Mark Steven Doss feat. Ken Smith and Stas Venglevski
Biography Mark Steven Doss feat. Ken Smith and Stas Venglevski
Mark Steven Doss
Grammy Award winner, Mark S. Doss has sung with the major orchestras of San Francisco, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Chicago, Houston and Toronto, while additionally performing 102 roles with more than 60 major opera companies around the world, including Milan’s Teatro alla Scala, the Vienna State Opera, London’s Royal Opera Covent Garden, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Canadian Opera Company.
The bass-baritone’s most recent engagements include the lead role of Alexandr Petrovič Gorjančikov in Leoš Janáček’s From the House of the Dead at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma and a reprise of William Daley in Kris Defoort’s The Time of Our Singing with the Concert and Theatre house in St. Gallen, Switzerland. This past season also saw Mr. Doss’s Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center debut with the New York Philharmonic in two performances of Here I Stand: Paul Robeson’s 125th Birthday Celebration. Two months earlier, he gave a solo concert performance with New York’s Greenwich Village Orchestra to a full house and a standing ovation. In a span of just over eleven months he sang the bass-baritone part in Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with the Minnesota Orchestra, The Davenport Symphony, The Erie Philharmonic, the Fairfax Symphony, and the Houston Symphony Orchestra.
Other recent engagements include the roles of Creon and the Messenger in Opera Company of Philadelphia’s Oedipus Rex by Stravinsky; Balstrode in Britten’s Peter Grimes with La Fenice; Alfio in Cavalleria Rusticana at London’s Royal Opera; Nicholas Lens’ Shell Shock with the Philharmonie de Paris; then Scarpia in Puccini’s Tosca as well as the title role in Verdi’s Rigoletto with Welsh National Opera. Robert Gainer of Bachtrack wrote in his November 2019 review of Doss’s Rigoletto, “In the eponymous role was as rich a bass-baritone as I have heard anywhere, emanating from the powerful diaphragm of Mark S. Doss. He has the ability to project even his whispers, and at full pelt can make your seat vibrate with his mighty voice.”
Mr. Doss’ illustrious career has taken him to the most prestigious opera houses worldwide, including Milan’s Teatro alla Scala, with eight major roles that include Argante (Rinaldo), Jochanaan (Salome), and Amonasro (Aida); Turin’s Teatro Regio with Simone in Zemlinsky’s The Florentine Tragedy, Amonasro, and the title role in The Flying Dutchman. As the Dutchman, Jacques Schmitt of ResMusica wrote: “With Mark S. Doss, the cast includes one of the most beautiful voices that I can imagine in the title role. An already superb Jochanaan in Salomé in Torino in 2008, we find him here again in a role that is the measure of his superb voice. Full of innumerable colors, timbre, his voice has a unique harmonic richness that creates an irresistible attraction for this character.”
Additionally, at Lyric Opera of Chicago he has sung Escamillo in Carmen, Timur in Turandot, and Cinque in Amistad, among others; and at La Monnaie in Brussels he has taken on Escamillo, Amonasro, the Colonial Soldier in Shell Shock, and William Daley in The Time of Our Singing. With the Hyogo Performing Arts Center (Japan) he sang Germont in La Traviata, and he reprised the Four Villains (The Tales of Hoffmann) with the New National Opera in Tokyo.
Upcoming assignments include Verdi arias at a Special Gala in New York City, the bass-baritone soloist in Beethoven’s 9th Symphony at Teatro La Fenice on the Piazza San Marco in Venice, Germont in La Traviata with Welsh National Opera, performances of Zurga in The Pearl Fishers in Antwerp and Ghent, the Father in Euridyce at Boston Lyric Opera, Jochanaan in Salome with the Houston Symphony, and a reprise of William Daley with the original cast of The Time of Our Singing at La Monnaie in Brussels.
A Grammy Award Winner for his participation in Handel’s Semele (Best Opera Recording), he is also a recipient of the National Institute for Music Theatre’s George London Opera Prize, and Planet Africa’s Entertainment Award, which recognizes his achievements as an artist and for being a positive role model for youths in both Canada and the United States.
