French tenor belatedly, triumphantly makes his Met debut

NEW YORK (AP) — Fresh off a triumphant debut, French tenor Benjamin Bernheim seems likely to become a familiar presence at the Metropolitan Opera. Just not too familiar, he hopes.

Bernheim, already a star at major European houses, is one of a new crop of tenors being introduced to American audiences now that pandemic shutdowns and travel restrictions are largely a thing of the past.

And he’s got the support of Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, who says, “It’s always good to get new blood,” and sees Bernheim as someone he can cast in leading roles for years to come.

“Peter wants me to create a profile for myself and for the Met,” Bernheim said in an interview. “For now we’re on a once-a-year basis, which I think is very good, because I also don’t want to be the guy who people say, ‘Oh him again!’ It can very easily be the case. People want to see new faces too.”

He admits he was slightly apprehensive at the prospect of introducing himself to the Met audience as the ruthless, womanizing Duke in Verdi’s “Rigoletto.” His final performance in the role is Thursday.

“He’s not a very lovable character,” Bernheim said. “And you see all the names who sang the Duke here and you feel, wow, that’s pressure, especially for a debut.” Those names include Enrico Caruso, who sang the role for his 1903 debut, and more recently giants like Richard Tucker and Luciano Pavarotti.

It turns out he needn’t have worried. Critic Oussama Zahr in The New York Times called him “a lyric tenor who roars on top with genuinely thrilling, auditorium-filling sound,” while David Salazar wrote on the OperaWire website: “He exuded vocal confidence, every note coming through crystal clear, every phrase elegantly thrown off.”

Bernheim, 37, actually made...