David Malis was named assistant professor in the Department of Vocal Performance where he will teach voice and co-direct Opera Theater.  Malis is the first American to win the prestigious Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, began his operatic career with the San Francisco Opera as Papageno in Die Zauberflöte. A leading baritone at the Metropolitan Opera for twelve seasons, he has appeared as Figaro in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Belcore in L’elisir d’amore, Marcello in La Bohème, Papageno, Harlekin in Ariadne auf Naxos, and Ned Keene in Peter Grimes. The role of Ford in Falstaff has taken him to many of the world’s greatest opera houses, including La Scala, Covent Garden, the Teatro Colòn, the San Francisco Opera, Welsh National Opera, and the Thêàtre des Champs-Elysées. Rossini’s Figaro served as his debut role at the Vienna Staatsoper and the Nederlandse Operastichting.  Career highlights include Gellner in La Wally at the Bregenzer Festspiele, Corèbe in Les Troyens in Athens and Toulouse, Oreste in Iphigénie en Tauride at the Teatro Colòn and Madrid’s Teatro de la Zarzuela, Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus at Welsh National Opera, and Marcello at Rio de Janeiro’s Teatro Municipal, Teatro Colòn, and Teatro Real in Madrid and Santa Fe. He appears on DVD as Ford in the BBC production of Falstaff and as Figaro in the Dario production of Il Barbiere di Siviglia, and on CD as Kurwenal in a recent recording of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde for Titanic Records. Mr. Malis has been soloist at Carnegie Hall in Brahms’ Requiem, Vaughan-Williams’ Sea Symphony, and Strauss’ Intermezzo, and as a recitalist in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Seattle, Cardiff, Cincinnati and Stockholm.  Opera Director of the Crested Butte Music Festival for ten years, and former director of the St. Barts Music Festival, Mr. Malis has produced, directed, cast and sung in La Bohème, Cosi fan tutte, Le Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, Die Zauberflöte, Carmen, La Traviata, L’elisir d’amore, Faust, Die Fledermaus, Don Pasquale, The Merry Widow, The Bear, Il Barbiere di Siviglia and  Rigoletto. He has taught voice at the University of Maryland and at the Opera Theater of Lucca, Italy, and was on the voice faculty of Oberlin in Italy this summer in Urbania. Mr. Malis is a student and protégé of one of the great singing actors of the twentieth century, legendary Italian bass Italo Tajo. 

e-mail: dmalis@miami.edu