About

Catherine Malfitano, Singer; Actor; Director; and Teacher, was born in New York City to a dancer/actress mother and violinist father. She has sung an eclectic, wide-ranging, and glamorous repertoire of over 70 roles, encompassing the entirety of operatic history from the 17th to the 21st century. Her more than 1400 performances have been seen and heard at all the major opera houses of the world, and on television. Ms. Malfitano is acclaimed for her commanding vocalism, impeccable musicianship, elegant stage presence, and riveting dramatic abilities. Her portrayal of Tosca, broadcast live from the actual Roman settings and at the actual times of the opera, was seen by more than one billion television viewers worldwide in 1992, and garnered her an Emmy Award.

In the summer of 2005, Catherine added another facet to her artistic profile, with her debut as a stage director. Her critically acclaimed new production of Madama Butterfly was the highlight of the Central City Opera Festival season, and marked her return to the theater where she had made her professional singing debut in 1972. Since 2005 she has also directed new productions of La voix humaine by Francis Poulenc (in which she also performed the role of Elle) for La Monnaie in Brussels; The Saint of Bleecker Street by Gian Carlo Menotti for Central City Opera; Tosca for the Florida Grand Opera; Rigoletto for the Washington National Opera, Don Giovanni for San Francisco's Merola Program, and Lucia di Lammermoor for Central City Opera.  In 2010 her new production of Tosca for the English National Opera broke box office records, and continued to do so during its first revival in 2011. Also in 2011 she made her directing debut at the Lyric Opera of Chicago with Lucia di Lammermoor. Most recently she directed a double bill of Zemlinsky's A Florentine Tragedy and Gianni Schicchi for her debut at the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto, which received universally glowing reviews.

Throughout her singing career, Catherine Malfitano has been celebrated as a unique theatre performer. She has worked with many of the world’s leading directors including Jean-Pierre Ponnelle; Luc Bondy; Nikolaus Lehnhoff; Patrice Chereau; Elijah Moshinsky; Sir Peter Hall; Peter Zadek; Robert Altman; David Pountney; Jack O’Brien; Stefan Braunscweig; Graham Vick; Goetz Friedrich; John Dexter; Gian-Carlo Del Monaco; Jurgen Flimm; Christopher Alden; and David Alden. Her relationships with these directors have produced many of the most memorable operatic events of our time. 

Since 1998 Ms. Malfitano has been teaching privately, giving masterclasses world wide, as well as her own special course entitled Revealing the ActorSinger Within. She joined the voice faculty at the Manhattan School of Music in the Fall of 2008.