Fletcher Artist Management is Freddie Ballentine's General Management. For inquiries in Europe, please also contact IMG Artists.
Hailing from Norfolk, Virginia, Grammy Award-winning tenor Freddie Ballentine was the 2021 recipient of the Kennedy Center’s Marian Anderson Award, and is an alumnus of both the Cafritz Young Artists of Washington National Opera and the Los Angeles Opera’s Domingo-Colburn-Stein Young Artist Program.
Admired for his versatility and individuality, Freddie’s 2024-2025 season includes debuts with the New World Symphony (Harlekin in Der Kaiser von Atlantis, Stéphane Denève conducting), Austin Opera (Ben Marco in The Manchurian Candidate), Utah Opera (The Witch in Hänsel und Gretel), and Detroit Opera (Kevin Richardson in The Central Park Five). He returns to Dutch National Opera for the world premiere of We Are The Lucky Ones, gives recitals with pianist Kunal Lahiry for Konzerthaus Berlin and Seattle Opera, appears in concert with Pacific Vocal Series, and bows with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin as Melot in Tristan und Isolde. Next season, he returns to the Metropolitan Opera as Sportin’ Life in Porgy & Bess, and makes his Bayerische Staatsoper debut as the Third Jew in Salome.
Freddie began the 2023-2024 season in a return to Seattle Opera, singing Loge in his first German-language performances of Das Rheingold. He then created the role of Trainer in the highly-anticipated world premiere of Jeanine Tesori’s Grounded at Washington National Opera. Two notable engagements at The Metropolitan Opera followed: Remendado in Carrie Cracknell’s new production of Bizet’s Carmen, and Tybalt in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, conducted by Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Elsewhere during the season, he appeared at Paris’ Athénée Théâtre Louis-Jouvet for a recital with Kunal Lahiry, and joined the Rotterdam Philharmonic for a theatrical concert, “Different from Others” with conductor Manoj Kamps.
The 2022-2023 season brought two anticipated role debuts at English National Opera, as he sang George Bailey in Heggie/Scheer’s It’s a Wonderful Life, and returned later in the season as Loge in Wagner’s The Rhinegold. Elsewhere, Freddie made his debut with Opera Vlaanderen as Jack O’Brien & Toby Higgins in Kurt Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, sang Valcour in The Anonymous Lover with Atlanta Opera and debuted the role of Sam in Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. Freddie closed the season with pianist Kunal Lahiry, presenting a recital entitled Our People: A Celebration of Black and LGBTQ Voices Through Song and Vogue at St. George’s Bristol in the UK.
Recent operatic engagements include the Drum Major in Wozzeck with Staatstheater Kassel; Nick in The Handmaid’s Tale at English National Opera; Judah in the world premiere of Castor and Patience with Cincinnati Opera; Sportin’ Life in Porgy and Bess for his debuts with The Metropolitan Opera, English National Opera, and Dutch National Opera; Don José in Carmen and Charlie Parker in Yardbird with Seattle Opera; the Steersman in Der fliegende Höllander with Cincinnati Opera; Reverend Parris in Robert Ward’s The Crucible at the Glimmerglass Festival, and returns to Los Angeles Opera to sing Monastatos in Barrie Kosky/1927’s production of Die Zauberflöte and Amon in Akhnaten.
In concert, Mr. Ballentine has appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic for Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy and Arvo Pärt’s Miserere, the New Jersey Symphony for Handel’s Messiah, as a featured soloist with the New York Choral Society for their Christmas Concert, with the Bard Music Festival, for selections from Kálmán’s Die Herzogin von Chicago, and with Naples Philharmonic and the Colburn School for Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
Freddie Ballentine trained with the Wolf Trap Opera, Aspen Music Opera Center and The Opera Theatre of St. Louis, who awarded him the Thelma Steward Endowed Artist Alumni Award.
