Cincinnati-Trained Singer Is Making a Name

For several years Joshua Jeremian seemed to be onstage everywhere in Cincinnati. He was a regular in opera productions at UC’s College-Conservatory of Music, where he was pursuing a master’s degree and then an artist’s diploma (additional graduate-level training) as an opera singer. But he was glad to find performing opportunities with many Cincinnati perfroming arts institutions. In 2005 he played a pair of princes in Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati’s holiday musical, Sleeping Beauty. (In fact, the big-voiced baritone was nominated for a 2006 Cincinnati Entertainment Award for his performance at ETC.)

In 2010 he played the extroverted but lovelorn Marcello in a reduced version of Puccini’s La Bohème that Cincinnati toured around Greater Cincinnati (including a couple of bars — a great place for the rowdy Parisian artists to raise some hell). Earlier this year he was onstage at the Carnegie Center in Covington, playing ne’er-do-well roustabout Billy Bigelow in a wonderfully sung production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel.

In addition to mainstage productions with Cincinnati Opera, he’s spent time with Seattle Opera (where he stole the show playing the title role in Verdi’s Falstaff in a young artists production), Spokane Opera, Wolf Trap Opera and Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown, N.Y. He’s also been a regular soloist with symphonies and pops orchestras from Cincinnati to Yakima, Wash.

Now Jeremiah seems to have caught on with New York City Opera, which is regrouping after financial challenges caused it to leave its longtime home in the State Theatre at Lincoln Center. NYCO is doing a abbreviated season at a variety of venues around the city, including several programs at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Last Thursday Jeremiah was part of a small ensemble singing the opening program for NYCO’s new season, Who Are You, New York?: The Songs of Rufus Wainwright. The evening at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center received favorable marks from Anthony Tommasini, classical music critic for The New York Times. (Tommasini on Rufus Wainwright.)

The nice thing about all this is that Joshua Jeremiah is a great guy. Everyone who has worked with him has loved his larger-than-life presence, his acting skills, his  boisterous sense of humor and a singing voice that’s a force of nature. It’s nice to see him advancing his career so successfully.