American tenor VINSON COLE is internationally recognized as one of the leading artists of his generation. His career has taken him to all of the major opera houses across the globe including the Metropolitan Opera, Opéra National de Paris, Teatro alla Scala, Berlin State Opera and the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Bavarian State Opera, San Francisco Opera, Hamburg State Opera, Opera Australia, and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Vinson Cole has been closely associated with the Seattle Opera, where he has appeared in many productions over the last seasons since his 1988 debut there in Orphée et Euridice.

Cole's orchestral engagements during the 2002/2003 season concentrate on the music of Hector Berlioz (the bicentennial of whose birth falls in 2003), including Roméo et Juliette with John Nelson and the Orchestre de Paris and the Grande messe des morts in New York with the Orchestra of St. Luke's, the Collegiate Chorale, and the Riverside Choral Society.

Among the operatic roles with which Cole has long been associated are the title roles of Don Carlo, Faust, and Werther (Opera Australia), Don José in Carmen (Seattle Opera, L'Opéra de Montreal), the title role of Idomeneo (Lyric Opera of Chicago), the title role of La clemenza di Tito (Royal Opera House, Covent Garden), Nemorino in The Elixir of Love (Seattle, Michigan), Renaud in Armide (La Scala), the title role of The Damnation of Faust (Bavarian State Opera, Hamburg State Opera, Metropolitan Opera in Japan), the title role of The Tales of Hoffmann (Opera Pacific, Michigan Opera Theatre), Alfred in Die Fledermaus (Metropolitan Opera), Des Grieux in Manon (Opéra Comique de Paris), Belmonte in The Abduction from the Seraglio (Paris Opera), the Duke in Rigoletto (Frankfurt), Cavaradossi in Tosca (Opera Australia, Seattle Opera), and Alfredo in La traviata (Vienna State Opera, Hamburg State Opera).

Equally celebrated for his concert appearances, Cole has performed regularly with the most prestigious orchestras throughout the world, under the batons of such eminent conductors as Sir Georg Solti, Christoph Eschenbach, Claudio Abbado, Carlo Maria Giulini, James Levine, Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Seiji Ozawa, Gerard Schwarz, and Giuseppe Sinopoli. Cole had an especially close working relationship with the late Herbert von Karajan, who brought the artist to the Salzburg Festival to sing the Italian Tenor in Der Rosenkavalier - the first of many performances together. Their collaboration included works such as Verdi's Requiem and Beethoven's Missa solemnis, as well as the Deutsche Grammophon recordings of Der Rosenkavalier, Mozart's Requiem, Beethoven's Missa solemnis, and Symphony No. 9.