Pene Pati

Pene Pati is revered for his “extraordinary gift for producing a golden thread of sound that can swell without strain to magnificence” (The Telegraph) and is instantly recognizable by his “round and sunshine filled voice,” (Le Monde), with his warm and winning personality endearing him to both audience and critics around the world. The first Samoan tenor to perform on Europe’s top stages, Pene Pati boasts an exceptional versatility in a broad palette of roles from Mozart to Massenet, Donizetti, Gounod, Puccini and Verdi and his self-titled debut album of Italian and French arias earned him the Opus Klassik Newcomer of the Year Award, Best Male Singer at the Opera Critics’ Awards and Opera Magazine Readers’ Award at the International Opera Awards.  An exclusive recording artist for Warner Classics, his second album, Nessun Dorma, was released in September 2024.

Pene Pati’s 2024/25 season opens with a return to Opéra national de Paris to debut as Gounod’s Faust, and continues with two highly anticipated debuts at the Royal Ballet and Opera as Rodolfo in Puccini’s La Bohème under Speranza Scappucci and at the Metropolitan Opera as Duca in Verdi’s Rigoletto. Rodolfo holds a firm position across the current season’s planning, marking important house debuts at Bayerische Staatsoper, Lyric Opera of Chicago and his return to San Francisco Opera and, in concert version with ​L’orchestre de Chambre de Genève, he further expands his repertoire with first performances as Massenet’s Werther.  At Osterfestspiele Salzburg, Pene Pati sings Mendelssohn’s Elias under the baton of Maxim Emelyanychev and with Luzerner Sinfonieorchester and Michael Sanderling he performs and records both Mozart’s Requiem and Fazil Say’s world-premiere, Mozart ve Mevlana.  In addition to gala concerts in Berlin, Paris and Istanbul, he performs in recital at Opéra national de Bordeaux with pianist Mathieu Pordoy, and together with Amina Edris as part of Les Sommets de la Voix recital series in Crans-Montana, Switzerland. Over the summer, Pene Pati returns to the Festival d’Aix to debut another French role, Nadir in Bizet’s Les Pêcheurs de perles, before performing in Mozart’s Mitridate at the Salzburger Festspiele. He ends his season with his debut at the Arena di Verona in Verdi’s Rigoletto.

Recent seasons have seen Pati make numerous acclaimed operatic debuts including in L’elisir d’amore (Nemorino) at Opéra national de Paris and San Francisco Opera; Roméo et Juliette (Roméo) at San Francisco Opera, Opéra Comique and Opéra national de Bordeaux; La traviata (Alfredo) at Staatsoper Berlin, Deutsche Oper Berlin and Dutch National Opera; Manon (des Grieux) at Gran Teatre del Liceu and Staatsoper Hamburg; La Damnation de Faust (Faust) at Opéra de Monte-Carlo; Lucia di Lammermoor (Edgardo) at Teatro San Carlo di Napoli; Mitridate, re di Ponto at Staatsoper Berlin; Beatrice di Tenda (Orombello) at Opéra national de Paris; La Bohème (Rodolfo) at Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and Canadian Opera Company; Anna Bolena (Percy) at Wiener Staatsoper; La Favorite (Fernand) at Opéra national de Bordeaux; Rigoletto (Duca) at Opéra de Rouen Normandie, Staatsoper Berlin and Teatro San Carlo di Napoli and both Moïse et Pharaon (Amenophis) and the title role in La Clemenza di Tito at Festival d’Aix-en-Provence.  As part of Les Grandes Voix series, Pati joined the cast of Massenet’s Thaïs at Paris’ Théâtre des Champs-Elysées with Pierre Bleuse conducting l’Orchestre National de France and, as Artist in Residence with the CBSO and Music Director Kazuki Yamada, he sang both Berlioz’ La Damnation de Faust and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly at Birmingham Symphony Hall.

Pene Pati headlined the 2024 Concert de Paris, France’s annual Bastille Day concert, broadcast to a vast international audience, he opened San Francisco Opera’s Centennial Season as guest soloist in a celebratory concert under Music Director Eun Sun Kim, and his sell-out Gala concert at Prague’s Rudolfinum with Prague Philharmonia and Łukasz Borowicz was recorded and broadcast via Medici.tv.  In previous seasons on the concert stage, Pati has performed Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with both Hans Graf and Tonkünstler Orchester and Kazuki Yamada and Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo as well as Beethoven’s Symphony No.9 with Mikko Franck and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France.

Pene Pati’s warm and winning personality has helped endear him to audiences around the world and contributed to great competition success in his formative years taking top prizes and audience choice awards at several competitions including Operalia and Neue Stimmen. He received his masters’ degree from the Wales International Academy of Voice, and was an Adler Fellow at San Francisco Opera. An active presence on social media, he can be found under @pene.pati on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and @penepatitenor on X.

Hometown: Apia, Samoa