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The American counter-tenor, Bejun Mehta was born in Laurinburg, North Carolina, and grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan. His father, Dady Mehta, a pianist born in Shanghai, China, to Indian parents, is a cousin of conductor Zubin Mehta. His father was professor of piano at Eastern Michigan University. His mother, Martha Ritchey Mehta of Altoona, Pennsylvania, was a soprano and journalist who worked in the development office of the University of Michigan Museum of Art, and she was her son's first voice teacher. His brother, Navroj Mehta, is a violinist and the artistic director of the Ventura Music Festival. From the age of 9 through 15, he was a solo boy soprano in concerts and recordings. Of his CD for the Delos label in 1983 ("Bejun"), Leonard Bernstein commented, "It is hard to believe the richness and maturity of musical understanding in this adolescent boy." He was named by the magazine Stereo Review as the Debut Recording Artist of the Year. His main voice teachers have been Phyllis Curtin of Boston University (baritone) and Joan Patenaude-Yarnell of the Manhattan School of Music and Curtis Institute (counter-tenor).
After his voice changed, Bejun Mehta studied the cello, both as a soloist and orchestral player, under Aldo Parisot at Yale University. He graduated from Yale University with a degree in German literature. At the same time he completed an internship at Delos, where he had recorded as a boy. This led to work as an independent recording producer for labels such as Sony/CBS, BMG/RCA, Deutsche Grammophon, and Delos. His production of Janos Starker’s final recording of J.S. Bach’s Cello Suites (BMG/RCA) won the 1997 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance without orchestra.
Bejun Mehta sang for several years as a baritone without much success. "I was average, just average," he said. He began to experiment with singing in the counter-tenor range after reading a 1997 New Yorker profile of the counter-tenor David Daniels, whose early experiences seemed to mirror his own. In 1998, Marilyn Horne, who knew of his work as a boy soprano, offered him sponsorship through the Marilyn Horne Foundation, an organization that works to develop new talent and preserve the art of song recital. He made his operatic debut as a counter-tenor that same year as Armindo in a New York City Opera production of Partenope by George Frideric Handel. Two months later he substituted for David Daniels, who was taken ill during an international concert tour.
Bejun Mehta is one of the most acclaimed counter-tenors in the world. He regularly performs the great roles of his repertoire with leading opera houses such as Covent Garden, Bayerische Staatsoper, Opéra National de Paris, Théâtre du Châtelet, La Scala, Theater an der Wien, Berliner Staatsoper, Théatre de la Monnaie, Netherlands Opera, Barcelona Liceu, Teatro Real in Madrid, Metropolitan Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, Los Angeles Opera, San Francisco Opera, and New York City Opera. He has performed at the festivals of Salzburg, Glyndebourne, Edinburgh, Aix-en-Provence, and Verbier, and at the London BBC Proms. He performs programmes with repertoire ranging from Baroque to contemporary music. He has performed at leading concert venues, including Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Konzerthaus, Vienna and the Wiener Musikverein, Carnegie Hall and Zankel Hall, New York, the 92nd Street Y, Brussels’ Palais des Beaux-Arts, Palau des Arts Valencia, Madrid’s Teatro de la Zarzuela, Cité de la Musique, Paris, the Prinzregententheater Munich, and the festivals of Edinburgh, San Sebastian, Verbier, Schleswig-Holstein, and the BBC Proms in London. He has also conducted the Belgian Baroque Orchestra B'Rock in concerts of Haydn and W.A. Mozart symphonies.
Bejun Mehta's operatic roles include, among many others: Orlando in Orlando, Tamerlano in Tamerlano, Giulio Cesare in Giulio Cesare, Bertarido in Rodelinda, Orfeo in Orfeo ed Euridice, Oberon in Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Farnace in Mitridate, Didymus in Theodora, Hamor in Jephtha, Cyrus in Belshazzar, Arsamenes in Xerxes, Andronico in Tamerlano, Radamisto in Radamisto, Riccardo Primo in Riccardo Primo, Arsace in Partenope, Masha in Péter Eötvös's Three Sisters, Ottone in Agrippina, and Emone in Antigone.
The British composer George Benjamin wrote a lead role for him in his opera Written on Skin, which premiered in 2012 at Aix-en-Provence. In 2013 he gave a "visceral and beautifully-sung performance" in the world premiere recording of that opera.[19] In 2014, Benjamin was at work on a new concert piece for Mehta that receives its world premiere in September 2015 at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw.
Highlights of recent seasons include a new production and DVD of G.F. Handel Rodelinda at the Teatro Real Madrid (Bertarido), Farnace (Mitridate) at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Hamor in Jephtha at the Nationale Opera & Ballet in Amsterdam, the creation of the role of Angel 1/Boy in George Benjamin’s celebrated opera Written on Skin (Aix-en-Provence, the Netherlands Opera and the Royal Opera House Covent Garden), and the world premiere of George Benjamin’s Dream of the Song with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, Benjamin himself conducting, followed by the French (Orchestre de Paris) and North American (Boston/Carnegie Hall) premieres. Mehta was recently Artist-in-Residence at the Dresdner Philharmonie, where he demonstrated his artistic versatility in four separate programs as both a singer and conductor. His solo program CANTATA (with the Akademie für alte Musik Berlin) has enjoyed great success all over Europe including Zurich, London, Salzburg, Madrid, Barcelona, Oviedo, and Katowice.
In 2017-2018 season Bejun Mehta will appear as Tamerlano (Tamerlano) at the Teatro della Scala Milano and as Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Theater an der Wien. Other operatic engagements include a revival of Toshio Hosokawa’s Stilles Meer (the role of Stephan composed for him) at the Hamburgische Staatsoper and a revival of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice at the Staatsoper unter den Linden, Berlin. On the concert stage Mehta can be heard with the Staatskapelle Berlin conducted by Zubin Mehta singing Rossini’s Petite Messe Solenelle and George Benjamin’s Dream of the Song, a solo cantata written especially for him; with the Dresdner Philharmonie in his sing/conduct program "The Stars and the Planets"; and singing J.S. Bach with the Gürzenich-Orchester Köln.
Bejun Mehta is represented on a vast array of recordings. His newest recording, CANTATA, will be released March 2018 on Pentatone. His most recent solo CD, a collection of classical arias entitled "Che Puro Ciel" (Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin/René Jacobs/Harmonia Mundi), was awarded Le Diamant d’Opera Magazine, the Choc de Classica, and was shortlisted for the 2014 Gramophone Award in the Recital category. "Down by the Salley Gardens", a collection of English art song, was released in 2011 (with Julius Drake/Harmonia Mundi). Ombra Cara, Bejun’s bestselling recording of G.F. Handelarias (Freiburger Barockorchester/René Jacobs/Harmonia Mundi), was awarded the 2011 Echo Klassias Opera Recording of the Year. In 2017, the live recording of George Benjamin‘s Dream of the Song with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, George Benjamin conducting, was released on Nimbus. In 2014, Deutsche Grammophon/Archiv released a new complete studio recording of Orlando with Bejun in the title role (B'Rock/René Jacobs), which was shortlisted for the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik. Also in 2014, ArthausMusik released a theatrical film version of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice shot entirely on location at the Český Krumlov Castle in which Bejun both starred as Orfeo and was the Artistic Advisor. Bejun makes a cameo appearance on El Maestro Farinelli, Pablo Heras-Casado’s debut recording on Deutsche Grammophon/Archiv (2014), singing two of Farinelli’s greatest hits. Also available on CD and DVD are Stilles Meer (Unitel 2017), Agrippina (BBC Music Magazine’s 2012 Opera Award and nominated for a Grammy as Best Opera Recording of the Year) and Belshazzar (both on Harmonia Mundi), Theodora (C-Major Entertainment/Unitel, shortlisted for the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik), Mitridate (Decca), Messiah (Unitel), B. Britten's A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Glyndebourne Label), and Rodelinda (Belvedere DVD #10144, 2011 Theater an der Wien/Concentus Musicus Wien/Nikolaus Harnoncourt).
Bejun Mehta has been profiled by CBS (60 Minutes II), A&E (Breakfast with the Arts), ORF 2 (Austria), Arte (France), and ARD (Germany). Bejun Mehta has been profiled in numerous TV features for Arte, ARD, ORF 2, TW-1 and CBS-TV. He was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for his portrayal of Orlando at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (2007) and is the recipient of the 2015 Traetta Prize. He holds an honor’s degree in German literature from Yale. |
