Will Liverman Awarded Metropolitan Opera’s Beverly Sills Artist Award

By Francisco Salazar
(Credit: Karen Almond / Met Opera)

The Metropolitan Opera has named baritone Will Liverman the winner of the 2022 Beverly Sills Artist Award.

The annual $50,000 award recognizes a gifted singer with a rising Met career. The award was established in 2006 by an endowment gift from the late Agnes Varis, a former Met board member.

In a statement, Liverman said, “I am so thankful to be named this year’s recipient of the Beverly Sills Award! It is an honor to be counted amongst the illustrious and talented roster of previous Sills Award recipients. Performing at the Met, particularly in the re-opening production of Fire Shut Up in My Bones this past fall, has been one of the great highlights of my career to date, and I look forward to future collaborations together.”

Liverman made his company debut in 2018 as Malcom Fleet in Nico Muhly’s “Marnie” and has performed Philip Glass’s “Akhnaten” and Terence Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones.” He has also sung Papageno in Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” in 2020 and 2022 becoming the first black Papageno. During the 2023–24 season, Liverman will star in the title role of Anthony Davis’s “X: The Life and Times of Malcom X.”

The Sills Award has been awarded to baritone Nathan Gunn in 2006, mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato in 2007, tenor Matthew Polenzani in 2008, bass John Relyea in 2009, soprano Susanna Phillips in 2010, mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard in 2011, soprano Angela Meade in 2012, tenor Bryan Hymel in 2013, tenor Michael Fabiano in 2014, baritone Quinn Kelsey in 2015, soprano Ailyn Pérez in 2016, mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton in 2017, soprano Nadine Sierra in 2018, soprano Lisette Oropesa in 2019, and soprano Angel Blue in 2020. In 2021, the Award was given to five recipients: sopranos Erin Morley and Brenda Rae, countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, tenor Ben Bliss, and bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green.

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