Sean Panikkar

Sean Panikkar (born 17 September 1981) is an American operatic tenor. He has performed in many leading opera houses both nationally and internationally, including the Metropolitan Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Carnegie Hall, Salzburg Festival, as well as Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Fort Worth Opera,

Early years

Sean Panikkar was born and raised in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, the second son of Sri Lankan immigrants—a father of Sinhalese and Indian ancestry and a Tamil mother. Panikkar first began studying voice as a high schooler with Juilliard-trained soprano Li Ping Liu. At the University of Michigan he double majored in civil engineering and vocal performance for three years before committing himself entirely to music. At the School of Music, Theatre & Dance there he studied with Daniel Washington and Luretta Bybee and received his bachelor's and master's degrees in vocal performance. He participated in the Merola training program of the San Francisco Opera in 2004 and held an Adler Fellow with that company in 2005 and 2006.

Career

Panikkar has performed several roles with Metropolitan Opera, including Tybalt in Roméo et Juliette under the baton of Plácido Domingo, Arturo in Lucia di Lammermoor conducted by Marco Armiliato, Brighella in Ariadne auf Naxos led by Kirill Petrenko, and Prunier in La rondine. Further credits include roles in The Queen of Spades, Le pauvre matelot, The Maid of Orleans, Manon Lescaut, Tristan und Isolde, Fidelio, Norma, and Die Zauberflöte with the San Francisco Opera, as well as Nabucco at Washington National Opera, the male title role of Béatrice et Bénédict with Opera Boston, Weill's Lost in the Stars at the Glimmerglass Festival, Salome at Washington National Opera and the Saito Kinen Festival, and Lensky in Eugene Onegin and Count Almaviva in The Ghosts of Versailles with the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis.

During the 2013/14 season, Panikkar sang Rodolfo in La bohème at the Royal Albert Hall in London, Macduff in Macbeth at Palm Beach Opera, and return engagements with Pittsburgh Opera as Tamino in The Magic Flute and with Fort Worth Opera as Nadir in Les pêcheurs de perles. In the 2014/15 season, he sang in The Death of Klinghoffer at the Metropolitan Opera and in the world premiere of Giorgio Battistelli's CO2 at Teatro alla Scala.