Renowned American baritone Troy Cook is a native of Henry County, Kentucky, and has performed in many of the world’s greatest opera houses, including The Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, San Francisco Opera, La Monnaie (Brussels) and Opera Bilbao.
Mr. Cook's 2025-2026 season engagements include Marcello in La bohème with Austin Opera, Handel’s Messiah with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Manfred Honeck; Orff’s Carmina Burana with the Oregon Symphony; and a return to The Metropolitan Opera, covering Gerhard in the company’s season-opening premiere of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. The summer will see him return to the Glimmerglass Festival as Sharpless in Madama Butterfly and Andrew Carnes in Oklahoma!
The 2024-2025 season began with his home company, Opera Philadelphia, singing the role of Paul Devon in the North American premiere of The Listeners. A champion of new music, he bowed in Virginia Opera’s world premiere, Loving v. Virginia, portraying ACLU attorney Bernard Cohen. Additional operatic engagements during the season included Athanaël in Massenet’s Thaïs with Spoleto Festival USA, his hugely popular Major-General Stanley in The Pirates of Penzance for Knoxville Opera, and Giorgio Germont in the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra’s performances of La traviata (conducted by JoAnn Falletta). On the concert stage, he joined the American Symphony Orchestra for a concert of works by C.P.E. Bach, Grant Park Music Festival, for Orff’s Carmina Burana with conductor Giancarlo Guerrero, and Baltimore Chamber Orchestra for Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer.
During the 2023-2024 season, Mr. Cook made an anticipated role debut as Athanaël with Utah Opera, and returned to several favorite portrayals, including Germont for Florida Grand Opera, Sharpless in Madama Butterfly with Boston Lyric Opera, and Major-General Stanley with Kentucky Opera. For summer 2024, he took the stage with the Glimmerglass Festival as both Tonio in Pagliacci and Major-General Stanley.
Troy created the role of Father Palmer in the world premiere of the Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Silent Night by Kevin Puts & Mark Campbell with Minnesota Opera, singing further performances of the role with Utah Opera, Austin Opera and Atlanta Opera amongst others. He created another role, John Cree, in Puts & Campbell’s Elizabeth Cree with Opera Philadelphia in 2017. In 2022, he created the role of Tom in the world premiere of Matt Boehler and Miriam Gordon-Stewart’s Fat Pig.
Other recent operatic engagements include Merlin in Chausson’s rarely-performed Le Roi Arthus for Bard Summerscape, Mark Torrance in The Shining with Opera Colorado, Sharpless with Washington National Opera, Portland Opera and Central City Opera, Dr. Falke in Die Fledermaus with Central City Opera, Watty Watkins in Lady be Good with Teatro San Carlo Napoli, Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor in a new Laurent Pelly production with Opera Philadelphia, Rodrigo in Don Carlo with Washington National Opera and Opera Philadelphia, Valentin in Faust at the Macau Festival, and Ford in Falstaff with San Diego Opera.
On the concert stage, Troy recently performed Handel’s Messiah with the San Francisco, Indianapolis, Charlotte, Memphis and Tucson Symphonies. He bowed as the baritone soloist in Carmina Burana with the Hong Kong Philharmonic and LA Philharmonic, and sang Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem with the Portland Symphony.
Previous career highlights include Ford in Falstaff with the Staatsoper Hamburg, Guglielmo in Così fan tutte with the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and Santa Fe Opera; Morales in Carmen and Schaunard in La bohème with the Metropolitan Opera; Marcello in La bohème with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, Florida Grand Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Semperoper Dresden, and Opera Philadelphia; Lescaut in Manon Lescaut with Opera Philadelphia; the Count in Le nozze di Figaro with Lyric Opera of Kansas City; Germont in La traviata with Central City Opera; Riccardo in I puritani with Boston Lyric Opera; Sharpless in Madama Butterfly with Opera Philadelphia and Berkshire Opera; Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor with Las Palmas Opera and Lyric Opera of Kansas City; Zurga in Les pêcheurs de perles with Lyric Opera of Kansas City and Opera Carolina; Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia with Austin Opera, San Francisco Opera and Fort Worth Opera; Mr. Flint in Billy Budd with San Francisco Opera; Paolo in Simon Boccanegra and Albert in Werther with Kentucky Opera; and Giacomo in Beatrix Cenci with Grand Théâtre de Genève.
