has been widely praised for the “power, character” and “resonance and fluency” of his singing (Boston Globe; Opera News), his “brilliantly natural” acting and “perfect comic timing” (Boston Globe; St. Louis Post-Dispatch), his “eloquent” and “superb” diction (Boston Phoenix; Boston Herald), and his “drop-dead musicianship” (Boston Globe) on both the operatic and the concert stages.

In the 2010-2011 season, Mr. Kravitz sings the Businessman in Intermezzo for his debut at New York City Opera, and appears as the United Nations Delegate in the world premiere of Tod Machover’s Death and the Powers at Opéra de Monte-Carlo, with subsequent performances of the work that season at Chicago Opera Theater and in Boston in a production by the American Repertory Theater. He also returns to Opera Boston as the Provost Marshall and Gold Merchant in Hindemith's rarely performed Cardillac, sings Handel's Messiah for his debut with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and appears as Nick Shadow in The Rake's Progress with Emmanuel Music.

In the summer of 2009, he joined Glimmerglass Opera for Dr. Grenvil in La traviata and Mr. Kofner in The Consul. In the fall of 2009, he sang his first Germont in La traviata with the Pioneer Valley Symphony, and later joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra for Elijah (solo bass, covering Elijah) and MacMillan’s St. John Passion (covering Christus), Opera Boston for Baron Grog in La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein, and traveled to Opera Theatre of Saint Louis for Lord Salt in the world premiere of The Golden Ticket.

In the 2008-2009 season, Mr. Kravitz sang Prince Ottokar in Der Freischütz and Krusina in The Bartered Bride with Opera Boston, and joined the Philadelphia Orchestra for Handel's Messiah. The 2007-2008 season included returns to the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Maestro Levine for Berlioz’s Les Troyens, to Opera Boston for Handel’s Semele, to Opera Theatre of St. Louis for Martin y Soler’s Una Cosa Rara, and to Boston Baroque for Purcell’s King Arthur. Mr. Kravitz joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra for Bach’s St. Matthew Passion under Bernard Haitink; he performed Handel's Messiah in Carnegie Hall; he joined the Lincoln (NE) Symphony under Edward Polochick for Bach’s St. Matthew Passion; and he returned to Emmanuel Music for Bach’s B Minor Mass, to the New England Philharmonic for Mahler’s Lieder Eines Fahrenden Gesellen, and to the Cantata Singers for Carmina Burana and for the Boston premieres of Kurt Weill’s Flight of Lindbergh and Charles Fussell’s High Bridge.

The 2006-2007 season included Ko-Ko in The Mikado with Opera Theatre of St. Louis, the title role in Wozzeck with the New England Philharmonic, and performances under the baton of James Levine in the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s production of Schoenberg’s Moses und Aron. Mr. Kravitz joined the roster of New York City Opera in the 2005-2006 season, responsible for the leading role of Olivier in Strauss’s Capriccio; his other opera roles include Leporello and the title role in Don Giovanni, Figaro in The Barber of Seville, Count Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro, Papageno in The Magic Flute, Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte, Nick Shadow in The Rake’s Progress, and Captain Corcoran in HMS Pinafore.

Mr. Kravitz’s concert performances include Handel’s Messiah in both Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall, his “sensational” Boston Symphony Hall debut with Grant Llewellyn and the Handel & Haydn Society as Apollo in Handel’s Apollo e Dafne, and solo appearances with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s under Roger Norrington, Boston Baroque under Martin Pearlman, the Cantata Singers under David Hoose, and Emmanuel Music’s renowned Bach Cantata Series under Craig Smith. As a chamber musician, Mr. Kravitz presented Brahms’ Neue Liebeslieder Walzer with the Boston Chamber Music Society; an all-Mozart concert with renowned soprano Lisa Saffer; and works by Samuel Barber and Charles Fussell with Boston’s Fibonacci String Quartet.

Mr. Kravitz’s commitment to new music has led to his presentation of world or regional premieres of numerous contemporary works, including Edward Cohen’s opera The Bridal Night and Andy Vores’ song cycle Goback Goback with Collage New Music (the latter was named one of the best classical performances of 2003 by the Boston Phoenix); John Harbison’s Four Psalms with Cantata Singers (recently released on CD by New World); Tod Machover’s Resurrection with Boston Lyric Opera; James Primosch’s Songs and Dances from “The Tempest” and Thomas Whitman’s opera The Black Swan with Philadelphia’s Orchestra 2001; and George Rochberg’s Sacred Song of Reconciliation with Boston Modern Orchestra Project. Mr. Kravitz is also active as a recording artist and, in addition to Harbison’s Four Psalms, can be heard on Koch International Classics’ recordings of Bach’s Cantata BWV 20 and St. John Passion (1725 version) with Emmanuel Music, and on New World’s recording of Peter Child’s Estrella with Cantata Singers.

Before devoting himself full-time to a career in music, Mr. Kravitz had a distinguished career in law that included clerkships with U.S. Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Stephen Breyer. He later served as Deputy Legal Counsel to the Governor of Massachusetts.