Devon Russo

Celebrated for his “brilliant” and “booming” bass-baritone, Devon Russo performs frequently as a soloist and ensemble member in Opera, Contemporary Music, and Early Music throughout the United States and abroad. Onstage, he has performed the roles of Judge Turpin (Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street), Pluto (Jonathan Dove’s The Other Euridice), Georges (La Cage aux Follies), Sam (Trouble in Tahiti), Arbas (Cadmus et Hermione), The Drunken Poet (The Fairy-Queen), Oloferne (La Giuditta), Papageno (Die Zauberflӧte), and the title roles in Gianni Schicchi, Le Carnaval Mascarade and Dido and Aeneas. With a particular love for Handel’s operas and oratorios, he has sung Tirenio (Il Pastor Fido), Manoah (Samson), Farasmane (Radamisto) and Argante (Rinaldo). He has performed with the Metropolitan Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Odyssey Opera, Trinity Repertory Company, Opera in Williamsburg, Connecticut Lyric Opera, Opera Providence, and Salt Marsh Opera. In concert he has sung the solos in Faure’s Requiem, Paukenmesse, Five Mystical Songs, Fantasia on Christmas Carols, Finzi’s In Terra Pax, Carmina Burana, Weihnachts-Oratorium, Missa in Angustiis “Lord Nelson Mass”, Ein Deutsches Requiem, Elijah and Messiah and was the bass soloist in the Mozart Great Mass in c minor on the Chorus of Westerly’s 2024 Concert Tour of France and the UK. He has performed with the Santa Fe Desert Chorale, Seraphic Fire, the Handel & Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, Quicksilver, the Oratorio Society of New York, Brevitas, Ensemble Altera, the Cantata Singers, and the Blacksburg Master Chorale. Devon is in his first season as a Jane & Steven Akin Emerging Artist with the Boston Lyric Opera has taken part in Young Artist Programs with the Voces8 Scholars Programme, the Boston Early Music Festival, the Internationalen Sommerakademie am Mozarteum Salzburg, the Académie Orford Musique, the Seraphic Fire Professional Choral Institute at the Aspen School of Music, Tafelmusik, Haymarket Opera Company, Source Song Festival, the Amherst Early Music Festival, Nahant Music Festival, and the Manhattan Opera Studio, he is also a current choral fellow at Marsh Chapel. He is the 2023 winner of the American Prize in Voice (Friedrich & Virginia Schorr Memorial Award Men’s Divison). Devon earned his Doctorate of Musical Arts from Boston University, his Master’s in Vocal Performance from the Manhattan School of Music and Bachelors in Vocal Performance and Education from the University of Rhode Island. Devon currently serves as Artist-Teacher in Classical Voice and Director of Opera Theatre at the University of Rhode Island and Director of Choral Activities at Bryant University. www.devonrusso.com