Isaiah Bell
Canadian American tenor Isaiah Bell sings across North America as a soloist in concert and opera. Having distinguished himself early as an interpreter of Handel, Benjamin Britten, and Bach’s Evangelists (Lincoln Center, Edinburgh Festival, Aldeburgh Festival, Toronto Symphony Orchestra), he has also found an artistic home in new creations and creative re-interpretations of classic works. He created the role of Antinous, lover to Thomas Hampson’s Roman emperor, in Rufus Wainwright and Daniel MacIvor’s Hadrian at the Canadian Opera Company and was lauded for his “immense stage presence” and “powerful, beautiful instrument” as the Machiavellian fop Johan Oxenstierna in the 2024 premiere of La Reine-garçon (Bilodeau/Bouchard) at l’Opéra de Montréal. On his queer pandemic-era adaptation and translation of Poulenc’s La voix humaine, Opera Canada wrote, “Bell’s finely tuned performance is so perfectly married to his own sensitive and intelligent adaptation that the viewer is irrevocably drawn into [its] unfolding.”
Critical response highlights Isaiah’s diversity as a singer and stage performer. Frequently singled out for singing of “uncommon warmth,” “smooth-as-silk coloratura,” and his “elegant sense of phrasing,” he also commands a “strong, glorious voice with the heroic, oratorio-style ring” and a balance of “tenderness and sweetness” with “power and urgency.” His dramatic portrayals have drawn special notes for “vivid characterization” (Opera Magazine), “exquisite poignancy” (New York Times), and “[the] timing of a polished professional, well versed in delicacies of tone” (Vancouver Sun). In particular, his Madwoman in Britten’s Curlew River earned this rave in The New York Times: “Tenor Isaiah Bell gives a performance of haunting beauty, ideally depicting emotional distraction with ultimate economy and glowing vocal skill . . . he has only to lower his eyelids or tip his head for it to pierce the heart.”
Isaiah complements his performance practice with composing and writing for the theatre, most notably in his chamber opera/cabaret-theatre solo show, The Book of My Shames. The piece, a co-creation with director Sean Guist around Isaiah’s words and music, has toured Canada in piano, chamber ensemble, and orchestra versions. It consistently surprises audiences with its genre-defying, funny, and shockingly candid theatrical fusion, and their responses have been overwhelming: “impossibly beautiful”. . . “broke my heart wide open with the pure honesty, raw vulnerability and humanity of it. “I honestly thought this was one of the most compelling shows I’ve ever seen.”
Recent and upcoming engagements for Isaiah include a return to La Reine-garçon (Canadian Opera Company), Haydn’s The Creation with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and the Elora Festival, and a mini-tour of Messiah with conductor Nicholas McGegan. He also premieres a new interdisciplinary concert project, “Let Us Turn Aside” (featuring an experimental physical interpretation of Satie’s meditative late masterpiece Socrate), and returns to back-by-popular-demand dates of “Banned from the Concert Hall” (a three-tenor mashup of bawdy Baroque songs, created by Isaiah for Victoria Baroque and Early Music Vancouver). Isaiah appears on the newly released world-premiere recording of Mendelssohn’s arrangement of the St. Matthew Passion with the Bach Choir of Bethlehem.