Sponsored by Dr. Aurelio and Mrs. Anne Marie Ketchum De La Vega

With over one hundred roles to his credit, Roberto Perlas Gomez has performed extensively throughout the United States with a special emphasis on California. He has done multiple leading roles with most of the regional companies in the state. He has done numerous supporting roles with Michigan Opera, Los Angeles Opera, San Diego Opera, and San Francisco Opera. He has appeared regularly as soloist with the Verdi Chorus.

Mr. Gomez made his international debut as Marcello in La bohème with the Shanghai Opera. In December of 1995, he performed at the Philippine Cultural Center in Manila, to create the title role of Jose Rizal in Rizal: Mga Huling Araw, an opera honoring the final days of the Philippine national hero during the centennial year of his death. Last year, he also performed the role of Elias in the Philippine National Opera, Noli me tangere, at Kennedy Center in Washington D. C.

Mr. Gomez made his European debut for the Arena di Verona as the Chinese Prime Minister Chou en-lai in the Italian premiere of John Adams’ Nixon in China, a role he reprised with Long Beach Opera to great press.

In the Spring of 2009, he debuted several leading roles with Long Beach Opera, to universally critical praise: the Koenig in Orff’s Die Kluge, as well as the title roles in Viktor Ullmann’s Emperor of Atlantis and Antonio Vivaldi’s Motezuma, the opera’s American premiere. He continues to perform multiple leading roles with Long Beach Opera, the latest being the roles of the Theater Director and the Gendarme in Poulenc’s The Breasts of Tiresias.

With San Diego Opera, Mr. Gomez  performed mainstage roles in Rusalka, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Madama Butterfly, Tosca, Carmen, and Turandot. He was also their Artist-in-Residence for four seasons, performing a series of solo outreach recitals throughout the county.

As an Opera San Jose resident artist, Mr. Gomez performed the roles of Escamillo in Carmen, Giorgio Germont in La traviata, Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia, and created the role of the Drosselmeier in the premiere of The Tale of the Nutcracker. Later that year he performed Germont with the Mendocino Music Festival. He has further performed what has become his signature role of Figaro with Nevada Opera, Santa Barbara Opera, Accorde in Mexico, Sacramento Opera, Opera Idaho, Stockton Opera, and with Opera San Luis Obispo.

Among Mr. Gomez’s many appearances in Southern California are several at the John Anson Ford Amphitheater: the baritone leads of Germanno in La scala di seta, Allazim in Mozart’s Zaide, and Riolobo in a concert version of Florencia en las Amazonas.

Mr. Gomez has done a number of Verdi roles to great press, singing the baritone leads of Renato in Un ballo in maschera, the previously mentioned Germont, Count di Luna in Il trovatore, Cavalier Belfior in Il finto Stanislao, and concerts of Verdi’s Requiem with the Juneau Symphony and Rodrigo in Don Carlo. Mr. Gomez has also performed the baritone leads of Figaro, Scarpia in Tosca, the Marquis d’Herigny in Auber’s Manon Lescaut, Mercutio in Gounod’s Romeo, Enrico in Lucia, the four villains in The Tales of Hoffmann, Alfio and Tonio in Cavalleria/Pagliacci, and Leporello in Don Giovanni.