Vinson Cole

In 1997, he returned to open the season at La Scala as Renaud in Gluck's Armide with Riccardo Muti conducting. He made his Chicago Lyric Opera debut in the title role of Mozart's Idomeneo in 1998 and his debut with the Royal Opera at Covent Garden in 1999 in another Mozart title role, La Clemenza di Tito. In the 2001 season, he returned to the Met as Alfredo in La traviata opposite the Violetta of June Anderson.

Cole is closely identified with the French repertory. He began moving in that direction in 1984, after he sang in the Manon centennial performances at Paris's Opéra Comique. Not long afterward, he sang the tenor version of Gluck's Orphée in Seattle, after which many other French works came his way: Lakmé, Werther, Carmen, Don Carlos, Faust, and La damnation de Faust.

A native of Kansas City, the tenor studied at the Conservatory of Music and Dance at the University of Missouri-Kansas City; the Philadelphia Musical Academy; and at the Curtis Institute of Music with Margaret Harshaw. He made his European debut in Angers, France in Handel's Acis and Galatea and followed that with the role of Belmonte in Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio with the Welsh National Opera. In 1977, his youthful promise was recognized when he won the Metropolitan Opera Auditions, the WGN Competition, and was awarded both Rockefeller Foundation and National Opera Institute grants.

Vinson Cole (born November 21, 1950) is an American operatic tenor.